Authorities rescued 205 migrants, including several babies, in various operations in Morocco, Spain and Italy between Saturday and Sunday.
The Moroccan navy has rescued 134 Senegalese migrants en route to Spain, three of whom have been taken to hospital, Senegal’s APS agency reported, citing diplomatic sources.
The ship, which was intercepted on Saturday, left the town of Fass Boye, in western Senegal.
The migrants rescued now join the hundreds of Senegalese who will be repatriated from the Western Sahara town of Dakhla.
On Saturday, authorities repatriated a group of 208 Senegalese migrants to Rosso, in the north of the country.
On July 30, 191 residents of Djala had already been repatriated to Senegal.
Between Saturday and today, according to the Red Cross, two boats with a total of 26 migrants also arrived in Alicante, Spain, including two babies between the ages of four and 18 months.
On Saturday morning, a ship with 10 men was intercepted in Cala de Portixol, who were then transferred to Alicante.
Today a boat with 16 more migrants was located: eight men, three women and five children.
In Italy, police rescued 45 migrants after the boat they were traveling in sank off the coast of Lampedusa.
According to the authorities, the survivors come from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Liberia.
The group left Tunisia and paid about 600 euros for the trip.
Pope laments nearly 2,000 deaths in the Mediterranean this year
Pope Francis lamented that “nearly 2,000 men, women and children have died since the beginning of the year trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean and called for “political and diplomatic efforts” to prevent further tragedies.
“It is with pain and shame that we must say that nearly 2,000 men, women and children have already died at sea trying to reach Europe since the beginning of the year, an open wound in our humanity.”declared the pope after the Angelus prayer in the Vatican.
Before thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Francis called for “political and diplomatic efforts” that seek to “cure” the migration drama “with a spirit of solidarity and brotherhood”.
Francis also called for the commitment of everyone involved in this drama “to prevent shipwrecks and save those who sail”.
“Let us not remain indifferent to these tragedies and let us pray for the victims and their families,” the pope declared on Thursday, learning that 41 people had disappeared after the boat they were traveling on capsized shortly after leaving the Tunisian Sea. city. from Sfax.
Source: DN
