MADRID, Feb 10: A disabled ship carrying about 400 illegal migrants was being towed into a Mauritanian port following an agreement between the country's government and Spain, the interior ministry said Saturday.

Most of the migrants were believed to be from Pakistan, officials have said.

The ship was being allowed to dock after an agreement was signed by both the governments, interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said. Some of those aboard may be ill, he said.

Mauritania had reached an agreement with Spain to let the rusty, broken-down vessel dock at one of its ports and allow its occupants ashore, after it had spent a week at sea in legal limbo, deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said on Friday.

The ship, called Marine 1, had been heading to Spain's Canary Islands, but ran into mechanical problems and was towed off the Mauritanian coast by a Spanish rescue ship a week back.