Aid group: Ships not saving Mediterranean migrants

Rome (AP) — Migrants in distress at sea have told their rescuers that several ships passed them by without offering assistance, a European aid group said Sunday while seeking safe harbor for a rescue vessel with 141 migrants aboard.

SOS Mediterranee in a statement said that due to the recent refusal of Italy and Malta to let rescue vessels carrying migrants dock, ships might be now unwilling to get involved fearing they will be stranded with migrants aboard and denied a port to disembark them.

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 adrift 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.

SOS Mediterranee said that “in a disturbing development, rescued people on board told our teams they encountered five different ships which did not offer them assistance before they were rescued by Aquarius.”

Aboard Aquarius is Doctors Without Borders project coordinator, Aloys Vimard, who elaborated.

“It seems the very principle of rendering assistance to persons in distress at sea is now at stake. Ships might be unwilling to respond to those in distress due to the high risk of being stranded and denied a place of safety,” the statement quoted Vimard as saying.

SOS Mediterranee said many of those aboard were extremely week and malnourished.

Those rescued in recent years have said they receive scanty rations while kept in Libya to await the opportunity to leave on human smugglers’ unseaworthy boats.