By V.E.K.Madhushani, Jadetimes News
Crew Uses Axes and Hammers in Dramatic Migrant Rescue
The captain of an aid ship has recounted the dramatic moment when his crew used axes and hammers to rescue migrants trapped in the cargo hold of a sinking wooden boat off the coast of Italy.
Ingo Veert, the captain of the RESQSHIP aid vessel, shared with the BBC's Today programme how his crew initially saved 50 migrants stranded on the deck of the distressed boat near the island of Lampedusa. They then had to smash through the ship to save two men trapped below deck. Tragically, 10 other men were found dead below deck.
According to aid workers, another 64 people are still missing at sea following the sinking of another vessel near the Italian region of Calabria. This second shipwreck occurred about 125 miles off the Italian coast. Out of the 12 survivors, one died after disembarking, as confirmed by the country's coastguard.
Survivors of the shipwreck near Lampedusa were handed over to the Italian coastguard and brought ashore on Monday morning, while the deceased were being towed to the island, as reported by RESQSHIP. The migrants had embarked on their perilous journey from Libya and Turkey, according to UN agencies. The Ansa news agency noted that each migrant had paid around $3,500 (£2,759) for the voyage.
Mr. Veert, who captains the Nadir rescue ship, described how, around 01:30 local time, he received reports of "a completely overloaded migrant boat" over the radio. By the time the rescue boat reached the vessel around 03:00, it "was almost sinking with water coming in and people completely nervous."
His crew provided lifejackets to the survivors and used an axe and a hammer to free two people trapped in the wreck. One survivor was found "almost not breathing" with a body temperature of 32C.
"We opened the deck and made a big hole to bring him out because he was stuck in with a bunch of other [dead] people... He was still alive," Mr. Veert told the BBC. "All are very young men between 18 and 25," he added.
The boat, which had departed from Libya, carried migrants from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, according to a joint statement by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the UN children's agency UNICEF.
In the separate incident near Calabria, aid agencies reported that a number of children were among those unaccounted for. Shakilla Mohammadi of MSF revealed that survivors told her 66 people were missing, including at least 26 children, some only a few months old.
"Entire families from Afghanistan are presumed dead. They left from Turkey eight days ago and had taken in water for three or four days. They told us they had no life vests and some vessels did not stop to help them," she said in a statement.
The Mediterranean remains the deadliest known migration route in the world. Since 2014, more than 23,500 migrants have died or gone missing in its waters, according to UN data.