13 Jul. () –
The rescue ship ‘Geo Barents’ docked this Saturday in the port of Salerno, in southern Italy, with 99 rescued migrants on board, of which 53 are minors.
The group Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the 99 children were rescued on 10 July and were safely disembarked in Salerno this morning.
There are also 34 men and 12 women, most of them from the Ivory Coast, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, Guinea and Burkina Faso. “There were many children and many were unaccompanied,” said the mayor of Salerno, Vincenzo Napoli, on Facebook.
“According to initial information, the vast majority, including women and children, have suffered abuse and all kinds of physical and psychological violence. It is a great tragedy,” he added, before promising support from the municipal authorities “after the hell they have been through” and after arriving in Italy “with the hope of a better future.”
MSF reports that many of them suffered harassment from the Libyan SSA militia, “many jumped into the water because they preferred to risk death rather than having to return to Libya.”
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