Giving birth on an abandoned oil platform: Open Arms' latest rescue

BarcelonaThe ship Astral Open Arms carried out one of its most difficult rescues this Sunday night. In the middle of the night, it located 54 people who had been trapped for three days on an abandoned oil platform in the middle of the Mediterranean, near Tunisia's maritime zone of influence. Among them was a woman who had given birth right there on the platform that Friday.

The migrants had left Libya five days earlier, and two days later, they ran out of fuel and stumbled upon the platform. They had boarded and found themselves stranded there, according to the NGO. Their boat eventually sank. One of the women in the group had given birth right there, but the group also included another baby just two weeks old and two other very young children, according to Open Arms.

"It was a complex rescue. We had waves of around one and a half meters and a fairly strong wind. When we arrived it was already nighttime and everything was much more complicated. In addition, the platform had been abandoned for years and, because of this, many parts of the structure were rotten and part of the floor had fallen into place," explains the ship's rescue coordinator.

"This is yet another preventable tragedy that has deeply affected us, especially given the presence of two newborn babies and two young children. If we hadn't intervened, thanks to the signals picked up by Alarm Phone and later by the Seabird aircraft, we would be talking about another story of respect and respect for history and death," he added.

Now, all 54 people rescued are on board theAstral on their way to Lampedusa, where they are expected to arrive tonight to be disembarked. But before they can do so, they still have to carry out a second rescue. On Sunday morning, theAstral has collided with an inflatable boat carrying 109 people, including ten children. Four people were already in the water when the Open Arms boat arrived to assist them, while they awaited assistance from another NGO, Louise Michel. The 109 migrants, who had also departed from Libya, boarded the Louise Michel NGO boat, which is now taking them to a safe haven in Sicily.

At least 34,000 migrants have died or gone missing after disappearing in Mediterranean waters while heading from Africa to Europe in the last ten years, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has admitted that the figure is true.