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A hundred migrants, including 67 minors, rescued off the coast of Libya

2021-03-20T16:55:41.490Z


The Ocean Viking, a ship of the NGO SOS Méditerranée, took on board on Saturday morning 106 people who were in dire straits.


Most are unaccompanied minors.

One hundred and six migrants were rescued on Saturday morning while their makeshift ship, a "inflatable boat in distress" according to the NGO SOS Mediterranean, drifted.

The Ocean Viking, the organization's ambulance ship, picked them up on board.

The rescue operation took place in the late morning 34 nautical miles - 63 kilometers - from the Libyan coast.

There were 31 men, 8 women in the boat, and a large majority of minors, 67 in total.

Among them, 51 indicated to be unaccompanied, adds an official of SOS Mediterranean, specifying that a woman fell unconscious during the operation.

10 people rescued Thursday

On Thursday, the Ocean Viking had already rescued 10 people including three children and a baby who were constantly vomiting, visibly suffering from dehydration.

They are now out of danger, said the official.

During its first winter mission in January-February, the Ocean Viking had rescued some 800 people.

The rescue ship is not the only one in operation at the moment, since the Spanish NGO Open Arms said Thursday on Twitter that it was on its way to "the deadliest border on the globe".

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The candidates for exile from Africa leave mainly Tunisia and Libya to reach Europe via Italy, whose coasts are the closest.

More than 1,200 migrants perished in 2020 in the Mediterranean, the vast majority of them on this central route, according to the International Organization for Migration.

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If they save lives, NGO ships, such as the Ocean Viking, have also been accused for several years of playing the game of smugglers.

The European Union has been divided on how to deal with the problem since the irregular migrant crisis began in 2015. In early March, the Council of Europe vilified the "lack of will of European states" to establish protection policies migrants crossing the Mediterranean, causing the loss of "thousands of human lives".

Source: leparis

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