Pope aghast at migrant drownings
Help never came for 130 people on dinghy in Mediterranean
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday decried as shameful the deaths of 130 migrants in the Mediterranean, saying they pleaded for two days for help for their overcrowded, foundering rubber dinghy in the sea off Libya, but potential rescuers chose “to look the other way.”
Francis called the incident last week “a moment of shame.”
The migrants had made a call for help Wednesday. On Thursday, when a humanitarian rescue boat and a merchant ship sailing in very rough waters arrived at the scene, the deflating dinghy had partially sunk, several bodies were seen in the water and no survivors were found. Rescue centers in Libya, Malta and Italy had been alerted, according to the European Union border protection agency Frontex, whose plane had located the dinghy.
“I confess to you I am very pained by the tragedy that once again played out in the last days in the Mediterranean,” the pope told people in St. Peter’s Square who gathered to hear his traditional Sunday noon remarks.
“One hundred and thirty migrants died in the sea. They are persons, human lives, who for two entire days implored in vain for help, help that didn’t arrive,” Francis said.
“Let us pray for these brothers and sisters, let us interrogate all of ourselves about this latest tragedy,” the pope said.
“Let us pray also for those who can help, but who prefer to look the other way,” the pope added.
Ocean Viking, a rescue ship operated by the charity group SOS Mediterranee, together with MY ROSE, one of three merchant vessels that complied with requests from Italy and Libya to lend assistance, reached the site Thursday and found several bodies, one of them hunched over a life preserver, but no survivors.
Frontex spokesman Krzysztof Borowski blamed the incident on bad weather.
“Unfortunately, the deadly weather that occurred over the last few days in that area made it almost impossible to do any type of rescue mission,” he said in a Zoom interview Saturday from Warsaw, Poland, where the EU agency is based.
According to Ocean Viking’s log, a Libyan coast guard vessel, Ubari, was supposedly headed to the dinghy’s aid.
When the Ocean Viking arrived and found the bodies, it noted in its log that “there is no sign of patrol vessel Ubari in the vicinity nor contact established with the Ocean Viking.”
The Libyan coast guard has said bad weather, combined with the need to rescue other migrants off the Libyan coast, prevented involvement in the efforts to help the dinghy. Ubari had rescued 104 migrants and recovered two bodies from a traffickers’ boat off the country’s coast Thursday, according to Italian news reports.
The traffickers were particularly reckless to launch the doomed dinghy in such conditions, Frontex’s Borowski said. “There were massive waves, 2 to 3 meters [6.6 to 10 feet] high. It was almost guaranteed that a rubber dinghy would overturn and people all end up in the sea.”
Human traffickers based in Libya continuously launch unseaworthy dinghies and small fishing boats filled with migrants hoping to reach European shores for a better life.
A few hours after the pope’s denunciation, the Italian coast guard said that with the help of a container ship it aided an ailing motorized fishing boat filled with migrants that was struggling in towering waves and stiff winds.
The vessel, which had at least 100 people aboard including children, was spotted Saturday, it said. After the boat’s motor quit working, it was at risk of overturning in the waves. Coast guard motorboats towed it, and it arrived Sunday at a port in Calabria in southern Italy.