France said on Thursday it would allow a rescue ship carrying more than 200 migrants to dock on its south coast and disembark its passengers, and slammed Italy for not taking them on.

Home Secretary Gerald Darmanin said the Ocean Viking, whose passengers include 57 children, will be allowed access to the military port of Toulon following a deepening dispute with Italy over their responsibility to accommodate them.

Visibly annoyed by Rome’s refusal to accept the ship, Darmanin described his attitude as “incomprehensible”.

The ship “is undoubtedly in Italy’s search and rescue zone,” he said, adding “it is Italy’s responsibility to immediately designate a port to accommodate this ship.”

Franco-Italian tensions are the latest episode in a European standoff over where to disembark migrants apprehended after trying to reach Europe from North Africa, with Rome increasingly frustrated at taking in the bulk of those rescued.

After a cabinet meeting, Darmanin also warned that “it is evident that there will be extremely serious consequences for bilateral relations” with Italy.

He said France had already decided to freeze a plan to take in 3,500 migrants currently in Italy as part of a European burden-sharing deal, and urged Germany and other EU states to do the same.

France announced earlier on Thursday that it had allowed four of the 234 migrants on board the Ocean Viking to disembark by helicopter for health reasons.

The charity that operates the ship, SOS Mediterranee, made the request to French authorities after Italy refused to allow access to the port last week despite deteriorating sanitary conditions on board.

Following Darmanin’s announcement, SOS Mediterranee said it felt “relief laced with bitterness”.

A spokeswoman for the charity previously told AFP that “one of the patients is unstable and has not responded to treatment since October 27.”

“The other two were injured in Libya and risk long-term health problems due to the long wait for treatment,” she said.

France had insisted Rome must allow access to the Ocean Viking and the 234 migrants in distress she rescued under international law of the sea, not least after this week it granted access to three other rescue ships carrying hundreds of people.

Darmanin said the decision to allow the ship to dock after two weeks at sea was “extraordinary” and would not guide future action.

But the arrival of Giorgia Meloni as head of Italy’s most far-right government in decades could also spark a repeat of Europe’s migrant struggles of four years ago, when notably French President Emmanuel Macron clashed with Italy’s populist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said this week he was sending a signal to EU countries that they must play an even bigger role.

Rome wants “an agreement to determine, on the basis of population, how migrants with a right to asylum are resettled in different countries,” Tajani said ahead of a meeting of EU ministers next week.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, also called for a speedy disembarkation and warned against “politics not being pursued at the expense of people in need”.

Under international law, ships in distress or with rescued passengers must be allowed to call at the nearest port of call – meaning Italy and often Malta shoulder the burden of taking in the rescued after attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya.

In June, around a dozen EU countries, including France, agreed to accept migrants arriving in Italy and other key entry points.

So far this year, 164 asylum seekers from Italy have been brought to other countries in the bloc, which have volunteered to take them in.

But that’s just a tiny fraction of the more than 88,000 who have reached shore so far this year, of whom just 14 percent arrived after being rescued by NGO ships, according to Italian authorities.

According to the United Nations International Organization for Migration, 1,891 migrants have died or disappeared trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea so far this year.