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Italian police have arrested the captain of a rescue ship that was carrying dozens of migrants rescued off the Libyan coast, after she defied a blockade and docked in the Italian port of Lampedusa.

The German captain of Sea-Watch 3, Carola Rackete, was arrested immediately the ship docked in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Sea-Watch 3 had been stranded in the Mediterranean for over two weeks with some 40 migrants on board.

Soon after the ship docked, the migrants disembarked and kissed the ground joyfully before boarding a bus.

Rackete is accused of refusing to obey a military vessel, a crime punishable by a jail term of between three and ten years.

Sea-Watch is a non-profit organization that conducts civil search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

Following the arrest of Captain Rackete, the organization’s chairman, Johannes Bayer, said on Twitter: “We are proud of our captain, she did exactly the right thing. She upheld the law of the sea and brought people to safety.”

Despite Italy’s closed-ports policy, migrants continue to arrive via the precarious Mediterranean journey, even though not in the same numbers as during the period between 2014 and 2017.

Nearly 500 migrants have arrived on the country’s coast over the past 16 days, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.

Prior to forcefully docking Sea Watch 3, prosecutors in Sicily had launched a probe into Rackete on suspicion of aiding “illegal immigration”.