Migrant boat capsizes in Mediterranean, at least 25 dead

GENEVA-(ENEWSPF)-6 August 2015 – nearly 400 people have been rescued so far from a vessel which sank off the coast of Libya while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea with an estimated 600 refugees and migrants on board, the United Nations refugee agency reported today.

When the Dignity1 arrived at the capsizing site, it was hard to tell how many were in the water, said Juan Matias Gil, a Doctors Without Borders search and rescue operations field coordinator.

“Given this reality presented to us on our screens, we must ask how so much of our discourse has focused on questions of security and border control, on alleged “pull factors”, to the neglect of the full and bad reality of the conditions from which the people are leaving, and the role of the wider world, including ourselves, in those zones of conflict”, he said.

When water began seeping in, “the migrants, on the traffickers’ orders, tried desperately to get rid of it”, the police said in a statement.

The moment when the boat overturned and the migrants were tipped into the sea on Wednesday “was like being flung from a catapult”, Mohamed, a Palestinian farmer, told MSF in a story recounted in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

Survivors described how the boat was packed and that people panicked when they saw a rescue boat approaching, rushing to one side and tipping the vessel over, Ms. Fleming said.

Most of the migrants hope to find asylum, relatives or jobs, mainly in northern Europe.

Rescuers continued the search Thursday for as many as 200 migrants feared drowned after a fishing boat capsized in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. “We are not getting an adequate response from the European members to meet our needs”, he said.

“Some of the people are torn by grief”.

The eastern route is shorter and IOM said that traffickers taking people to Italy tended to use more unseaworthy vessels. “There have been some our bodies floating, so it was fairly a surprising scene”.

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said Wednesday that EU governments have a duty to help the flood of migrants arriving in Europe and not cave in to “populist” demands to turn them back. There they set sail in flimsy motorized rubber dinghies or rickety old fishing boats.

The crew of Dignity1 tossed life vests and life preservers as survivors swam frantically to boats.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with all those who have lost their lives, the survivors and the rescuers for whom this is an extremely hard operation”, Coveney said. Investigators said as many as 800 were aboard.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had promised to give those who died a decent burial, and so far 58 bodies have been recovered from around the wreck, which is lying on the sea-bed some 380 metres below the surface. Only 28 people, including two alleged smugglers, survived.