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| Europe | |
| Mediterranean ships find 5 dead, rescue over 1,100 migrants | |
| 2022-07-25 | |
| [AlAhram] Italian vessels have recovered five bodies and rescued 674 people packed on a fishing boat adrift in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast, the Italian Coast Guard said Sunday, while European charities reported saving more than 500 more. Some of the survivors had to be plucked from the sea in the Italian operation Saturday that was carried out 120 miles (190 kilometers) off the coast of Calabria by a Navy mercantile ship, three Coast Guard patrol boats and a financial police boat. All of those rescued were brought to ports in Calabria and Sicily. The causes of death for the five dead were not immediately known. The Coast Guard said it was just one in a series of rescues in recent days in the Italian search and rescue area of the central Mediterranean, as desperate people fleeing poverty or oppression seek a better life in Europe. In one case, a helicopter was called to evacuate a woman in need of medical treatment from a migrant boat in a precarious condition, the Coast Guard said. In separate operations, the German charity Sea-Watch said it rescued 444 The Sea-Watch 3 vessel carried out the five operations over 24 hours, and said the rescued included a pregnant woman and a man who had suffered severe burns. The charity is asking for permission to bring the rescued people to a safe port, as the rescue ship is unable to accommodate so many people. In addition, the European charity SOS Mediterannee said its rescue ship Ocean Viking have saved 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied minors, from an overcrowded rubber boat off the Libyan coast. None had life jackets, the charity said. Migrant arrivals in Italia are up by nearly one-quarter from 2021, with 34,013 recorded through Friday. While still notably fewer than the 2015 peak year, the crossings remain deadly, with 1,234 people recorded dead or missing at sea by the UN refugee agency this year, 823 of those in the perilous central Mediterranean.
Between Jan.1 and July 22, 34,000 people arrived in Italia by sea compared with 25,500 during the same period in 2021 and 10,900 in 2020, Italia's interior ministry said. More than 600 people attempting to cross the Mediterranean on board a drifting fishing vessel were rescued on Saturday by a merchant vessel and coastguards off Calabria, at the southern tip of Italia. They were landed in several ports in Sicily. The authorities also recovered five bodies of On the island of Lampedusa, some 522 people from Afghanistan, Pakistain, Sudan, Æthiopia, and Somalia, among others, arrived in the late hours of Saturday in 15 different boats from Tunisia and Libya. According to the Italian media, the island's reception center has been overwhelmed. With a capacity of 250-300 people, it currently hosts 1,200, according to the Ansa news agency. Offshore NGOs continued to recover hundreds of "On board SeaWatch3, we have 428 people, including women and kiddies, a woman nine months pregnant and a patient with severe burns," it said on its Twitter account. OceanViking, operated by the non-governmental organization SOS Mediterranean, reported that it had recovered 87 people, including 57 unaccompanied minors, who were crammed onto "an overcrowded inflatable boat in distress in international waters off Libya." The Central Mediterranean migration route is the most dangerous in the world. The International organization for Migration estimates that 990 people have died and disappeared since the beginning of the year. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |