ANKARA
Some 43 migrants rescued by a humanitarian ship last week need to disembark to safety as soon as possible, captain of the ship said on Wednesday.
Italian Interior Ministry has recently passed a new decree law, forbidding humanitarian ships from entering its territorial waters, Carola Rackete, captain of Sea-Watch 3 ship, said in a Twitter post.
Sea-Watch is a non-governmental organization that conducts civil search and rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean, according to its website.
“This way we cannot see any way forward how to disembark the remaining 43 people who are really getting more worried every day about their future and possibility to disembark,” Rackete said.
“On top of that, of course we have the ship rolling in the seas every day, we have issues with dehydration and we really need to disembark these people to place of safety as soon as possible,” she added.
On June 12, the Sea-Watch 3 rescued 53 people -- 9 women, 39 men, two toddlers and three unaccompanied minors.
The Italian Coast Guard had granted permission to disembark 10 migrants after medical examinations, Sea-Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Many of the rescued need medical care and they suffer from dehydration due to seasickness. The disembarkation of a part of the group had a strong psychological effect on the people remaining on board. These people need a port of safety, and they need it now,” said Verena Wurz, a medic on board the Sea-Watch 3, in the statement.
In a separate statement on Wednesday, International Organization for Migration (IOM) Italy also said it's crucial to guarantee a safe port to the Sea-Watch 3.
In recent days, Sea-Watch 3 had been invited to make a route to Tripoli, but “Libya is still internationally considered unsafe [...] Furthermore, the situation remains extremely dangerous due to the continuous and heavy military clashes around Tripoli,” it added.
According to a report published by the IOM last week, more than 24,000 irregular migrants and refugees reached Europe via sea since the beginning of 2019. The report documented deaths of 555 migrants.
A total of 30,510 migrants died between 2014 and 2018 while making the treacherous journey to Europe, the UN agency had said in January 2019.
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