The Ocean Viking rescue boat rescued 236 people on Tuesday, who were trying to reach Europe from Libya in two overloaded inflatable boats, the NGO SOS Méditerranée announced in a statement.
The migrants were in international waters, 32 nautical miles (51 km) off the coast of Zawiya, a city in western Libya, according to SOS Méditerranée, an NGO based in Marseille, in the south of France.
“Several survivors were weak, dehydrated,” lamented the NGO, adding that “the women suffered slight burns from the fuel and inhaled fumes”.
Among the survivors, of fifteen different nationalities, “what is striking is that there are many minors, 114 of whom are unaccompanied,” Frédéric Penard, director of operations, told AFP.
The rescue operation proceeded “once again without coordination” and took about three hours.
This rescue comes just days after SOS Méditerranée teams spotted around ten bodies off the coast of Libya near a makeshift boat that had been overturned. One hundred and thirty people would have perished in this shipwreck.
“A dramatic episode for the crew of the Ocean Viking”, described Mr. Penard, “and traumatic because once again the coordination of the rescue did not go as it should.”
Currently, the SOS Méditerranée ship is the only one in this area where migrants try to cross every day on very dangerous makeshift boats.
At least 453 migrants have died since the start of the year trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
