The crew of Ocean Viking, ambulance ship of the non-governmental organization SOS Méditerranée, rescued 106 people, including minors, off the coast on Saturday. Libya, announced the French NGO, whose boat is carrying out its second mission lately.
The rescue operation took place 34 nautical miles (63 km) off the coast of Libya yesterday when an “inflatable in danger” contacted the NGO, based in Marseille (southern France) via Twitter.
The boat was carrying 31 men, 8 women and 67 minors, of whom 51 were unaccompanied, a spokeswoman for the group told AFP, adding that a woman had fallen unconscious during the operation.
On Thursday, the Ocean Viking rescued 10 people, including three children and an infant who was constantly vomiting as he was visibly dehydrated. It is now out of danger, according to the representative of the Mediterranean SOS.
In the first mission this winter, the ship rescued about 800 refugees and Immigrants.
Two boats are currently operating in the area, as the Spanish NGO Open Arms reported on Twitter on Thursday that its boat was sailing as “the deadliest border in the world”.
African migrants mainly leave Tunisia and Libya in their quest to reach the Old Continent via Italy, the nearest member state of the European Union.
More than 1,200 refugees and migrants died in the Mediterranean in 2020, the vast majority on the main sea route, according to the International Organization for Migration.
NGO ships, such as the Ocean Viking, save lives, but some European politicians have been accused for years of playing the role of traffickers. The EU remains divided over how to deal with the problem since the refugee and migrant crisis erupted in 2015.
In early March, the Council of Europe denounced the “lack of will on the part of European states” to implement policies to protect migrants crossing the Mediterranean, which has resulted in the loss of “thousands of lives”.
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