The “Ocean Viking” ship rescues hundreds of migrants in the Mediterranean Sea

Published on : 07/05/2021 – 11:52

The “Ocean Viking” continues to rescue the Mediterranean Sea. The SOS Méditerranée ship picked up, on the night of Sunday 4 to Monday 5 July, 369 migrants after a sixth rescue operation in a few days, we learned from the NGO.

The ship now has 572 survivors on board, SOS Méditerranée specifies on its Twitter account.

The latest rescue involved a “large wooden boat” reported “in distress in the Libyan search and rescue region” late Sunday afternoon, an NGO spokesperson told AFP .

This boat was spotted on the radar and then visually around 10 p.m. and the rescue operations then lasted more than five hours. Among the 369 people rescued on board, 9 women, an infant, 2 children and 110 unaccompanied minors, originating in particular from Egypt, Bangladesh or Eritrea, according to SOS Méditerranée.

>> To see: On board the “Ocean Viking”, the only migrant rescue ship in the central Mediterranean

On Sunday afternoon, the “Ocean Viking” had already come to the aid of 71 migrants in danger, on an extremely overloaded wooden boat in the Maltese search and rescue zone. Its occupants were fleeing Libya, which they had left three days earlier and, with no food or water on board, were exhausted by the time of the rescue.

Libya and the EU pinned down by the United Nations

1^er May, the “Ocean Viking” had landed 236 migrants rescued at sea in Sicily.

The ship then spent several weeks in dry dock in Naples, for work, before resuming the sea from Marseille.

The United Nations recently pinned down Libya and the European Union, asking them to reform their search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea and claiming that current practices deprive migrants of their rights and dignity, when they do not take away from them. not life.

Since the start of 2021, 866 migrants have lost their lives in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

SOS Méditerranée claims to have rescued more than 30,000 people since February 2016, first with the “Aquarius” then the “Ocean Viking”.

With AFP