(Marseille) TheOcean Vikingan ambulance ship chartered by SOS Méditerranée, is heading to a port located more than 1,400 km from its intervention zone after four rescues which allowed it to rescue 261 migrants, the NGO said in a press release on Wednesday.
After rescuing 110 people during the night from Monday to Tuesday off the coast of Libya, the ship assisted 151 others during three other interventions. Among the survivors are 16 women, including four pregnant, two children and 60 unaccompanied minors.
One of the wooden boats was taking on water and leaning heavily with 49 people on board, reported the Marseille-based NGO. On another, made of fiberglass, none of the 44 occupants wore a life jacket, specifies SOS Méditerranée which took care of them with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
The Italian authorities have awarded the NGO the port of Ortona, located in the Abruzzo region, on the Adriatic coast, 1,420 km from its intervention zone, she adds.
Italy, on the front line facing the crossings of migrants seeking to reach Europe, has adopted a decree which partly hinders the activities of NGO ships. The latter must now transport the rescued people to a port – often very distant – from the first operation, which de facto prevents them from carrying out one rescue after another.
This time, however, the NGO was able to chain them at the request of the Italian authorities who had spotted the wooden boat in distress.
SOS Méditerranée has rescued more than 39,000 people in the Mediterranean since 2016, mainly in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migration route in the world.
In 2023, 3,041 migrants were reported missing after trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Since January, 128 migrants have been missing, according to the same source.