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full screen Migrants are evacuated from an inflatable boat by the aid organization SOS Méditeranée. Picture from last Tuesday. Photo: Johanna De Tessieres/AP/TT
Around 60 people who left Libya a week ago in an inflatable boat died during the journey across the Mediterranean, according to the boat’s survivors according to the organization SOS Méditerranée.
The rescue vessel Ocean Viking discovered the boat on Wednesday. At the time, it had 25 people on board. Two of them were unconscious and were evacuated by the Italian military for treatment. The other 23 were dehydrated, exhausted and had burns from the boat’s fuel, according to SOS Méditerranée.
All the survivors are men and boys from Senegal, Mali and Gambia, and twelve of them are minors, says Francesco Creazzo, spokesperson for the organization.
At departure, there were 85 people on board, including some women and at least one small child, those who survived the trip have said. Creazzo adds that the survivors are so traumatized that they have not yet been able to fully describe the course of events.
Since January 1 this year, at least 227 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to a tally by the UN migration agency IOM, which does not include the latest fatality.