The Ocean Viking, the rescue ship at sea of SOS Méditerranée, collected 228 people including 51 minors who were trying to reach Europe in small boats, during four rescue operations in less than 24 hours, indicated the NGO Sunday 3 February.
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The first intervention took place on Saturday afternoon in the Maltese search and rescue zone, with 93 people on an overloaded wooden boat, the NGO SOS Méditerranée, whose headquarters is in Malta, said in a press release. Marseilles.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, 88 other migrants, including a baby, were taken care of while they were on another overloaded wooden boat in the Libyan search and rescue zone.
On Sunday morning, the Ocean Viking, co-chartered by SOS Méditerranée with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), spotted a new wooden boat in the Maltese area which threatened to take the water.
The 22 people who were there were brought on board.
Finally, the teams of SOS Méditerranée carried out a fourth rescue on Sunday morning, still in the Maltese area, taking on board 25 people who were in a fiberglass boat in distress in international waters.
The ship had been alerted by the Colibri 2, a plane from the NGO Pilotes Volontaires which helps in rescue operations through aerial observation.
Among the 51 rescued minors, 49 were unaccompanied, the NGO said in its press release.
Since its creation in 2015, SOS Méditerranée, a civil and European association for search and rescue on the high seas, has rescued 34,858 people with its ships, first the Aquarius, until the end of 2018, then the Ocean Viking, as of 2019. The central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migration route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
The UN agency estimates the number of dead and missing since 2014 at more than 17,000, including 2,047 last year.
