Emmanuel Thomas I Tuesday, June 20, 2023
BERLIN – The German rescue organization Resqship said it rescued 36 migrants from a boat in the central Mediterranean on Tuesday. The crew took the people on board their vessel and brought them to the Italian island of Lampedusa off the North African coast on Monday, the aid organization said.
The Resqship crew discovered the migrants in an overcrowded and unstable steel boat in the afternoon. They had been alerted to the boat in distress by a radio call from a fisherman.
Due to the weather conditions, the migrants’ vessel was in danger of capsizing. The people had set off from Tunisia, Resqship said. Three women, four children and 29 men were rescued.
“The swell was so strong and the boat was hanging deep in the water. We couldn’t even provide life jackets to the people. Any contact could have capsized the boat,” said Selene Grube, a doctor from the Nadir, the Resqship vessel.
The Nadir motorsailer from the Hamburg-based organization is not a rescue ship that can transport many people. During its missions, the Nadir normally provides first aid before larger rescue ships or the coastguard pick up migrants and refugees in distress at sea.
According to Resqship, the crew of the Nadir assisted about 215 people on six boats in distress at sea last weekend.
According to official figures from the Ministry of the Interior in Rome, more than 57,700 migrants have reached Italy on boats since the beginning of the year – in the same period last year, the figure was some 24,700 people.
