News on migrants and landings in Italy
May 5, 2024
1.58pm
The Emergency ship, the Life Support, will arrive at the port of Naples tomorrow morning, with 87 migrants. Ship Geo Barents has arrived in Bari.
The Emergency ship, the Life Support, will arrive tomorrow, Monday 6 May, at the port assigned by the authorities, Naples. Landing is expected at around 12pm, at pier 21. The search and rescue ship has on board the 87 shipwrecked survivors rescued on the evening of Friday 3 May.
When the Emergency team arrived, the 87 castaways found themselves in a critical situation, adrift with a broken engine and deflated dinghy tubes, without water or food. The dinghy started taking on water immediately after their departure, about 20 hours before the rescue, putting the migrants on board in serious danger. There was also no rescue asset present in the SAR zone other than Life Support.
“I believe that if we had delayed our intervention by a few hours it would have been a catastrophe – comments Domenico Pugliese, commander of Life Support -, they would all have ended up in the water. It was night, it would have been difficult to find them in the dark. Fortunately we are now bringing these people safe in a safe haven.”
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The 87 people rescued come from Sudan, Nigeria, Niger, South Sudan, Eritrea, Bangladesh, Mali, Togo, Ghana, Liberia, Chad, Cameroon, Senegal and Ivory Coast, countries affected by conflicts and serious economic, political and social crises . Among them there are eight women, three accompanied children and fourteen unaccompanied minors. There are also two particularly vulnerable cases, that of a pregnant woman in her fourth month and a diabetic boy.
“This night the situation of a diabetic patient worsened, with a sharp drop in blood sugar which led him to a state of glycemic pre-coma. – says Virginia Gatto, doctor on board the Life Support -. Together with colleagues from the healthcare staff we rescued the patient by administering glucose and liquids, he has now recovered and is in stable clinical conditions. We requested medical support upon our arrival in port tomorrow in Naples. There are also a woman on board who is four months pregnant and people with burns chemicals due to the mixture of fuel and sea water present on the vessel, but their medical situation is stable.”
This is the 31st rescue operation carried out by Life Support in 19 different operations. The humanitarian ship has been operating in the Central Mediterranean since December 2022 and has saved a total of 1,631 people.
Migrants saved by Geo Barents arrived in Bari
The unloading operations of the vessels concluded late this morning in the port of Bari 52 people rescued at sea by Geo Barents on the afternoon of May 1st. These are citizens from Syria, Morocco, Bangladesh and Egypt. Among them there are 12 unaccompanied minors. Doctors Without Borders staff assisted the migrants both during the rescue activities and throughout the journey to the port of the Apulian capital. The 52 people were rescued while on board a wooden boat in the Mediterranean Sea.
More landings in Lampedusa
The landings in Lampedusa continue. In the last 24 hours, 438 people have arrived (of which 166 last night alone) after the boats they were traveling on were rescued off the Italian coast. The transfer machine is already activated so as not to excessively overload the Imbriacola district hotspot: 200 migrants have already arrived at the Porto Empedocle (AG) hotspot. In the morning the prefecture of Agrigento arranged for the movement of another 200 people with the “Sansovino” ferry.
