L’ocean viking, an ambulance ship chartered by SOS Méditerranée, rescued 68 migrants in distress in international waters off Libya on Sunday morning, announced the France-based humanitarian NGO. “The Ocean Viking rescued 68 people shipwrecked from a double-deck wooden boat which had left Zouara in Libya last night,” the NGO said. “Several of them are suffering from seasickness and are currently being treated by the medical team of SOS Méditerranée and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) on board the Ocean Viking . »
On photos published by the NGO on X (formerly Twitter) [non mises à jour], we see several dozen migrants crammed into a makeshift boat wearing orange life jackets. The Italian authorities assigned the NGO the port of Ancona to disembark the survivors, a distant port which does not satisfy the NGO. “The port is 1,560 km (or 4 days of navigation) from the area of operation, while there are crucial needs for search and rescue capabilities in the Mediterranean. There are many departures and the risk of loss of life is high,” she regretted.
Since coming to power in 2022, the far-right government of Giorgia Meloni, which includes the head of the Anti-Migrant League Matteo Salvini as deputy prime minister, has stepped up measures to hinder the activities of NGOs aid to migrants.