ROME, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- About half of the migrants on board the ship Ocean Viking have disembarked on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa by Sunday morning after Italy agreed to take in the migrants, local media reported.
The migrants were transferred from the Ocean Viking to coastguard vessels before being allowed to be taken ashore.
"The safe port was assigned because the European Union agreed to our request to take most of the migrants," Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told reporters.
Their goal was to ensure that those migrants who arrived in Italy were relocated to other European countries, he said.
An ad hoc agreement has reportedly been reached between Germany, France, Portugal, Luxembourg and Italy to divide the migrants among them.
The Ocean Viking, with more than 80 migrants on board, received the green light to sail to Lampedusa, six days after it had rescued some migrants from another boat caught up in bad weather off the coast of Libya.
Italy is trying to build an automatic system for distributing migrants rescued in the Mediterranean between European countries, sources said.
