Doctors without Borders’ rescue ship with 400 migrants docks in Italy

Doctors without Borders’ rescue ship with 400 migrants docks in Italy

Thursday, June 17, 2021 3:33 pm


File: Migrants rescued from drowning

File: Migrants rescued from drowning

An aid ship operated by Doctors without Borders in the central Mediterranean was allowed to dock in Italy on Thursday.

This was a week after the first group of the 410 migrants on board were rescued.

The Geo Barents ship had been waiting for days to be assigned a port in which to disembark the passengers, who had been intercepted in a series of rescue operations over the past seven days.

The ship was given permission to dock in Augusta, Sicily, the aid group tweeted.

The charity also posted a video of the migrants cheering as they were headed to land.

Again and again, especially in the summer months, people head off from the coasts of Libya or Tunisia in small, unseaworthy boats aiming towards Italy and in search of a better life in Europe.

During the crossing, they often find themselves in distress and in need of rescue, or they are tracked down by the coastguard not long after setting off and returned to shore.

Aid groups criticise this tactic because the migrants often face violent conditions in Libya.

According to UN figures, almost 680 migrants had died in the central Mediterranean in 2021.

In Italy, landings of hundreds of boat migrants on the island of Lampedusa recently caused a stir again.

The Interior Ministry recorded just over 18,000 migrants arriving by boat in Italy this year as of Wednesday.

In the same period in 2020, there were about 5,600. (dpa/NAN)


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