Spanish warship picks up 15 migrants to fire political shot

A Spanish warship collected 15 rescued migrants from an Italian port on Tuesday, having sailed halfway across the Mediterranean to fetch the small group in a high-profile maneuver that sharply contrasted with Italy's refusal to accept them. Madrid dispatched the ship a week ago to pick up the migrants at the end of a prolonged standoff between Italian authorities and a Spanish-registered private rescue boat which had plucked more than 100 people, most of them Africans, from seas off Libya. France, Germany, Luxembourg and Portugal had agreed to take the rest of the migrants but only Spain, which traded angry words with Rome during the standoff, sent a ship.

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