BARCELONA: Three young sisters have died after an overcrowded rubber dinghy took on water in bad weather while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Italy, a German nonprofit organization reported Sunday.
The sisters from war-torn Sudan, who were 9, 11 and 17 years old, are the latest known victims of a Mediterranean migration route that has claimed more than 30,000 lives since the International Organization for Migration started counting in 2014.
Volunteers with the German group RESQSHIP found their bodies after rescuing some 65 people from the unseaworthy boat in international waters north of Libya on the night of Friday to Saturday. A fourth person was reported missing at sea.
Their mother and brother were among survivors who were brought to shore on the Italian island of Lampedusa late Saturday, the group said.
The green rubber dinghy had departed Zuwara in Western Libya earlier Friday.
“The boat was really overcrowded and partially deflated,” Barbara Satore, one of the rescuers, told The Associated Press. “It was a really pitch dark night with 1.5 meter (4.9 feet) waves, and the boat had been taking on water for hours.”
Satore said they found it after an alert from the Alarm Phone network, which receives calls from migrant boats in distress.
It was only after rescuers evacuated around two-thirds of the people on board that the bodies emerged floating in a pool of water and fuel at the bottom of the boat.
“I heard a woman screaming and a man pointing into the water,” Satore said. The darkness and weather conditions made the rescue very dangerous, she added. “The medical team attempted resuscitation but they had been underwater for an extended period of time.”
The mother remained in shock and sat next to the remains of her daughters aboard the rescue ship, Satore said. Relatives asked the crew for white sheets and wrapped the bodies with them.
Among the other people rescued were pregnant women and many children, Satore said. Four of them required urgent medical evacuation and were transferred to an Italian coast guard vessel alongside their family members. Survivors came from Sudan but also Mali, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Eritrea she added.
Separately, a different Mediterranean rescue group said it had saved more than 50 people from one migrant boat but failed to reach a second boat in distress after it had been intercepted by Libyan coast guards.
“The so-called Libyan Coast Guard and associated actors are accused by an independent United Nations Fact-Finding Mission of serious human rights violations and c rimes against humanity in Libya,” the SOS Humanity NGO said in a statement. “Forcing people who seek protection back to a country where they face torture and abuse is violating international law.”
Mediterranean rescues find 3 Sudanese sisters dead on an overcrowded migrant boat
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Mediterranean rescues find 3 Sudanese sisters dead on an overcrowded migrant boat
- The sisters from war torn Sudan, who were 9, 11 and 17 years old, are the latest known victims of a Mediterranean migration route that has claimed more than 30,000 lives since the International Organization for Migration started counting in 2014
- Volunteers with the German group RESQSHIP found their bodies after rescuing some 65 people from the unseaworthy boat in international waters north of Libya on the night of Friday to Saturday
UN-sanctioned migrant smuggler killed in western Libya
- In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers
CAIRO: A notorious militia leader in Libya, sanctioned by the UN for migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea, was killed on Friday in a raid by security forces in the west of the country, according to Libyan authorities.
Ahmed Oumar Al-Fitouri Al-Dabbashi, nicknamed Ammu, was killed in the western city of Sabratha when security forces raided his hideout. The raid came in response to an attack on a security outpost by Al-Dabbashi’s militia, which left six members of the security forces severely wounded, according to a statement issued by the Security Threat Enforcement Agency, a security entity affiliated with Libya’s western government.
Al-Dabbashi, who was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for trafficking, was the leader of a powerful militia, the “Brigade of the Martyr Anas Al-Dabbashi,” in Sabratha, the biggest launching point in Libya for Europe-bound African migrants.
Al-Dabbashi’s brother Saleh Al-Dabbashi, another alleged trafficker, was arrested in the same raid, added the statement.
In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers. At the time, the UN report said that there was enough evidence that Al-Dabbashi’s militia controlled departure areas for migrants, camps, safe houses and boats.
Al-Dabbashi himself exposed migrants, including children, to “fatal circumstances” on land and at sea, and of threatening peace and stability in Libya and neighboring countries, according to the same report.
Al-Dabbashi was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for the same reason.
Libya has been a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The country has been fragmented for years between rival administrations based in the east and the west of Libya, each backed by various armed militias and foreign governments.
