ROME (AP) – A Spanish-flagged humanitarian ship on Sunday searched a port of safety for 265 migrants rescued its crew from the Mediterranean in recent days.
The charity Open Arms tweeted that the vessel safely brought on board 96 migrants who floated in a wooden boat without life jackets in international waters. The passengers, mostly from Eritrea, are said to include two women and 17 minors suffering from hypothermia.
In a separate operation two days before the rescue, Open Arms took on board 169 migrants, who had left Libyan shores, where many traffickers were based.
Traffickers launch vessels, many of them thin dinghies or troublesome fishing boats, full of people with migrants hoping to reach European shores to seek asylum. Some are fleeing conflict or persecution, but many of the hundreds of thousands of migrants rescued at sea in recent years are fleeing poverty and are therefore being denied asylum by European Union countries.
Italy and fellow EU nation Malta have often refused the permission of the humanitarian lifeboats, claiming that most migrants want to reach work or family members in Northern Europe. Italian and Maltese authorities have insisted that other European countries do their part.