A German humanitarian ship with well over 800 rescued migrants arrived in a Sicilian port on Sunday after being given permission by Italian authorities following days out at sea.
Sea-Eye, the charity group, said the vessel was assigned to the port of Trapani on Saturday evening. With most of the adults transferred to other ships for preventive quarantine against COVID-19, around 160 minors, including babies and kids younger than 4. Most were from countries in West Africa, Egypt or Morocco, an official from Save the Children in Italy said.
About half of the migrants rescued from a sinking wooden boat on the 4th of November, other passengers had been taken to safety from the sea in separate operations. Sea-Eye officials however lamented that Malta did not respond to the wooden boat’s distress signal in its own search area.
‘The EU states must urgently urge Malta to finally respond to emergency calls in Valletta and coordinate sea emergencies, regardless of skin colour or origin of the people who are involved’ it said in a post.
Another charity ship, Ocean Viking, with 306 migrants aboard, awaited assignment of a port near Lampedusa. Earlier Sunday, an Italian Coast Guard boat pulled up alongside the Ocean Viking to evacuate minors suffering health conditions.
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This follows a post by Peppi Azzopardi claiming that four men with experience of solitary confinement were being silenced. One of the four men facing confinement is Bojan Cmelik, the man who murdered Chetcuti.
‘When I visit my dad at his grave he can’t speak to me, or anybody else, because he is in an indefinite solitary confinement state due to death through murder at the hands of one of the prisoners you so nobly defend’ said Luke.
He expressed his sadness at telling his kids that their grandfather is dead and that his last memory of him was that of a medic jumping on his chest attempting to save his life.