Approximately 60 migrants lost their lives when the engine of their small boat failed while they were trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. Survivors reported that several women and at least one child were among those who had died.
Ocean Viking, the humanitarian group SOS Méditerranée rescued 25 survivors from the incident, picking them up with their vessel. Two of them were unconscious when they were rescued and had to be airlifted to a hospital on the island of Sicily in Italy. The remaining 23 survivors are still aboard the Ocean Viking, along with over 200 other migrants who were rescued from two separate boats.
SOS Méditerranée stated that the Ocean Viking team had spotted the dinghy, which had departed last Friday, using binoculars on Wednesday and had conducted a medical evacuation in collaboration with the Italian coast guard.
The organization reported that the survivors were all under medical care and were in a very weak health condition. The vessel is en route to the port of Ancona, which is approximately four days away, but the team has requested a closer port of safety.
“The people who were on the distressed boat, lost at sea for almost a week, ran out of water and food very quickly, according to the survivors,” said an SOS Méditerranée spokeswoman aboard the ship. “People died along the way. I met a man who lost his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old baby. The baby died on the first day, the mother on the fourth day. They were from Senegal and had been in Libya for more than two years.”
Frontex, the EU’s border agency, informed the BBC that it raised the alarm last Friday after spotting a vessel with over 50 people on board near the coast of Libya. It did not specify if this was the same rubber dinghy picked up by the Ocean Viking. Frontex stated that one of its aircraft, on a routine trip, spotted the vessel within Libya’s rescue zone and alerted the Libyan authorities.
The EU agency mentioned that it also issued a mayday alert to all other boats in the area to assist the vessel and contacted Italian and Maltese rescue coordination centers as well.
Frontex explained that its aircraft needed to return to dry land to refuel and it did not know what happened to the vessel after the initial observation.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), last week it was reported that 2023 marked the deadliest year for migrants since records began a decade ago, with at least 8,565 people dying on migration routes worldwide. The UN agency stated that this figure represented a 20% increase compared to the previous year.
The report highlighted that the Mediterranean crossing remained the most perilous journey, with at least 3,129 deaths and disappearances recorded during 2023, marking the highest toll since 2017.
