About 6,500 asylum seekers have been rescued off the coast of Libya in a coordinated effort, the Italian coastguard says, in one of its busiest days of life-saving in recent years.
Advertisement
A handout picture taken and released on August 20, 2016 by the Italian Red Cross shows a migrant aboard a rescue boat run by the Malta-based NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) and the Italian Red Cross (CRI), on the way to the port of Trapani.
Over the past year, 105,342 migrants have reached Italy by boat, majority setting off from Libya.
One rescue operator from Proactiva Open Arms, a Spanish charity, tweeted that the 6,500 were plucked from one large boat, four small wooden boats, and 19 rubber boats.
The five-day old siblings had been born prematurely during their mother’s journey to Europe and were found packed on a dangerously overcrowded boat with hundreds of other migrants.
Another 1,100 had been rescued on Sunday, also off the same Libyan coastline.
This month an MSF ship taking part in migrant rescue operations came under attack from armed men who shot at the vessel before briefly climbing aboard, the medical charity said.
The Italian coastguard predicted that weather conditions would encourage the departure of further migrant boats yesterday.
The UN refugee agency said that the total number of arrivals in Italy this year so far was around 105,000, most of whom came from Libya whose instability makes it a hub for people traffickers.
Meanwhile at a diplomatic conference in Berlin, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczkowski has criticized the European Commission’s handling of last year’s migrant crisis saying Brussels had exacerbated the problem. Some leapt into the sea and swam towards rescue vessels.
An estimated 2,726 people have died in the crossing attempt in the past year, the International Organization for Migration reported, adding another 275,000 are in Libya and ready to travel to Europe.
Advertisement
Startling images have emerged of refugees being rescued off the coast of Libya, showing what has become an everyday occurrence in the southern Mediterranean sea over the past three years.
