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A lifeboat of the German aid organization Sea Eye (archive picture)
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JORIS GRAHL / AFP
A good week ago, the new rescue ship from the aid organization Sea-Eye set sail for the first time.
According to the operators, the "Sea-Eye 4" saved 172 people on Sunday.
The refugees were therefore traveling on wooden boats unsuitable for the ocean.
Among those saved are children, an eight-month-old baby and a pregnant woman.
“We had to treat 12 people in the hospital - a child and an adult man had to be stabilized longer.
Fortunately, there are no seriously injured among those rescued, ”the ship's medical officer was quoted in the message.
On Friday, the ship's crew also received an emergency call from around 50 people on a small wooden boat, but found the boat only empty, Sea-Eye said.
During the operation, the crew sighted a Frontex aircraft and assume that the boat occupants "at the instigation of the EU states fell victim to another illegal rejection and the people were returned to the internment camps in Libya," explained the Sea-Eye- Chairwoman Gorden Isler.
The ship “Sea-Eye 4” of the association founded in Regensburg in 2015, which was converted in Rostock, began operations at the beginning of the month to rescue migrants in distress in the central Mediterranean.
The mission is supported by United4Rescue, the alliance for civil sea rescue, and the aid organization German Doctors.
According to UN data, more than 500 people have died trying to cross the central Mediterranean to Europe this year by the beginning of May.
The private sea rescuers criticize the fact that the Libyan coast guard intercepts boat migrants and brings them back to the civil war country, where they are threatened with human rights violations.
Politically, however, the rescue operations by private organizations are controversial.
asc / dpa