L’Ocean-Vikinga humanitarian ship of SOS Méditerranée, has rescued 268 people since Thursday August 25 during five rescues of migrants most often found in overcrowded wooden boats between Libya and Malta, the NGO announced on Friday. “Many have high levels of exhaustion and dehydration” et “serious sunburn”detailed the NGO, headquartered in Marseille.
Several minors, including unaccompanied minors, pregnant women and even a three-week-old baby were taken care of by SOS Méditerranée and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on theOcean-Viking.
On Tuesday, the ambulance ship explained that it had spotted four empty boats in this area, including one without a motor. But “without communication from the maritime authorities, the fate of those on board remains unknown”she had specified.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,161 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean, including 918 in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN agency estimated the number of dead and missing in 2021 at 2,048 in the Mediterranean, including 1,553 for the central Mediterranean alone.
States ignore distress calls
In a joint statement issued on August 3, several NGOs operating rescue boats in the Mediterranean called for “to the Member States and Associated States of the European Union [UE] to establish an adequate, state-led, dedicated and proactive search and rescue fleet in the central Mediterranean, as well as a rapid and adequate response to all distress calls, and a predictable disembarkation mechanism for survivors”.
The EU has ended its controversial operation to combat human trafficking in the Mediterranean in 2020, replacing it with Operation ‘Irini’, which focuses on maintaining the UN arms embargo to Libya. The rescue of migrants has since been left to the discretion of states, but NGOs have complained that countries are ignoring distress calls or even working with Libyan authorities to return migrants there.
Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are some 300 kilometers from Italy.