Dead body likely indicates new shipwreck, Sea Watch says

A body found yesterday by the civil surveillance aircraft Colibri likely indicates a new shipwreck in the central Mediterranean sea, NGO Sea Watch has said.

The body was found floating north of the Libyan town Zuwarah.

The town’s beaches often served as a staring point for migrants attempting to cross the European external border by sea in the absence of safe and legal passage, the NGO said.

“Even if there is not a single rescue asset left, people still try to escape the conditions they face on Libyan soil, sightings during recent missions of the civil search aircraft Colibri show,” the NGO added.

“While Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat is tweeting pictures of cute rescued dogs, this is the reality at sea he wants to hide by hindering civil rescue assets from doing their duty,” says SeaWatch head of airborne operations Tamino Böhm, who was on board the Colibri aircraft when the body was found.

“Today’s sad discovery is especially worrying, as it shows that the death toll on the Mediterranean Sea might be in fact much higher than official numbers suggest,” he said. “It is a scandal that European authorities turn the Mediterranean into a deadly black box by hindering civil sea rescue from taking place. Even more important is our role bearing witness to what is going on at the European external borders from the air.”

Sea-Watch urged Malta and the European Union to come up with a sustainable solution for sea rescue in the Mediterranean, and Malta to immediately allow the rescue fleet to do its duty. “Tragedies such as this one have to be prevented,” it said.

The government has detained a number of vessels belonging to several NGOs over summer.