(Rome) The NGO SOS Méditerranée announced on Wednesday that its humanitarian ship Ocean Viking had since Tuesday rescued some 360 people in danger on board boats heading towards the European coast.
Migrant departures from Africa are increasing as the summer offers better sailing conditions, but the migratory route in the central Mediterranean remains one of the most dangerous in the world.
L’Ocean Viking carried out six rescues in two days in an area between the Tunisian, Libyan and Italian coasts.
After rescuing 120 people on Tuesday, the ship first picked up 53 people near the Italian island of Lampedusa who were “on board an overloaded metal boat that was taking on water and was about to capsize.”
“All the people were rescued on board our lifeboats before being transferred to an Italian coastguard boat,” the NGO said in a statement, stressing that the survivors, including women and children, had left from Sfax, Tunisia.
The ship then headed towards a double-decked wooden boat and rescued 98 people, including six women and three children, before rescuing 43 more people who were also attempting to cross the Mediterranean in a small wooden boat.
Finally, the teams of theOcean Viking stabilised a fibreglass boat with around fifty people on board, who were then taken to an Italian coastguard vessel.
Since far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s coalition came to power in October 2022, NGO ships operating in the Mediterranean are theoretically only allowed to carry out one rescue at a time and must go “without delay” to a port immediately afterwards – a policy that prevents them from carrying out several in a row.
NGOs believe this violates maritime law, which requires any vessel to come to the aid of a boat in distress.
Rome accuses the rescue ships of being a “pull factor”, even though in reality the vast majority of migrants arriving in Italy are picked up by the coastguard.
According to figures from the Italian Interior Ministry, arrivals by sea have dropped considerably since the beginning of the year: 27,744 people arrived in Italy between 1er January and July 10, compared to 72,036 during the same period in 2023.