The Ocean Viking, the humanitarian ship of SOS Méditerranée, rescued 206 migrants in less than a week, the NGO announced Thursday, June 30, a few hours after coming to the aid of 49 people on a wooden boat in the waters. international off the coast of Libya.
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This was the NGO's fourth rescue since June 24, bringing to 206 the number of survivors aboard the ambulance boat chartered by the NGO in partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (IFRC).
“
Among the survivors are 47 women and 79 unaccompanied minors
,” SOS Méditerranée said in a statement.
In May, during its last mission in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, the Ocean Viking rescued some 300 people, including a three-month-old baby and six pregnant women, but had to wait around ten days before being designated a safe port, in Sicily, to disembark these survivors.
The UN agency estimates the number of dead and missing there at 1,553 in 2021. Since the beginning of the year, 748 migrants have disappeared in the central Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are some 300 kilometers from Italy.
