ROMA (ITALPRESS) – In the late afternoon of yesterday, Saturday, March 14, a boat with dozens of migrants has sunk in the waters off Lampedusa. A two-year-old child from Sierra Leone was lost, while the military of the Coast Guard, with the Cp327, recovered and rescued 64 people, including 14 women and 10 minors. Among the rescued migrants are people from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Sierra Leone. At the hotspot in Lampedusa, the auditions of the survivors are currently underway. The Ivorians are telling that for the crossing they paid 300 euros and that they want to stay in Italy. The research, still in progress, is carried out by the Cp271 motorboat and a Manta aircraft that flies over the shipwreck. The mother of the little one, saved together with the other survivors, was landed on the night on the major of the Pelagie Islands. The boat, about nine metres long, quickly unearthed a few miles from the coast, making recovery operations difficult. The missing child had left with the mother and group of migrants from Sfax, in Tunisia, on Friday 13 March.
“Once again a 2-year-old child has paid the price of policies that favour the defence of borders against the rescue of human lives.” Save the Children says this, the Organization that has been fighting for more than 100 years to save children and children at risk and guarantee them a future, commenting on the shipwreck that took place off Lampedusa, in which a small native of the Sierra Leone traveled with her mother is dispersed. Save’s team, in collaboration with the Red Cross and other organizations present in Lampedusa, is guaranteeing the immediate needs of the survivors. Save the Children emphasizes that this episode – which unfortunately adds to many others – shows once again that every delay, omission or political choice in this direction puts at risk people fleeing from poverty, violence and persecution, constituting a very serious responsibility that falls on the EU and its Member States. It is not possible to silently witness the loss of human lives, including many children, over 100 each year in the last three years.
The Organization strongly reiterates the request to open regular and secure channels to Europe, which ensure respect for human rights, and to activate a coordinated and structured research and rescue system in the Mediterranean to save people in danger, operating in compliance with international law and giving evidence of that solidarity that is a founding value of the European Union. In addition, he adds Save the Children, sanction and limit the action of boats – whether they are non-governmental organizations or merchants – that save lives in the Mediterranean, in compliance with international maritime law, as provided by some rules contained in the immigration bill, launched recently by the Council of Ministers, is dangerous and puts thousands of lives at risk. Measures of this kind, if confirmed by Parliament, would represent a serious step back in the protection of children, girls and migrant adolescents, especially if they are alone and deprived of adult figures of reference or survivors of shipwrecks.
– Photo of repertoire IPA Agency –
(ITALPRESS).
