The mission continue. On board is a crew of nine people

All 28 people rescued yesterday afternoon by Mediterranea Saving Humans’ sailing boat “Safira” disembarked at Lampedusa port at 1:15 this morning and are safe. The rescue took place around 4pm on Sunday in international waters, a SAR area of Maltese and Tunisian jurisdiction 35 miles south-west of the pelagic island.

At 3:30pm the crew identified the boat in danger, not previously reported, thanks to observation with binoculars from the bridge, while it had been engaged in monitoring the area since dawn.

Mediterranea’s Rescue Team proceeded to assist the people on the overcrowded vessel by providing them all with life jackets, and contacted the Maltese authorities requesting a rescue operation. These, as it often happens, at first did not respond to the calls and then refused to intervene. At this point our Rescue Team, after the already malfunctioning vessel’s engine had caught fire, proceeded to evacuate the people, placing them all safely aboard “Safira”. Here, two doctors from the Medical team provided them with first aid, considering that the shipwrecked people had departed 52 hours earlier from the Libyan coast of Sabratha and were completely exhausted, with serious dehydration problems, due to the long time spent at sea. These are 28 people of different nationalities – Sudan, Egypt, Morocco, and Bangladesh – among which 12 unaccompanied minors, all of them escaping Libya. The Italian Authorities assigned us the port of Lampedusa as a safe place for disembarkation, which “Safira” reached during the night before a new weather disturbance hit the central Mediterranean today.

The rescue operation was necessary at the end of a particularly difficult day at sea: the wave of violence against migrants, in Libya and in Tunisia, caused numerous departures from the North African coasts as soon as the weather conditions allowed it. Thus, starting from the night between Friday and Saturday, there were about thirty disembarks in Lampedusa with the arrival of over 600 people on Saturday and 830 on Sunday until midnight.

Unfortunately, among the makeshift boats departing from Libya and Tunisia, some may not have made it. In fact, at 8:50 on Sunday, “Safira” noticed several yellow wooden planks floating as if they were the remains of a shipwreck, and a few minutes later our crew spotted a lifeless body among the waves, that of a black boy of presumable age between 15 and 25, who was wearing a beige jacket. We reversed course to proceed with the recovery of the body, to be able to give him an identity and a dignified burial, but when our Team approached, the body was swallowed up by the waves, disappearing into the sea. Three hours of subsequent searches in the area gave no results. Also in this case, the competent authorities were immediately alerted.

Mediterranea Saving Humans’ Mission 21 set sail late Saturday afternoon from the port of Lampedusa. On board of “Safira”, an 18-meter sailing boat equipped with all rescue devices and made available by the Association that owns it, there is a crew of nine people: two Skippers and Co-skippers, a Head of Mission, the Rescue Team and the Medical Team. The Mission will set sail again in the next few days to continue monitoring the waters south of Lampedusa.

Lampedusa, April 7th 2025