About 6500 refugees and migrants have been rescued off Libya, the Italian coastguard says, in one of the biggest operations of its kind to date.
Advertisement
Dramatic images of one operation on Monday showed about 700 migrants crammed onto a fishing boat, with some of them jumping off the vessel in life jackets and swimming towards rescuers.
People, majority from Eritrea, jump from a crowded wooden boat to swim toward a rescue ship about 13 miles north of Sabratha, Libya, on Monday.
Doctors Without Borders worked with a Spanish nongovernmental organization to carry out the rescue.
Thousands of migrants have been rescued off the coast of Libya in just 24 hours.
However, migrants from African countries such as Eritrea and Somalia as well as West African nations such as Nigeria and the Gambia are continuing to attempt the crossing from Libya to Italy.
Proactiva was to transfer the migrants to the larger vessels of the Italian coast guard and the medical charity, Medicine Sans Frontiers who would in turn transfer them to the Italian mainland or to Sicily.
Following the operation to save around 6,500 people off Libya, it seems that rescuing migrants from coastlines nearer to source countries will continue to be a risky and regular business.
Most of the migrants rescued this week came from sub-Saharan Africa.
– MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) August 30, 2016This man, rescued by the #Dignity1 became a single father to a newborn when his wife died in #Libya.
In June, the European Union expanded its anti-smuggling operation in the central Mediterranean to include training Libyan coastal and naval forces, which are intercepting boats and returning migrants to Libya, where some are being held in abusive conditions.
The migrants mostly from Eritrea and Somali had been traveling to Europe in overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels.
Advertisement
The UN reports that 271,218 of people arrived by sea this year, and that 3,167 who attempted such a trip are either missing or dead. IOM said some 12,600 people made it to the bloc in August, down from 23,500 in the same month past year.
