60 migrants were thrown into the Mediterranean Sea after their small fibreglass boat capsized before being rescued by a Doctors Without Bordes lifeboat.
The Daily Mail reports that the migrants were fleeing Syria in the hope of reaching Europe. However, their boat got into difficulty and capsized on Saturday night. Luckily for them, a rescue team from Doctors Without Borders rescued them.
The migrants included women and children. Babies were clinging to their mothers, and scared children huddled together in the boat’s centre. Young men were perched on the corners of the small boat.
None of the passengers in the boat appeared to be wearing life jackets. Most were dressed in light clothes despite the low temperatures at sea at night.
An end of the boat started sinking into the sea while migrants were desperately trying to desperately trying to stay out of the water and waving to rescuers for help. The rescuers quickly passed out life jackets.
The boat then fully capsized. It pulled migrants into the cold water, and rescuers threw dozens of floating devices to save them. The migrants were then dragged onto rescue boats.
Although all the sixty migrants from the boat were saved, others were not so lucky as they lost their lives in the Mediterranean.
Charity rescue group SOS Mediterranean said on Thursday that at least 60 migrants are feared to have drowned on a vessel carrying them from Libya to Italy or Malta.
It rescued 25 people in fragile condition in coordination with the Italian Coast Guard on Wednesday. Two unconscious people were also flown to Lampedusa. The other 23 were exhausted, dehydrated, and burned from fuel on the boat.
On Friday, the crew of the charity ship Ocean Viking said they had rescued another 135 migrants, which included a pregnant woman and eight children, from a double-decker boat in Maltese search-and-rescue waters.
The International Organization for Migration says 227 people have lost their lives on the Mediterranean route this year through March 11, that is without counting the missing and the presumed dead.
Meanwhile, the Italian authorities are yet to reverse the law demanding ships to port after each rescue.
