Around 5 pm today, the Médecins Sans Frontières teams on board the Geo Barents carried out the first rescue of the new mission: 74 people (many women and minors).
They left Libya last night in an overcrowded and unstable rubber dinghy.
The survivors, MSF informs, are exhausted after spending 15 hours at sea in adverse weather conditions.
They are now all safely aboard the Geo Barents and receiving the necessary care from the team on board.
The Geo Barents, which left on 1 December, was one of the ships involved in the tug of war with the Government over the port in Catania.