The crew of the Sea-Eye 4 rescued another 32 people from an unseaworthy wooden boat on May 30, while searching for another distress case in the Maltese SAR zone. Now carrying 49 people, the Sea-Eye risks penalties for carrying out more than one rescue which is not permitted per Italian law.
MSF's Geo Barents ship entered the Italian port of Bari on Tuesday morning with 605 migrants on board, including 151 minors -- 111 of whom unaccompanied -- and 11 women.
The Geo Barents vessel, operated by the NGO Doctors without Borders (MSF), rescued some 600 migrants from an overcrowded boat in distress off the island of Sicily on Saturday. Meanwhile other humanitarian groups also rescued more than 150 people.
Migrants rescued Friday spoke with Doctors without Borders volunteers about their time in the Libyan detention centers
After rescuing around 300 migrants in the central Mediterranean, Geo Barents is still cruising towards La Spezia in the north of Italy. This has prompted charities, once again, to criticize Italy’s policy of assigning ports of safety sometimes 1,000 kilometers away from the rescue site.
The Geo Barents rescue ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) disembarked 339 migrants rescued at sea on Friday morning, including at least 24 unaccompanied minors.
The private rescue ship Geo Barents spent more than 11 hours rescuing 440 people from a boat off Malta overnight. Meanwhile, the Ocean Viking disembarked 92 migrants in the Italian port of Salerno.
Rescuers aboard search-and-rescue vessels on the Mediterranean tell InfoMigrants they're seeing far fewer search vessels at sea than normal, and the Italian decree governing missions is prohibiting them from being able to save people in distress.
The Geo Barents ship is under administrative detention for 20 days and will be fined 10 thousand euros, Italian authorities told Doctors Without Borders on February 23, the same day the controversial decree on private sea rescue operations became law.
Between Friday and Sunday, 288 migrants disembarked three NGO ships in Italy. More than 1,000 migrants were also rescued by the Italian authorities or arrived by sea on Italy's southern coasts.
Geo Barents rescued 48 migrants from a wooden boat off the coast of Libya while Ocean Viking rescued 84 migrants from a crammed rubber dinghy. Both ships have been assigned ports much further north in the Adriatic ports of Ancona and Ravenna.
The community of La Spezia, in Italy's northwest, is offering help to 237 migrants who arrived at the weekend after being rescued from the Mediterranean. Among the migrants are 87 children, some of them traveling alone.