Nearly 8,500 people rescued from Mediterranean over Easter weekend

Nearly 8,500 people were rescued from the Mediterranean sea over Easter weekend, UN aid agency International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on Tuesday.

According to IOM, a total of 8,360 asylum seekers were saved from dinghies and ex-fishing boats by the Italian coast guard, EU border patrol agency Frontex, and humanitarian NGOs operating rescue vessels.

The Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) was involved in the rescue of approximately 1,800 people from 13 individual vessels in distress in a major overnight operation on Saturday.

Women, children and medical cases took precedence as 453 people were brought safely on board the Phoenix, as the vessel’s capacity was reached, leaving 1,000 or so stranded on the vessels.

MOAS crew remained on site to supervise them to ensure that they remained safe.

MOAS also recovered seven bodies, including that of an 8-year-old boy.

Around 32,800 migrants have been brought to land since the beginning of 2017, with the total number of arrivals predicted to reach about 36,000 in the next two days, IOM said.

So far this year, at least 900 migrants have died or have gone missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean according to IOM’s Missing Migrants Project.

MOAS noted that 800 and 500 people died in April 2015 and 2016 respectively in mass tragedies while crossing the Mediterranean.

“While we mourn the lives lost this weekend, the MOAS team in consoled by the knowledge that a third consecutive tragedy was avoided thanks to the tireless, coordinated and dedicated efforts of the search-and-rescue community,” MOAS said in a statement.

“European governments need to show more solidarity to the humanitarian organisations that are working on the front line of this humanitarian crisis,” MOAS director Regina Catrambone said. “Border control is not the solution, we need to allow people to arrive in safe and legal ways – this is the only way to fight human trafficking.”