• Smugglers shot escaping migrants in Libya -MSF
A baby boy named Miracle has been born on board the Aquarius, a humanitarian ship, as the tide of migrants risking sea crossings from Libya to Italy has increased as the weather has improved.
There have been more than 1,800 migrants rescued by humanitarian ships, and Italy’s navy and coastguard vessels over the past three days, and one body was recovered, an Italian coastguard official said.
The Aquarius is a rescue ship run by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders (MSF), which brought ashore 70 migrants in Catania, Sicily, yesterday. The Aquarius set off again later in the day for the waters off the coast of Libya.
Migrants rescued by the Aquarius spoke of horrific conditions and violence in Libya, including the mother of the baby born at the weekend. “Both the mother and baby are doing very well,” Amoin Soulemane, the midwife on the Aquarius, said in a statement. Miracle, weighing 2.8 kg, was the sixth baby born on the rescue ship, but the first this year, King said.
When Miracle was brought onto deck by the midwife, the migrants on board celebrated his birth by singing and dancing, a far cry from the conditions they said they had came from in Libya.
The mother, whose name was not given, told MSF she had been “held captive, beaten, given very little food and extorted for money for release” during the year she was in Libya. She was eventually able to escape from her captors, and on Thursday she set out to sea on a rubber boat with 68 others.
Meanwhile, people smugglers opened fire on a group of 100 migrants attempting to flee their clutches in northern Libya, aid agency MSF reported. Twenty-five injured survivors received hospital treatment in the town of Bani Walid.
MSF said they reported at least 15 people were killed and dozens more, mostly women, were left behind. Libya has become a key point on the route of sub-Saharan African migrants trying to reach Europe by sea.
MSF said the survivors receiving treatment are mostly teenagers from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, who were attempting to seek asylum in Europe. They reported being sold between groups of human traffickers during their time in captivity, which lasted up to three years. The attempted breakout happened during the evening of 23 May, the agency reported.
Seven of the survivors required treatment for serious gunshot wounds and broken bones in Bani Walid General Hospital, while 18 received first aid for minor injuries. They have now been transferred to detention centres or hospital in Tripoli.
“All necessary measures must be taken to ensure patients can access the required treatment and to protect these extremely vulnerable people from further harm after surviving such atrocities. Arbitrary detention cannot be a solution. They are in urgent need of protection and assistance,” said Christophe Biteau, MSF’s head of mission in Libya.