Nearly 9,000 migrants rescued: IOM

GENEVA: Nearly 9,000 mainly African migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean this past long weekend after being put by smugglers in Libya onto unseaworthy boats heading toward Italy, UN aid agencies said on Tuesday.

The migrants, many from Nigeria and Senegal with some from Bangladesh, are among an estimated 20,000 held by criminal gangs in irregular detention centres in Libya, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said.

On release, they pay to board the overcrowded boats, often just inflated rubber vessels that could not cross the Mediterranean, in the hope of starting a new life in Europe.

“It is obvious that better spring weather has encouraged smugglers to take people from their detention centres,” IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle told a news briefing in Geneva. “The smugglers have clearly taken them to sea and pushed them out in the hope and belief that they would be rescued.”

More than 35 vessels, including private charity boats, the European Union border agency Frontex, the Italian and Libyan coast guards and 12 merchant ships were involved in rescuing dozens of vessels, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

“This was an overwhelming search and rescue activity by all sides involved,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said. “We repeat our calls on Europe, on the governments, to be out there saving lives. NGOs have been a great help in terms of filling up that vacuum,” he added.