Migrants, 71 people rescued at sea by the Emergency ship: “They had been sailing for 24 hours with the engine off, it took 3 hours to locate them”

ROMA – At 10pm last night, March 16th, the Life Support concluded the rescue operations of a vessel in difficulty in the Maltese SAR zone. On board there were 71 people adrift in the central Mediterranean. Now they are all on board the ship of EMERGENCY. “We received a report yesterday afternoon Alarm Phone of a boat in difficulty about 30 miles away from us – said Domenico Pugliese, commander of the Life Support Of. Due to the darkness it took us about three hours to locate it and reach it. We immediately began rescue operations and brought 71 people on board, who were taken to the covered area of ​​the ship where the medical staff began their examinations.” The castaways left the Libyan city of Tajura, a dozen kilometers from Tripoli, at 10pm on Friday 15 March; they had already spent 24 hours at sea on a wooden boat with a non-working engine and dangerously unbalanced on one side.

The boat is unbalanced and the engine is off. “The people were sailing on a white wooden boat with a non-working engine, and which was dangerously unbalanced on one side – says Jonathan Naní La Terra, SAR Team Leader -. As soon as we spotted the boat, we immediately put the dinghy into the water with the team of rescuers, stabilized it with life jackets, and made the castaways safe.”

Migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Eritrea. The castaways are originally from Bangladesh, Egypt and Eritrea, all countries affected by political and economic instability and poverty. Among them there are a woman and three minors, two of whom are unaccompanied. “We are taking care of the castaways from a health point of view – commented Paola Tagliabue, doctor on board the Life Support -. At the moment there are no medical emergencies; we have already identified cases of dehydration and people with skin lesions.”

Denied another rescue. After the rescue the Life Support received a report of another vessel from the Italian MRCC (Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre). Although the vessel was reported a few miles away, the search was unsuccessful. There Life Support he asked to be able to prolong the searches, receiving a negative response and the instruction to proceed towards the assigned POS (place of safety), Ravenna, for four days of navigation.

Heading towards the safe port of Ravenna. “We are sailing towards the safe place assigned to us by the authorities, the port of Ravenna, which is four days away from the place where we carried out the rescue. A very distant port that forces people already exhausted following a long journey, in difficult conditions, to spend more days at sea, rather than being disembarked as soon as possible”, concludes Naní La Terra. The ship of EMERGENCY It has been carrying out missions in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, since December 2022. In seventeen missions, it has saved 1,342 people.