A man from Bangladesh who survived the capsizing and sinking of a fishing boat crowded with migrants receives medical aid aboard the Dignity I MSF search and rescue vessel which responded to the emergency in the Mediterran…
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The Italian coastguard said around 370 people were saved by rescue ships from the Italian and Irishnavies and humanitarian agency Medecins sans Frontiers.
Also involved in the rescue were an Italian vessel and a boat operated by Doctors Without Borders.
“As the operation is now ongoing, with all personnel fully engaged in the rescue, it is hard to ascertain full details on the scale of the incident”, he said.
Approximately 188,000 migrants have been rescued in the Mediterranean so far this year, the IOM said, adding that the 200,000 mark is expected to be reached very soon.
“What happened here was because the boat was so overloaded, and the conditions were such that the boat started taking on water and it listed to one side, capsized and sank, all in the space of two minutes”, Irish Defence Minister Simon Coveney said on Irish state radio RTE on Thursday.
“It is probably the same boat”, coast guard spokesman Filippo Marini said, raising fears that hundreds of people may have disappeared below the waves. However, the boats received calls and rescued another 94 people on their way to the first boat.
“As in 2014, the overwhelming majority died in the Channel of Sicily on the Central Mediterranean route connecting Libya and Italy, where unseaworthy vessels used by smugglers and traffickers significantly increase the likelihood of tragedies occurring”, the organization said.
This year, more than 2,000 people have died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean and enter Europe.
Thousands of migrants have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better life in Europe. Once there, they set sail in flimsy motorized rubber dinghies or rickety fishing boats.
“The fact that today we celebrate that we have not had a successful people smuggling venture in a year, and that over the course of the last 18 months or so we have turned back 20 boats and stopped 633 people from arriving in our country, is a significant achievement”, Dutton told reporters in Sydney.
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It is feared it could be the worst loss of life in one incident since 800 migrants died when a boat capsized in April.
