A Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) rescue ship with 659 migrants on board has been allowed to disembark in Greece after nine days stuck at sea.
The Geo Barents vessel was denied docking multiple times by Italy and Malta.
Among the passengers were 150 minors and at least four people who were severely burned, suffered from water poisoning or from hypothermia as a result of their sinking on 27 June.
In recent weeks, MSF, SOS Méditerranée and Sea-Watch have rescued thousands of people from overcrowded boats in poor conditions. They are now calling for the European Union’s assistance.
They want a European search-and-rescue mechanism at sea to save lives and prevent tragedies.
“What we would like to see from the European Union and the European states is a centralised, coordinated, organised mechanism that would have the capacity both to carry out this coordination, but also to carry out rescues in the whole of the central Mediterranean in order to save more lives,” Xavier Lauth, director of operations for SOS Méditerranée, said.
A moment of collective awareness
Since March 2020, when the EU stopped searching and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, such initiatives are now at the state’s discretion. NGOs contend that many are failing to respond to distress calls, or even working with Libyan authorities to help asylum seekers return home.
Lauth explained that rescue missions are carried out mainly by civil society, such NGOs, and commercial vessels, such as fishing boats. These “carry on rescue operations as best their can, with all the means they have”, Lauth said.
In the space of five days, two search and rescue vessels, the Geo Barents and the Ocean Viking, chartered by SOS Méditerranée in partnership with the Red Cross, rescued 16 boats in distress.
Xavier Lauth sees this period with increasing numbers of attempts at crossing the Mediterranean as an important moment of “collective consciousness”.
“I strongly believe that these strong moments, when Europe as an entire, and all European citizens, become conscious of the seriousness and gravity of the situation in central Mediterranean, are key moments to call upon the States and to call again for a coordinated rescue mechanism at sea.”
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the central Mediterranean is one of the most dangerous routes for migration. It is estimated that nearly 20,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014.
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, (FRA), is meanwhile. Ende JuneSince January, five people per day have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
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