Rescue ship forced to sail away from migrants off Libyan coast

On bOard tHe Siem PilOt: Horrific scenes unfolded in the Mediterranean off Libya as a full-to-capacity rescue ship was forced to sail away from desperate migrants trying to swim towards the rescuers.

During a dramatic 24 hours on Saturday, the crew of the Norwegian Siem Pilot and another aid boat rescued panicked migrants in the dark, with only limited resources and in the face of aggressive people smugglers.

Around 2,400 migrants were rescued and 14 dead bodies pulled from the water, according to the Italian coastguard.

“I’ve never had a SAR (search and rescue) like it. We were in the process of transferring 1,000 migrants from the Okyroe (tanker) to the Siem Pilot when suddenly, in the dark, rubber boats appeared.

“It looked hopeless,” said Pal Erik Teigen, the police officer in charge of the rescue operation.

Migrants aboard one of the rubber boats that had yet to be rescued desperately sought to reach the rescue ship, which by that point was full to capacity, motoring towards it while crying out for help.

Around 25 people jumped into the water in an attempt to swim towards the Siem Pilot, forcing the captain to pull back to deter others on the dinghy from doing the same.

Speed boats from the Siem Pilot later pulled the migrants from the sea and the dinghy, transferring them onto the tanker to await rescue by another vessel, as the Medecins Sans Frontieres charity’s Dignity vessel picked up the dead. — AFP