According to the Non-Governmental Organization SOS Méditerranée, the ship carrying out search and rescue missions is currently sailing in the direction of Ravenna (in the north-east of Italy), which the Italian authorities indicated to it as a safe port.
Italy has designated the Ocean Viking, the NGO SOS Méditerranée’s search and rescue ship, a safe port to disembark the 113 people it rescued in its first operation in the Mediterranean since it docked in France in November, the NGO said yesterday Tuesday.
The vessel is sailing in the direction of Ravenna (northeast Italy), which the Italian authorities indicated to it as a safe port, the NGO clarified, citing the “four long days of navigation” needed to get there.
The migrants on board were rescued overnight Monday to Tuesday in international territorial waters, in Malta’s search and rescue zone, near the Libyan zone, the French non-governmental organization said.
“As we head north, we fear that other people in danger at sea will not be able to be rescued,” SOS Méditerranée said, although it admitted its members felt relief “for those rescued” on board the Ocean Viking.
Among them are “23 women, some of whom are pregnant, around thirty unaccompanied minors and three infants”, the youngest of which is only three weeks old, according to the NGO based in Marseille (southeast France).
They were on an “overloaded inflatable boat in total darkness,” according to the organization.
In mid-November, the Ocean Viking brought to Toulon in southeastern France 230 migrants and refugees it rescued in territorial waters between Libya and Italy, after a three-week odyssey in search of safe harbor and diplomatic bravado between Paris and Rome.
France’s government has “exceptionally” agreed to welcome the ship after Italy flatly refused, sparking diplomatic tension between the two EU member states.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,998 migrants and refugees have been lost in the Mediterranean, including 1,369 in the central Mediterranean, the world’s most dangerous maritime migration route, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Every year, thousands of people fleeing their countries to escape armed conflict or poverty try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya, whose shores are some 300 kilometers from Italy.
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