July 16 () –
The rescue ship ‘Geo Barents’, of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), has completed the rescue of another 38 migrants during the operations carried out in recent hours in Mediterranean waters and there are already 303 survivors on board in search of Safe Harbor.
The last two operations have resulted in the rescue of 17 and 21 people in two boats that had left the Tunisian port of Sfax three days ago, MSF reported on its Twitter account.
The ‘Geo Barents’ currently has 303 migrants on board, including 74 women, three of them pregnant, and 77 unaccompanied minors. There are also two babies under one year of age and 20 children and adolescents between the ages of 1 and 13.
While waiting for a safe port, MSF recalls that the Italian government often sends its ships to ports that are an enormous navigation distance away, with the consequent problems for the survivors, who need medical attention.
It should be recalled that this week, five leading non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have filed a complaint with the European Commission (EC) about the Italian Law 15/2023 and the practice of the Italian authorities to allocate ports far from where the rescues at sea, to disembark people who have received humanitarian aid in these rescue operations.
Law 15/2023 restricts search and rescue vessels from carrying out more than one rescue operation at the same time, since the legislation establishes that vessels must navigate to the assigned place of safety after a rescue operation, without delay; this implies that ships should not be providing assistance to other ships in distress.
“Every day we spend outside the search and rescue region, whether detained or sailing to a distant port, we put lives in danger,” said Djoen Besselink, director of operations for MSF. “The law targets NGOs, but the real price will be paid by people fleeing across the Mediterranean and finding themselves on a ship in distress,” he adds.
