Nearly 1,000 More Stranded Migrants Rescued from Misrata by IOM as Situation Deteriorates by Hour
Close to 1,000 migrants stranded at the port in Misrata for weeks
on end have been rescued by IOM by boat amidst worsening conditions
as fighting in the city escalates.
The group of 971 migrants, 650 of them Ghanaians but also
including various other migrant nationalities including Filipinos
and Ukrainians and comprising also women and children, left Misrata
on an IOM-chartered boat in the early hours of the morning, today,
18 April.
Among the rescued group are 100 Libyans, 23 of whom are war
casualties, including a child shot in the face and an amputee.
IOM staff on the boat say there are four other urgent medical
cases on board and that having a group of surgeons from the
International Medical Corps (IMC) on the mission has allowed the
Organization to evacuate some of those injured by the conflict.
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"">Libya Migration Crisis Website
"We wanted to be able to take more people out but it was not
possible. Although the exchange of fire subsided while we were
boarding with an eerie silence at one point, we had a very limited
time to get the migrants and Libyans on board the ship and then
leave," says Jeremy Haslam, who is leading the IOM rescue
operations on the boat.
The boat, the Ionian Spirit, is now en route to the eastern
Libyan port city of Benghazi, where it should arrive later today.
In the coming days, those migrants able to travel will be taken by
IOM by road to the Libyan-Egyptian border at Salum from where they
will be assisted to return to their home countries.
However, IOM is deeply distressed at the fate of at least 4,000
migrants who still remain at the port in Misrata, awaiting
evacuation assistance. Among them are more than 3,000 Nigeriens,
hundreds of Sudanese, Chadians and migrants from other
nationalities, including women and children.
With the situation in the port city worsening by the hour, it is
becoming increasingly difficult for IOM to carry out further rescue
missions.
"We have a very, very small window to get everyone out. We do
not have the luxury of having days, but hours. Instead of carrying
out several further missions that will go into next week, what we
now need is to have a ship that can accommodate at least 4,000
people and do one last mission that can take everyone out at the
same time immediately," says IOM’s Regional Representative
for the Middle East, Pasquale Lupoli.
"We urgently need donors and governments to put such a ship and
funds at our disposal to carry out a mission on this scale. Every
hour counts and the migrants still in Misrata cannot survive much
longer like this."
The rescue today is the second such mission carried out by IOM,
both funded by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and
Civil Protection Office (ECHO). Last Friday, the IOM-chartered boat
successfully rescued nearly 1,200 migrants from Misrata to Benghazi
from where virtually all of them were later taken by road to Salum
for further assistance.
After nearly two months of living out in the open or in
containers in the port area, with no access to clean water, medical
care and little food, the migrants are extremely weak and
dehydrated.
As on the first mission, the IOM-chartered boat took nearly 500
tons of humanitarian aid to Misrata on 16 April. The aid comprised
medical as well as food and non-food items and four ambulances
donated by the IMC, Qatar, Libyan civil society organizations and
the U.A.E Red Crescent Society.
For further information, please contact:
Jemini Pandya
IOM Geneva
Tel: +41 22 717 9486
+41 79 217 3374
E-mail:
"mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int
or
Jumbe Omari Jumbe
IOM Geneva
Tel: +41 22 717 9486
+41 79 217 3374
E-mail:
"mailto:jjumbe@iom.int">jjumbe@iom.int