The migration crisis is taking a new turn. Many ships are no longer willing to save the immigrants on the Mediterranean for fear of having their businesses blocked.
Doctors without Borders’s ship Aquarius saved 141 immigrants, who were left adrift. Twenty-five of these migrants were in a small boat without a motor and had been at sea for 35 hours.
According to a report by Doctor’s without Borders, the migrants are from Somalia and Eritrea and had been put in squalid conditions in Libya as they waited to take the perilous journey to Europe. Most of them were extremely week and malnourished.
Not only did Libya refuse to offer assistance to these migrants, it also did not let Doctors without Border know about the boats at sea, making the situation worse. European countries had refused to let ships with immigrants dock on their shores early in the year.
“It seems the very principle of rendering assistance to persons in distress at sea is now at stake. Ships might be unwilling to respond to those in distress due to the high risk of being stranded and denied a place of safety,” Aloys Vimard said in the statement.
This rescue marks the return of Aquarius since the diplomatic spat on June 9-10 when Malta and Italy did not allow them to dock as it had on board 630 stranded migrants including children and pregnant women.
