Status: 09.12.2022 20:56
Dozens of migrants and refugees are waiting on rescue ships in the Mediterranean. 281 of them are now accepted by Italy. For at least three people off the coast of Spain, however, any help came too late.
Since last weekend, rescue ships have rescued refugees and migrants from the Mediterranean on several missions. A total of more than 280 people have been allowed to go ashore in Italy since Thursday evening. The authorities have assigned the port of Salerno to the “Geo Barents” with 248 refugees on board, said the aid organization “Doctors Without Borders”, which operates the ship.
Earlier on Thursday evening, 33 refugees and migrants rescued by the “Louise Michel” went ashore in Lampedusa. According to the helpers, they were given permission to enter the island’s port “at the last moment” because the weather at sea was deteriorating. The people on the ships have been waiting for days.
The rescue ship “Louise Michel”, painted by street artist Banksy, can be seen in the Mediterranean Sea.
Image: HANDOUT via REUTERS
A 14-year-old boy, a migrant who had had a baby on the ship, and another heavily pregnant woman had previously been brought ashore by the Coast Guard or helicopter from the Geo Barents.
Dead in boat accident
For others persevering on the Mediterranean, however, any help came too late: at least three people died in a boat accident off the coast of the Spanish region of Murcia. According to the representative of the central government in Murcia, José Vélez, the radio station Cope is still looking for five more of the 14 people on board the open wooden boat. The six remaining occupants could have been rescued since Thursday evening.
It was not initially known from which North African country the people had started. The fact that people are putting their lives at risk gives an idea of the “scale of the social drama from which they are fleeing,” Vélez said. A walker saw the three dead in the water on a beach south of Murcia on Thursday and alerted the police. The search operation in the Mediterranean then began.
Continue waiting for the “Humanity 1”
Meanwhile, 261 survivors were still waiting for a port on the German rescue ship “Humanity 1”. The organization SOS Humanity criticized on Twitter that five requests for the assignment of a port had remained unsuccessful by the afternoon.
There is no state-organized sea rescue on the Mediterranean, only ships of private aid organizations. At the beginning of November there was a confrontation between the sea rescuers and the right-wing Italian government. Italy had recently tightened the course against the organizations.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), almost 2,000 refugees and migrants have died or are missing while crossing the Mediterranean Sea this year. The number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher.