The ship of the Basque NGO Rescue Marítimo Humanitario asks for a safe port to disembark them, like the Sea Watch ship, with 409 people on board
The ship ‘Aita Mari’, chartered by the Basque NGO Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario (SMH), rescued 105 migrants on Tuesday, including two minors, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, in the center of the Mediterranean and in the waters of the Malta’s search and rescue area. All the displaced are well, although with signs of exhaustion after spending four days adrift in the boat with which they were trying to reach Europe and whose only engine had stopped working. All the migrants are Egyptians, except for one of them who comes from the Gambia. The rescue operation was carried out after informing the Maltese authorities, who did not offer a response, and after a fishing boat that was in the area raised the alarm by radio about the desperate situation of the boat.
Those responsible for SMH are now asking the European authorities for a place to disembark the migrants, recalling that the closest ports to take them would be Italy and Malta, since Libya does not offer security conditions for these people. “The returns made by their coast guards make it clear that they do not have the capacity or the will to comply with human rights or international laws,” SMH warned.
In a similar situation is the humanitarian ship of the German NGO Sea Watch, which is carrying 409 immigrants after carrying out several rescues, the last two on Monday. Almost a third of these people are minors. The German humanitarian organization asked that their disembarkation be accelerated in a safe place due to their weakness, suffering and psychological fragility. There are also abundant cases of burns from contact with fuel, which led the Italian Coast Guard to evacuate three women on Tuesday so that they could receive adequate medical care on land. This NGO also denounced a new case of brutality by the Libyan coast guard, who boarded a boat loaded with 80 immigrants at full speed, putting their lives in danger. The displaced were then taken on board and taken back to the North African country.
These rescues take place after at least four people died last Sunday in a shipwreck that occurred in the vicinity of the Tunisian city of Mahdia, in the southeast of this nation. There are also 21 missing. So far this year, more than 250 people have died or disappeared while trying to reach Lampedusa, located just 200 kilometers from the Tunisian coast. In the same period, 12,700 migrants, of which half were Tunisians and the rest from other African countries, managed to reach Italian territory, according to the latest Red Crescent report. Tunisia has experienced serious political and social instability since last July, the president, Kais Said, dissolved Parliament and removed the prime minister, Hichem Mechichi, which was considered a clear “coup” by the main parties. politicians of the country.
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