ON BOARD OCEAN VIKING (France) (AFP)
The Ocean Viking, the boat chartered by SOS Mediterranean and Médecins sans Frontières, returned to Marseille on Tuesday after a first mission that allowed it to rescue 356 migrants off Libyan waters, despite a difficult context for NGOs in the Mediterranean.
After 23 days at sea, four rescues of canoes in distress, a storm and an offshore landing of survivors off Malta, the boat docked early in the afternoon in the port of Marseille where he had set sail August 4, and from where he will prepare to take the sea probably "over the weekend" next for a new mission, said officials of the two NGOs on board.
Operating in a context of suspicion towards the organizations that rescue the migrants in the Mediterranean, accused of playing the game of smugglers, the boat has waited more than twelve days on the high seas, between Lampedusa, the Italian island off the coast. Sicily, and Malta, which finally agreed to collect its passengers Friday night following a distribution agreement between several European states.
A difficult situation for people rescued, young men for the vast majority and many minors aged 15 to 18 traveling alone, forced to promiscuity on deck and lack of hygiene. But that also makes team rotations completely unpredictable, for MSF as for SOS Mediterranean, and expensive: a day of the Ocean Viking costs 14,000 euros.
- worse than before -
"The situation at sea is really worse than before," said Nicholas Romaniuk, relief operations coordinator. "We do not even receive any warning about boats in distress".
Two of the four rescues between 9 and 12 August were conducted because the boats had been spotted by binoculars from the Ocean Viking Bridge, thanks to a 24-hour watch by the rescue teams. -t it.
This was particularly the case with the last rescued tire, the 12th, with 105 people aboard, which broke out as the sailors arriving at their range distributed the lifejackets.
Two other operations were launched because the boats were overflown by European planes of Operation Sofia in the Mediterranean, which however did not contact the Ocean Viking to report them.
Europe has been entrusting the Libyan coastguard for more than a year with the task of intercepting boats heading for its coasts. And since the Ocean Viking left the area of search and rescue, at least four interceptions have taken place, more than 300 people, according to MSF cross-checks. On the night of Monday to Tuesday, another would have sunk with 90 people on board, according to the Alarm Phone network which tries to maintain these macabre countdowns.
The survivors who arrived on board all told of their fear of being intercepted by the Libyan coastguards who are returning them to Libya, where they are generally placed in detention camps and mistreated.
- Separate garbage -
For this reason, departures continue at an accelerated pace thanks to favorable weather, while no more humanitarian ship is in the relief zone, Romaniuk notes again.
In general, very few humanitarian ships manage to maintain their operations in the central Mediterranean, accused of complicity with smugglers. "Our job is not to get people out of Libya, but to prevent them from dying at sea," Mr. Romaniuk repeats.
A final test was still waiting for teams arriving at the dock: the landing of garbage. MSF was charged in 2018 by the prosecutor in Catania, Sicily, with cheating on garbage brought to the port and getting rid of "clothing and belongings belonging to survivors at risk of being infected by the virus HIV or other diseases, "says Jay Berger, MSF coordinator on board.
"They were looking for something to block us," he thinks. But now, "separating garbage is a simple precaution": those survivors, separate from those of the crew.
© 2019 AFP