The story of the Aquarius is a sign that Europe is heading for a refugee crisis this summer worse than any previously. Aquarius, a motor vessel hired by non-government organisations including Médecins Sans Frontières, had rescued nearly 700 refugees, a quarter of them children, from unseaworthy small boats off the Libyan coast. It proposed to land them in Italy, as had been done previously.

Meanwhile, the new Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, fulfilling what he said was a campaign pledge, refused to let the Aquarius dock and told it to go to Malta instead.