The NGO rescue ship Aquarius was headed to Trapani, Sicily to change crews when at 10 a.m. local time today they received a call from the Italian Navy to return to the Libyan coast to aid two rubber rafts in trouble. Five hours later they arrived and this is what they found.
"As our crew approached the first raft they saw the cadavers floating in a sea of diesel fuel," declared Jens Pagotto, chief of the Doctors Without Borders in charge of the search and rescue missions.. "The survivors remained on the raft with the bodies are too traumatized to be able to tell what happened. It is still difficult to know how these women died."
This 20th rescue operation for the German-French volunteer ship saved 209 people from two sinking rafts, of which 177 were men and 32 were women, including 50 minors. Of the 22 corpses, 21 were women. For original article in French, go to:
http://www.sosmediterranee.fr/journal-de-bord/sauvetage-tragique-en-mer-mediterranee
Kim Clausen, Aquarius's on-board operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, which partners with SOS Mediterrannee's rescue ship, told La Repubblica, "Also on this occasion when we arrived to carry out rescue operations, two rafts were already deflated on one side and had begun to take on water. The immigrants' crafts find themselves confronting the sea in conditions ever more precarious, with very little fuel, water and food aboard: they can only hold on for a few hours. In the last few weeks, to avoid tragedy at sea, we have found ourselves effecting rescues in areas ever closer to Libyan waters. These people find themselves confronting the Mediterranean with no protections or navigational tools: no life jackets, compasses or radios. We cannot let them die at sea."
Meanwhile, another 628 persons saved by another Doctors Without Borders ship, the Bourbon Argos, arrived at Pozzuolo, Sicily, among the migrants a 73-year-old man and a seven-month-old baby.
"As our crew approached the first raft they saw the cadavers floating in a sea of diesel fuel," declared Jens Pagotto, chief of the Doctors Without Borders in charge of the search and rescue missions.. "The survivors remained on the raft with the bodies are too traumatized to be able to tell what happened. It is still difficult to know how these women died."
This 20th rescue operation for the German-French volunteer ship saved 209 people from two sinking rafts, of which 177 were men and 32 were women, including 50 minors. Of the 22 corpses, 21 were women. For original article in French, go to:
http://www.sosmediterranee.fr/journal-de-bord/sauvetage-tragique-en-mer-mediterranee
Kim Clausen, Aquarius's on-board operations manager for Doctors Without Borders, which partners with SOS Mediterrannee's rescue ship, told La Repubblica, "Also on this occasion when we arrived to carry out rescue operations, two rafts were already deflated on one side and had begun to take on water. The immigrants' crafts find themselves confronting the sea in conditions ever more precarious, with very little fuel, water and food aboard: they can only hold on for a few hours. In the last few weeks, to avoid tragedy at sea, we have found ourselves effecting rescues in areas ever closer to Libyan waters. These people find themselves confronting the Mediterranean with no protections or navigational tools: no life jackets, compasses or radios. We cannot let them die at sea."
Meanwhile, another 628 persons saved by another Doctors Without Borders ship, the Bourbon Argos, arrived at Pozzuolo, Sicily, among the migrants a 73-year-old man and a seven-month-old baby.