Five thousand immigrants rescued from Mediterranean in Easter surge
REUTERS Migrants try to stay afloat after falling off dinghy in Mediterranean on Friday
The Italian coastguard said 2,000 people were saved on Friday and a further 3,000 on Saturday. More than 100 people drowned, including an eight-year-old boy.
Spring conditions make it easier for small boats and rafts to make it across the sea to Italy and Greece. The Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station tweeted that their crew had “never seen anything like it”.
REUTERS Migrants rest on the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station
Migrant crisis: Key locations before and after Tue, April 4, 2017 In these composite images, a comparison has been made between a scene at a key location during the height of the 2015 migrant crisis last year and the view there now Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 10 Aid workers help migrants up the shore after making the crossing from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos on November 16, 2015 in Sikaminias, Greece
In one incident, the organisation’s ship the Phoenix rescued 134 African migrants after they fell from a rubber dinghy 15 miles off the coast of Libya.
The pace of arrivals has exceeded anything we’ve seen before in the Mediterranean Joel Millman
The crew were preparing to transfer them to a safer “rigid hull” inflatable when one man fell into the sea and accidentally dragged in others. The Phoenix continued searching despite being overloaded with 450 migrants. Meanwhile, two other rescue ships, Prudence and Aquarius, operated by Medecins Sans Frontieres, rescued 1,000 on Friday.
REUTERS Migrant rests after being rescued in the Mediterranean