• Immigration "Psychological emergency" aboard the 'Ocean Viking': 365 migrants have been waiting for a port to disembark for 12 days
  • Gallery: The Open Arms Odyssey in search of port

The prosecutor of Agrigento ended last Tuesday with the agony of the 88 rescued left in the Open Arms, but the migration crisis continues. Another vessel, the Ocean Viking, chartered by SOS Mediterranée and Doctors Without Borders, carries 365 people on its deck and has been sailing for 13 days waiting for a port . And it does it with a very different strategy.

While the NGO Open Arms has moved a lot in social networks and media to denounce the blockade suffered by its ship , pointing to certain politicians with names and surnames, MSF has chosen the low profile and diplomatic pressure work in Brussels, a activity in which he has a lot of experience. They do not want to collide with the Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, but to be resolved at a higher level, in the European Union, and with very clear rules of the game and for everyone.

The objective, according to sources from this organization, "is to find a permanent landing and relocation system" that does not allow this permanent blockade of ports, "which only generates pain and uncertainty in the rescued." That permanent agreement is something that MSF has been looking for since 2015, when rescue operations began in the Mediterranean before the end of the Mare Nostrum rescue missions by the Italian state.

Although the speed of the European Union is not usually its best quality in closing these types of agreements, in the organization they believe that "something is already moving in Brussels" and they are optimistic. They do not want another patch, one more, at 14 months of blockade suffered by rescue boats in the Mediterranean, including oil tankers, freighters, fishing vessels and military ships that at the time had to get these people on their boat.

Meanwhile, the conditions of immigrants on board deteriorate with the passage of days at sea . Jay Berger, coordinator of MSF on the Ocean Viking ship, says that the rescued people have suffered the passage through Libya in their flesh: "They have told us how they have been burned, electrocuted or injured with knives. There are gunshot wounds. they have raped, they have poured burning plastic over their bodies, we have here people who have been sold as slaves, they have been detained without any procedural guarantee, without knowing what charges were being charged to them, but the mental scars will take much longer to heal than the physical ones. They must be served on land as soon as possible. "

Berguer speaks daily with the rescued and tries to inform transparently about the times, the advances and the circumstances of political blockade that ships like the Ocean Viking suffer: "They ask us many times how many days are left until they disembark. It is very difficult for us explain that we do not know , that it is not up to us. In the end you take 365 people in a small boat, in the sun, in the middle of the Mediterranean, and it is normal that tensions arise.

The NGO has two doctors, two nurses and a midwife. They have conducted 130 medical consultations and 63 wound care . Minor disorders can be treated urgently, but Berger states that "they are physically broken not only from the days at sea, but from the entire previous trip through the desert. The closer the end is coming, the more traumatized they are . The wait only increases this feeling of psychological drama. They need a safe place to disembark with dignity as soon as possible and coordinated help with administrations. "

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  • Open arms
  • European Union
  • Libya
  • Matteo Salvini

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