At least 30 people including women and children who went missing in a shipwreck on Monday in the Mediterranean have likely died. Medical charity MSF, whose crew saved 71 people, called the scene the "worst nightmare coming true."
At least 30 migrants who went missing when their flimsy rubber dinghy boat collapsed and sank on Monday (June 27) off Libya's coast in the Central Mediterranean Sea are believed to have perished. That's according to the international medical charity Doctors without Borders, which is also known by its abbreviation MSF for the French name of the group.
The Geo Barents, a search and rescue (SAR) vessel operated by MSF, reached the sinking boat on Monday and managed to rescue 71 migrants, the charity said. A pregnant woman died on board the rescue ship, and three other survivors required "emergency care," among them a baby that was later evacuated to Malta with its mother, MSF said.
Among the missing migrants are five women and eight children, survivors told the crew of the Geo Barents. Four rescued women lost a child and one of them lost two of her children, MSF said on Twitter. It was the latest deadly shipwreck in the Mediterranean involving migrants.
"We have seen so many people drowning -- men, women and children -- and we will never forget the day we had yesterday. We tried to save them but we couldn't save them all," a 17-year-old boy from Cameroon said in a testimony posted by MSF on Twitter.
One of the crew members called the rescue "our worst nightmare coming true" as the vessel "was sinking with dozens of people trapped."
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"The survivors are exhausted; many have ingested large amounts of seawater and multiple people suffered from hypothermia after spending many hours in the water,'' said Stephanie Hofstetter, MSF medical team leader on board.
The charity has called for Italian and Maltese authorities to determine a port of safety to allow the disembarkation of its rescuees. However, it often takes several days or longer until Italian authorities assign the vessel a port. Fellow EU member state Malta hasn't given permission to disembark rescued migrants for a long time.
Springboard to Europe
In recent years, Libya has emerged as the main transit country for migrants trying to reach Europe. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
According to the Associated Press (AP) news agency, human traffickers have benefited from the chaos in Libya as they smuggled immigrants across the country's lengthy borders with six nations. The migrants are then packed into ill-equipped rubber boats and set off on risky sea voyages.
The central Mediterranean route from northern Africa to Europe is among the deadliest escape routes in the world. In early April, some 90 people presumably died in the Mediterranean in one of the worst shipwrecks involving migrants in recent years.
The estimated death toll in the Central Mediterranean Sea currently stands at 748 for the year, not counting Wednesday's death toll. Last year, more than 1,500 people drowned there while trying to reach European shores. The real numbers are likely a lot higher.
A state-run sea rescue mission doesn't exist in the Mediterranean. Instead, it's the Geo Barents and other NGO vessels that conduct search-and-rescue (SAR) missions to save migrants in distress.
'Daily' occurrence
Safa Msehli, a spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration, said the latest shipwreck illustrates what happens "weekly, if not daily in the Central Mediterranean."
"The lack of active monitoring and search and rescue by State actors makes it extremely difficult for us to have the full picture, '' she told AP.
In recent years, the European Union has cooperated with Libyan authorities, including the country's controversial coast guard, to prevent the crossings. So far this year, Libya's coast guard has reportedly intercepted and returned more than 9,000 migrants to the war-torn northern African country. Sea rescue NGOs like MSF refuse to return shipwrecked migrants to Libya as they face torture, extortion and other human rights violations there.
Meanwhile, the bodies of 20 migrants who got lost in the Libyan desert near the border with Chad have been found, Libyan authorities said on Wednesday. The group is believed to have died two weeks ago.
Also read: Rape, abuse, murder: new UN report on Libya highlights migrants' suffering in painful detail
With AP