During the evening of Friday 11 August, the emergency life-saving vessel rescued a boat with 76 people in distress in international waters in the Maltese search and rescue area.
Transfer of outcasts to Life Support was completed at 19.15 UTC. The boat was identified in distress, which was reported earlier in the morning by Seabird 2 from Sea Watch, then by Italy’s MRCC (Marine Rescue Coordination Center) and finally via VHS from Channel 16, at around 17.30 UTC. The 76 people traveling on a wooden boat of about 12 meters in length had left Libya between Tripoli and Zuwara at 10pm the previous evening. On board the ship are 7 women and 24 minors, 12 of whom are unaccompanied. There is also a 7-month-old girl who started the trek with her family. The outcasts come from Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Syria.
After completing the rescue operations and informing the authorities, Life Support requested a point of sale where the 76 survivors would be disembarked. The point of sale has been designated Naples by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) and is scheduled to arrive at the dock on the morning of Monday 14 August.
“We started operations at 18:00 UTC after contacting the Italian MRCC, who coordinated the rescue operation – says Carlo Misano, Chief of the Emergency Life Support Mission -. When we carried out the rescue operation, the wooden boat was stationary and overloaded, and we found that the hold was empty and this threatened to upset its balance.At the end of operations we received another report from the alarm phone of a boat in distress with similar characteristics, but after 1.5 hours of patrolling we could not locate it and encountered the RCRC who thought the report corresponded to a vessel that had been Already rescued. We are now on our way north but have offered our services to the MRCC for any other cases in distress. Naples has been designated as a port of disembarkation and we will anchor in port on the morning of the 14th.”
“There are no critical conditions among the people on board, but all people are very exhausted from the flight – explains Juan Mira Vilches, a doctor on board Life Support -. Some of the rescued survivors bore burn marks due to the mixture of salt water and fuel with which they were in contact. “We’ve also had problems with walking due to the length of time we’ve been on the ship. Our medical staff are taking care of them and we’ll be doing more in-depth visits in the next few hours.”
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