Almost 600 migrants rescued from distress at sea

Status: 05/28/2023 00:44

Hundreds of people tried again to get to Europe via the Mediterranean. Your ship got into distress. According to the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, the 599 migrants on board were rescued.

According to the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, they rescued 599 refugees from distress at sea with a ship on the Mediterranean Sea. The organization said the people, including children, were picked up from an overcrowded ship off Sicily on Saturday. The rescue ship “Geo Barents” was in the region for training purposes.

There had previously been reports of a ship missing since Wednesday, which is said to have contained around 500 migrants. According to the Italian aid organization Emergency, two ships had searched for 24 hours without success for the boat, which was drifting at sea after an engine failure. It is not yet known whether the migrants who have now been rescued are those on the ship that initially disappeared.

Doctors Without Borders said the Italian authorities had ordered the refugees to be disembarked in the port city of Bari on the east coast. The journey time there is around 40 hours.

Rome: More than 47,000 refugees since the beginning of the year

Aid organizations have in the past accused the Italian government of making rescue operations more difficult by sending ships to distant ports after picking up refugees.

The right-wing government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is pursuing a restrictive migration policy. According to data from the Interior Ministry, more than 47,000 refugees have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year. In the same period last year, there were around 18,000.

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