29 migrants die of hypothermia on Italian patrol boat
Twenty-nine stranded migrants rescued from a drifting boat off Libya by Italian coast guard patrol vessels have died of hypothermia after remaining 18 hours on a vessel’s deck en route to the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Two Italian patrol vessels picked up 105 migrants late Sunday night from an inflatable boat adrift in stormy sea conditions and near freezing temperatures, the coast guard announced in a Monday statement.
The new fatalities renewed criticism against the Italian government’s decision to halt its full-scale maritime search-and rescue missions in 2014.
Battered by high winds and mist on the way to Lampedusa, the 29 died ddue to being kept on the deck of one of the vessels for long.
This is while one survivor was transported by helicopter to Sicily in critical condition, according to Lampedusa’s chief healthcare.
The official further added that the dead were all young men from sub-Saharan Africa, although he did not specify their nationalities.
Meanwhile, Lampedusa Mayor Giusi Nicolini, blamed the latest sea tragedy on an end to of Italy's search-and-rescue mission, known as Mare Nostrum.
Since then, no navy ships capable of keeping large numbers of migrants below deck have patrolled the waters near the Libyan coast.
"Mare Nostrum was an emergency solution to a humanitarian crisis, so closing it was a huge and intolerable step backward," Nicolini said.
This is while human rights organizations have repeatedly cautioned that ending the rescue operations would endanger lives.
Mare Nostrum was abandoned by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's government partly due the 114-million-euro ($129 million) cost of the mission in its first year. Renzi has not commented on Monday's events.
Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta initiated Mare Nostrum after more than 360 men, women and children -- mostly Eritreans -- drowned when their overcrowded boat flipped over within sight of Lampedusa in October 2013.
According to the United Nations refugee agency, 160,000 migrants made the sea crossing to Italy between January and November 2014 and 40,000 more landed in Greece.
MFB/NT
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