Story By: Maja Mishevksa, Sub Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
Video Credit: CEN/Proactiva Open Arms
This is the moment rescuers save 79 reported migrants from a boat adrift in the Mediterranean Sea as 237 people were rescued in less than 24 hours in the area.
Spanish NGO Open Arms report they carried out three rescue operations in just 25 hours in the Mediterranean Sea, rescuing a total of 237 suspected migrants and refugees.
The video shows the latest rescue operation, which took place on Tuesday and saw 79 people rescued from a boat adrift after they received a distress call.
Video Credit: CEN/Proactiva Open Arms
The reported migrants can be seen being brought onto a rescue vessel before they are taken to the waiting Open Arms boat.
The Open Arms boat went to the scene and rescued all those on-board the vessel.
Oscar Camps, the founder of the organisation, reported that “so far there are 237 people on board (the Open Arms boat) and there are some medical cases”.
On Monday, a rescue was carried out in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea involving 56 refugees and migrants aboard a boat in danger. The boat had sailed into the search and rescue area of Libya and Malta after its engine required repairs.
A second rescue took place hours later when 102 people on board a boat were also rescued in international waters by Open Arms, who said they were the “only humanitarian boat in the area”.
The origin of those rescued is unclear.
According to local media, in addition to the 237 migrants rescued by Open Arms, another 184 people have been rescued in two operations carried out in the early morning of Tuesday by the Ocean Viking, managed by the organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and SOS Mediterranee.
The rescue boat Alan Kurdi also rescued 78 migrants in two boats adrift near the Libyan coast, according to the German NGO Sea-Eye, the operator of the vessel.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that more than 60 people have died so far this year trying to reach the southern coasts of Europe.
The United Nations and NGOs have asked European governments to set up a mechanism to grant the disembarkation of those rescued at a safe port in an easy way.
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