The Geo Barents rescue ship carried 34 shipwrecked individuals who were rescued on June 27 in international waters off the Libyan coast.

Upon docking in Ancona on July 2, the MSF representative responsible for the search and rescue mission shared some of their stories.

According to MSF, the migrants had left their countries of origin months ago. Some were exchanged and sold among Libyan militias, suffering violence and torture perpetrated by human traffickers aiming to extract more money from them. The extortion reportedly included video calls made to the migrants' parents or families.

Also read: Geo Barents ship arrives in Genoa with 129 migrants on board

'They tell us this was the only way to have a future'

"These are always dramatic and particular situations, were it not this way these people would not have resorted to making a journey across the sea, and they would not have passed through Libya having to endure all they had to experience," commented MSF Search and Rescue Team Leader Fulvia Conte.

"There are also many unaccompanied minors who are very young to travel on their own, adolescents who perhaps in our country we would not allow to walk alone to go to school. They travel for months on their own, they don’t see or hear from their families for a long time and they tell us this was the only way to have a future," added the MSF SAR coordinator.

"This journey is unfair: once again only NGOs are assigned ports for disembarking that are far. It took us four days of navigation, and, among other issues, the ships have a reduced speed and it would have been more correct and fair to make the migrants disembark in the nearest port and then spread across different and faster ships to bring them to Italy. These people have already experienced so much injustice, and to arrive all the way to Ancona to disembark is yet an additional one," she concluded.

Also read: MSF's Geo Barents disembarks in Ancona with 38 migrants, 7 medical cases

Unaccompanied girl will stay in Ancona

This is the tenth humanitarian ship to reach the port of Ancona since the beginning of 2023, sheltering a total of one thousand shipwrecked persons. It is the third ship of this type to land in the Marche region in 2024.

Among the migrants, who come from various countries such as Syria, Sudan, South Sudan, Egypt, and Eritrea, there are 19 young adults, including one woman, and 15 minors. Among them is a young unaccompanied girl between the ages of 14 and 17 from South Sudan.

The social services of the Municipality of Ancona will look after her.

Of the 15 minors, 14 were unaccompanied, including the young girl, while one was traveling with his father.

"Of the 34 migrants, seven unaccompanied minors will be taken to other Italian regions (Molise, ed.) while the others will stay in Marche as decided by the Ministry in agreement with the Prefectures. In this phase, the Municipality will only look after the young girl," confirmed the Deputy Mayor of Ancona, Giovanni Zinni.

Also read: Italy's new NGO decree: 'The fewer days we're allowed at sea, the more people can die'