LA VALLETTA (MALTA) (ITALPRESS/MNA) – A group of around 500 migrants is believed that has finished in detention following a pushback operation to Libya. Two humanitarian organizations, the international NGO Alarm Phone, and the Italian NGO Emergency confirmed the disappearance of a boat in the Central Mediterranean that was carrying about 500 asylum seekers, including a newborn baby and pregnant women. Alarm Phone confirmed that it had lost contact with the boat since last Wednesday morning. At the time, the boat was in distress with no working engine in the high seas about 320km north of the Libyan port of Benghazi and more than 400km away from Malta and Sicily.
Italian NGO Emergency said on Thursday that its Life Support ship and the Ocean Viking, another charity vessel, had looked for the missing boat for 24 hours but found no sign of it or any shipwreck. In a separate incident, the German charity SOS Humanity said 27 people were picked up at sea by an oil tanker and illegally taken back to Libya. The oil tanker ‘P long Beach’ allegedly involved in this case is owned by the Greek company Performance Shipping. Under international humanitarian law, asylum seekers cannot be forcibly returned to countries where they risk harsh treatment, and widespread refugee abuse has been extensively documented in Libya. More than 47,000 refugees have arrived by boat in Italy so far this year, up from about 18,000 in the same period of 2022. (ITALPRESS).
Photo Credits: www.agenziafotogramma.it
