Spanish rescuers pick up 334 migrants from nine craft
SPAIN’S maritime rescue service saved 334 migrants and recovered four bodies over the weekend from boats it intercepted on the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach Europe.
The rescue service said its patrol craft reached nine different boats carrying migrants that had left African shores throughout Saturday and early yesterday.
One boat found yesterday was carrying four dead bodies along with 49 migrants. The rescue service said the cause of death has yet to be determined.
Driven by violent conflicts and extreme poverty, tens of thousands of migrants attempt to reach southern Europe each year by crossing the Mediterranean in smugglers’ boats.
Most of the vessels are unfit for open water and thousands drown each year.
The UN said at least 785 migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean so far this year.
In the first five months of 2018, a total of 27,482 migrants reached European shores, with 7,614 of them arriving in Spain.
Further to the east, Libya’s coastguard intercepted 152 migrants – including women and children – in the Mediterranean Sea, from two boats stopped on Saturday off the coast of the western Zuwara region and the capital Tripoli. The migrants were taken to a naval base in Tripoli.
Libya was plunged into chaos by a 2011 uprising and is now split between rival governments in the east and west.
The lawless environment has drawn migrants fleeing poverty and conflict to Libya’s coast, from where they head off towards Europe.
Aloys Vimard, project coordinator on the Aquarius – a search-and-rescue ship in the Mediterranean run by Doctors Without Borders and SOS Méditerranée – said earlier this month: “Containment and deterrence don’t work. It doesn’t save lives – it just encourages people to take bigger risks. Many of them know the risks they take, but they tell us they don’t have any other choice.”
He also expressed concern that migrants picked up by the Libyan coastguard and returned to Libya are being condemned to a cycle of violence, trafficking and abuse.
Last year, a CNN investigation exposed migrant slave markets operating in Libya and the UN Refugee Agency last month warned that many people fleeing war and persecution are falling prey to criminal networks in the country.