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A ship with around 400 people on board is adrift between Malta and Libya in high-risk conditions, with water seeping through the deck and no fuel. The alert was given to the Alarm Phone emergency helpline this Sunday (9), at a time of sharp increase in attempts by migrant boats to cross the Mediterranean Sea, leaving North Africa towards Europe.
Alarm Phone announced on Twitter that it received a call from a boat that left Tobruk, Libya, on Saturday (8) night. The authorities were alerted, but no rescue operation was launched, adds the organization, according to which people are in panic on board and many need medical attention.
The ship is out of fuel and its lower deck is seeping. Furthermore, the captain abandoned the ship and no one on board is able to command her, according to the Alarm Phone, which specifies that the ship is now within Malta’s search and rescue zone.
The Maltese authorities have not yet commented on the case. The German NGO Sea-Watch International has indicated via Twitter that it is conducting searches for ships in distress in the Mediterranean, including the one reported by Alarm Phone.
Another NGO, Resqship, also from Germany, reported that at least 23 migrants died the previous night in yet another shipwreck in the Mediterranean.
rising cases
Last week, 440 migrants were rescued at sea off Malta after a complex operation carried out in rough seas by the humanitarian vessel Geo Barents, from the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
In addition, at least 23 African migrants are missing and four died on Saturday when their boat sank off the coast of Tunisia while trying to reach Italy. According to testimonies collected by the Justice, 37 migrants had “left the north coast of Sfax in two boats when one of them sank on Friday afternoon”, Fauzi Masmudi, a spokesman for the city’s court, in the central east, told AFP. from the country.
On Friday, the National Guard announced that it had rescued or intercepted “14,406 people, of which 13,138 were from sub-Saharan Africa and the rest were Tunisians”, over the first three months of the year. The number is more than five times higher than that recorded in the same period of 2022.
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, more than 14,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the start of the year, compared with just over 5,300 in the same period last year and 4,300 in 2021.
With information from Reuters and AFP