Italy has assigned the Ocean Viking, a humanitarian ship of SOS Méditerranée, a safe port to disembark the 113 people rescued in the Mediterranean during the boat’s first operation since docking in France in November, the NGO announced on Tuesday. . The ship headed for the port of Ravenna (north-eastern Italy), assigned by the Italian authorities as a safe port, the NGO said in a statement, deploring the “four long days of navigation” necessary for s get there.
The migrants on board the ship were rescued overnight from Monday to Tuesday in international waters dependent on the Maltese search and rescue area, close to the Libyan area, the NGO said. “As we head north, we fear that other people in distress at sea cannot be rescued”, worried SOS Méditerranée, although “(relieved) for the survivors on board” of the Ocean Viking.
A well-known ship
Among the rescued migrants, “23 women, some of whom are pregnant, around thirty unaccompanied minors and three babies, the youngest of whom is only three weeks old”, indicated SOS Méditerranée, whose headquarters are in Marseille, in the south-west. east of France. They were on “an overloaded black pneumatic boat, in total darkness”, still according to SOS Méditerranée.
In mid-November, the Ocean Viking had landed in Toulon, in the south-east of France, with 230 rescued migrants between Libya and Italy, after three weeks of wandering in search of a safe port and of a diplomatic showdown between Paris and Rome.
The dangers of the Mediterranean
The French government had agreed to welcome the boat “on an exceptional basis” after Italy’s refusal, causing diplomatic tensions between the two countries. Placed in a closed “waiting area”, most of the survivors had been released either by court order, or because they were unaccompanied minors, or because they had been admitted to France under the asylum.
Since the beginning of the year, 1,998 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean, including 1,369 in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty try to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are 300 km away from Italy.