Migrants: Ships pass without assisting
Nations’ denial of entry limits docking options
ROME — Migrants in distress at sea have told their rescuers that several ships passed without offering assistance, a European aid group said Sunday while seeking safe harbor for a rescue vessel with 141 migrants aboard.
SOS Mediterranee said in a statement that due to the recent refusal of Italy and Malta to let rescue vessels carrying migrants dock, ship operators might be now unwilling to get involved, fearing they will be stranded with migrants aboard.
On Friday the group’s chartered ship Aquarius, which it operates in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, rescued 141 people in waters off Libya. Of these, 25 were found on a small wooden boat that had no motor and was believed to have been at sea for about 35 hours, the group said. The other 116 people, including 67 unaccompanied minors, were rescued later that day, it said.
Nearly three-quarters of those rescued originate from Somalia and Eritrea. Many migrants recounted how they were “held in inhumane conditions in Libya,” where human traffickers are based, the aid group aid.
It added that Libya’s rescue coordination authorities wouldn’t provide the Aquarius with “a place of safety” and asked it to request safe harbor from another country’s authorities.
The Aquarius was sailing north in the Mediterranean Sunday in hopes of receiving docking permission from another country.
In June, Aquarius was forced to sail north for days with more than 600 migrants to Spain after Italy and Malta refused it docking permission. Since, other private rescue vessels have had to wait for days until some country agreed to let migrants disembark.
Italy’s new populist government has vowed that no more private aid ships will bring migrants to Italian shores.
Although arrivals in Italy of rescued migrants smuggled from Libya have sharply dropped off this year compared with previous years, some 600,000 reached Italian ports in the last few years.