Mauritanian officials say no deal on migrant boat

NOUAKCHOTT, Feb 10 (Reuters) Mauritanian officials denied today that a deal had been reached to allow ashore a ship carrying hundreds of Asian and African migrants stranded by a diplomatic standoff over which country should take them in.

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega told reporters yesterday that Mauritania had agreed to the Marine 1 cargo freighter being towed into its northern fishing port of Nouadhibou to allow the sick and children to disembark.

''There has been no agreement and so there is no change,'' a source close to the Mauritanian government told Reuters.

Spain, which is on the front line of Europe's efforts to stem an influx of illegal job-seekers, has been lobbying Mauritania to take responsibility for the stranded migrants.

''They're still in the same place. I assume they're going to be there for days. This is not going to be easily resolved,'' Ahmedou Ould Haye of the Mauritanian Red Crescent told Reuters by telephone from Nouadhibou.

Spanish state radio said Mauritania was still refusing to allow the migrants to disembark but that Red Cross and Red Crescent workers had set up a centre in Nouadhibou to attend to those who needed medical treatment.

It said a number of the migrants were suffering from 'flu and stomach infections.

Over 300 people aboard the Marine 1 claim to be from Jammu and Kashmir, and therefore eligible for asylum status, according to the Red Cross. Others say they are from Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Sri Lanka and Liberia, it said.

The 50-metre Marine 1 is thought to have set sail from Guinea on its way to Spain's Canary Islands. The ship sent out an SOS signal on February 2 after its motors broke down off Senegal.

It was intercepted the following day by a Spanish coastguard vessel which towed the freighter to its position off Nouadhibou.

That began a row over who should take in the ship and its passengers, with Spain, Senegal and Mauritania refusing to take responsibility.

The ship has become a test case for Madrid, which launched a diplomatic offensive in West Africa last year in a bid to stem soaring illegal migration from the poverty-stricken region to the Canaries.

REUTERS AB KN1705