Another near tragedy in the Mediterranean.
An overcrowded boat with around 75 migrants on board capsized during the night off the coast of Zuwara, Libya: 45 ended up in the sea and were rescued by the Geo Barents ship.
In another operation, Life Support saved another 71 people in the Maltese area of responsibility.
In a 2024 that has so far been calm on the landing front, there was an acceleration of departures this weekend, thanks to the flat sea.
The bulk of the boats set sail from the Libyan coast, while the route originating from Tunisia has been significantly reduced.
The Geo Barents - fresh from yesterday's near-collision with a Libyan coast guard patrol boat which had tried to seize one of the dinghies from the Doctors Without Borders ship during a rescue operation - during the night came across a fiberglass boat full of passengers.
In the frenetic stages of the rescue, 45 of the approximately 75 people on board fell into the water.
"Fortunately - informs MSF - everyone was saved by our teams on the Geo Barents and are now recovering on board. Some are weak and in shock".
The ship - which carries around 250 migrants in total - was assigned the port of Marina di Carrara by the Italian authorities.
They are expected to reach him on Wednesday.
The operation of the Life Support, the Emergency ship, dates back to Saturday evening.
“We received an Alarm Phone report of a boat in difficulty about 30 miles away from us,” said Domenico Pugliese, commander of Life Support.
Due to the darkness, he added, "it took us about three hours to locate and reach her. We immediately started rescue operations and brought 71 people on board", originally from Bangladesh, Egypt and Eritrea.
Among them there are a woman and three minors, two of whom are unaccompanied.
The boat, with its engine not working and dangerously unbalanced on one side at the time of the rescue, had left from Tajura, a dozen kilometers from Tripoli.
And after a few months of tranquility, transfers have resumed from the Lampedusa hotspot, which had become crowded after the 12 landings for a total of 573 people arriving on Saturday.
During the day, transfers of 425 people to Sicily were organized with two ferries.
The flows from Tunisia have significantly reduced compared to last year, as noted by the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi (1,658 arrived in Italy against the 11,988 who left in the same period of 2022).
Today the Tunisian National Guard announced that it had intercepted 21 attempted departures towards Italy, rescuing 538 people on boats in difficulty;
a body was also recovered.
Thus Libya remains the main port of departure (4,860 of the 6,560 total arrivals in 2024).
A channel, the Libyan one, which is proving to be more difficult to control, despite the Tripoli coast guard being very active in rejections, as reported by several NGOs.
Precisely to encourage an anti-trafficking crackdown, last Tuesday Piantedosi flew to Benghazi where he met the leader of Cyrenaica, General Khalifa Haftar.
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