This morning, our shift team received a confirmation about the safe arrival of 150 people on Lampedusa. Some of them made it with the assistance of the Italian coastguard. We were contacted by one of the boats that carried 27 people, including 8 women and 6 children. The boat departed from Zuwarah in the early evening on Wednesday.
According to Mare Junio (the rescue vessel operated by Italian NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans), the information was relayed to the responsible authorities on Wednesday. However the authorities reacted to the distress call with a delay of 9 hours: „the Maltese and Italian authorities didn’t coordinate within those 9 hours nor issued any warning for the entire period of time.“
These people had to endure the unimaginable horrors of being on a rubber boat for more than 30 hours in the high seas. We want to stress once again that because of the current European repressive border regime, the rescue activities are always delayed, putting travelers under extreme danger, which is unacceptable.“
This is the link to the facebook post: WTM Alarmphone | 09.11.2018