On the same day, MSF, Proactiva Open Arms and crews from the Italian Coast Guard rescued more than 3,000 migrants off the coast of Libya.
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People, a lot of them from Eritrea, jump from a crowded wooden boat to swim toward a rescue ship about 13 miles north of Sabratha, Libya, on Monday.
The majority of the rescued migrants are said to be from places like Eritrea and Somalia. Numerous refugees have used the Central Mediterranean route from Nigeria, Eritrea and Gambia with Libya as a transit point. That group handed them over to a larger rescue ship belonging to Doctors Without Borders, which had them evacuated first to Lampedusa by boat and from there to Palermo, Sicily, by helicopter.
Italy has been on the front line of Europe’s refugee and migrant crisis for three years.
Speaking about the “particularly unseaworthy” nature of the boats carrying these migrants, he said the people smugglers, as they have all along, “been behaving abominably” (towards the migrants) and condemned their “cynical and brutal” behaviour.
This year, 264,513 people arrived in Europe by sea, landing mostly in Greece and Italy, according to IOM estimates released in mid-August.
For migrants leaving Libya, they cite the breakdown in law and order which engulfed the oil rich country after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and European Union forces overthrew Muammar Gaddafi.
About 6,500 migrants have been rescued off the Libya Coast, the Italian coastguard says. It will return to sea as soon as the boat has been restocked to continue its search and rescue operations. Just two weeks ago, in the week that started August 14, the route was used by 2,197 migrants, according to the International Organization for Migration. Protesters demanded better protection for the refugees and migrants.
The total number of arrivals in Italy this year, prior to Mondays rescues, was at around 105,000, according to the United Nations refugee agency, with the majority having left from the coast of Libya.
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The central Mediterranean route has witnessed a surge in migrants making the perilous journey after the so-called Balkan route was effectively shuttered earlier this year.
