Hope for a migrant rescue ship

SOS Mediterranee, the NGO that ran operations on the migrant rescue boat Aquarius, said yesterday it wanted to continue its work on a different ship as soon as possible.

“We are looking for new ships and are having talks with several shipping companies,” said Verena Papke, the director of SOS Mediterranee Germany.

Search and rescue ship Aquarius, which has saved tens of thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean, has ended its operations, the charity that runs the ship, Doctors without Borders (MSF), said on Thursday.

MSF and its partner SOS Mediterranee said they were forced to terminate its operations due to a “smear campaign” by European governments.

The ship has been blocked at the French port of Marseilles since it lost its registration at the end of September.

The Aquarius was the last charity rescue ship operating off Libya. Last year, there were five groups running rescue ships.

“The end of Aquarius means more lives lost at sea; more avoidable deaths that will go unwitnessed and unrecorded. It really is a case of ‘out of sight out of mind’ for UK and European leaders as men, women and children perish,” said Vickie Hawkins, head of MSF UK. | COLOMBIA has arrested 27 people, accused of belonging to four smuggling networks, which recruited youths to swallow drug trafficking cash profits and bring them into the South American country from Mexico, the police said on Thursday.

The money was wrapped in capsules made from latex gloves and consisted of funds from unidentified Mexican cartels.

The cash was in exchange for cocaine sent by Colombian crime gangs, National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which demobilised last year.

The smuggling networks were broken up with help of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, the police said.

The networks recruit unemployed and poor young people to travel to Mexico and then ingest between 80 and 120 capsules of money before returning to Colombia, said General Jorge Hernando Nieto, the head of the national police.

“With each ingestion they could bring in up to $40 000. There’s even a case where on traveller brought in $75 000,” he added. “The confiscated money in this investigation reaches $11 million.” |