L’Ocean Viking, navire-ambulance affrété par SOS Méditerranée, a secouru mardi au large de la Libye 86 people in détresse qui tentient de rejoindre l’Europe sur une embarcación de fortune, annoncé dans un communiqué l’ONG humanitarian based à Marseille (South of France).
“The survivors, mostly from The Gambia and Senegal, are suffering from dehydration, exhaustion and fuel burns,” a spokesman for the NGO said. Most of them would be minors and they attempted this dangerous crossing without being accompanied by their relatives.
They are now cared for by teams from SOS Méditerranée and the International Federation of the Red Cross aboard the Ocean Viking.
Hundreds of deaths since the beginning of the year
At the beginning of January, several international NGOs involved in migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean denounced the will of the far-right Italian government to “obstruct assistance to people in danger.” They pointed to the cross-effects of a decree that obliges ships to go “without delay” to an Italian port after each rescue, and the usual assignment of very distant ports, reducing assistance capacities.
The central Mediterranean is the world’s most dangerous migration route, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). The UN agency estimates that since the beginning of 2023, 1,724 migrants have disappeared there, compared to 1,417 in all of 2022.
In June, a shipwreck billed as one of the most serious involving migrants in the Mediterranean killed at least 82 people, but in the eastern Mediterranean. The World Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate that between 400 and 750 passengers were traveling on the trawler, including women and children.
Source: BFM TV
