ITALY & MIGRANTS

ITALY allowed 16 out of 150 migrants stranded on board a coastguard ship at a Sicily port to disembark on Saturday, as government officials face questioning over the refusal to let all passengers off, media reported.

The Diciotti vessel has been docked at the port of Catania since Monday night, after the Italian government blocked migrants from leaving in the absence of commitments from the EU to relocate some of them.

Italy on Friday said it would pull its funding for the EU as a ''compensatory measure'' if the bloc refused to come forward and help with relocating the migrants, sparking a fresh immigration row  between the bloc and Italy's populist government.

According to local media, eleven women and five men - two of whom are said to have tuberculosis  were given permission by the government to get off, following a request the port's health authority for doctors to visit those on board.

Prosecutors from Sicily on Saturday quizzed several senior interior ministry officials in Rome to establish who gave the order blocking migrants from leaving ship, media said.

The United Nations refugee agency [UNHCR] said EU member states should ''urgently'' provide places for those stranded on the ship.

''In the meantime, UNHCR urges Italian authorities to allow the immediate disembarkation of those on board,'' it said Saturday.

A high-level meeting of a dozen EU member states in Brussels on Friday failed to produce an immediate solution for the Diciotti migrants.

''The European union has decided to turn its back on Italy once again,'' Deputy Prime Minister Lugi Di Maio wrote on his Facebook page, adding that his country was prepared to cut the EU contributions.

''They want the 20 billion euros [$23 billion] paid by Italian citizens? Then let them demonstrate that they deserve it and that they are taking charge of a problem that we can no longer face alone.

The borders of Italy are the borders of Europe,'' he added. [Agencies]