Italy says U.N. rights chief remarks on migrants unfounded, unjust

Italy on Tuesday rejected remarks by U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet on its treatment of migrants as “inappropriate, unfounded, unjust”, Reuters reports.

The foreign ministry, in a long and sharply worded statement, was responding to a speech in which Bachelet criticized Italy for denying entry to NGO rescue ships and announced the dispatching of a U.N. team to investigate a “sharp increase in acts of violence and racism against migrants.”