Ben Cowles
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AN AID boat carrying 311 rescued migrants was given permission to set sail for Spain today after Italy and other Mediterranean countries ignored its calls for help.
Proactiva Open Arms, a non-profit organisation rescuing and providing first aid to migrants in the central Mediterranean Sea, saved 313 migrants from “certain death at sea” in waters near Libya on Friday night.
311 personas llevan 24h a bordo. Hace mucho frío.
Entrará agua en la cubierta si el mar se agita.
Hay solo 2 baños.
Estamos en alta mar.
Faltan medicamentos, mantas.
Comida básica sólo para 2 o 3 días.
Cada minuto navegando es una dificultad añadida.
Es Navidad #OpenArms pic.twitter.com/L7tszhFPSp— Proactiva Open Arms (@openarms_fund) December 22, 2018
A mother and newborn child were airlifted to a hospital in Malta by a coastguard helicopter yesterday. However, the charity said the country refused to help the rest of those on board.
Underneath a picture of the migrants in a dinghy posted on Twitter early yesterday morning, Proactiva Open Arms said: “[We have] no port to disembark and Malta [has refused] to give us food.”
Another post read: “It's very cold. Water will enter the deck if the sea is stirred. There are only two bathrooms. We’re on the high seas. There’s no medicine, blankets. Basic food only for two or three days ... It’s Christmas.”
Spain’s Foreign Ministry said Malta denied the aid boat permission to dock and the boat’s calls to Italy, France, Tunisia and Libya have gone unanswered.
Yesterday afternoon Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini wrote on Twitter: “Italian ports are closed for the traffickers of human beings and for those who help them, the pacchia” [an Italian term denoting an easy task] “is over.”
Many of those on board claim they were tortured in Libya. One of the migrants told their rescuers: “Had it been the Libyan coastguard who came to rescue us instead of you, we would have thrown ourselves into the water.”
