(Marseilles) Theocean vikinga humanitarian ship of SOS Méditerranée, has rescued 268 people since Thursday during five rescues of migrants mostly found in overcrowded wooden boats between Libya and Malta, the NGO announced on Friday.
Updated yesterday at 5:57 p.m.
“Many have high levels of exhaustion and dehydration” and “serious sunburn”, detailed the NGO, whose headquarters are in Marseille (South).
Several minors, including unaccompanied minors, pregnant women and even a three-week-old baby are now cared for by SOS Méditerranée and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on theocean viking.
On Tuesday, the ship explained that it had spotted four empty boats in this area, including one without a motor. But “without communication from the maritime authorities, the fate of the people on board remains unknown,” she said.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,161 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean, including 918 in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The UN agency estimated the number of dead and missing in 2021 at 2048 in the Mediterranean, including 1553 for the central Mediterranean alone.
Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are some 300 kilometers from Italy.