Ship Docks in Italy; Drops Off 400 Migrants

A vessel operated by the NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) with 410 migrants on board arrived at an Italian port Thursday afternoon after over 1,200 migrants arrived in a single day last weekend at Lampedusa.

The MSF ship Geo Barents had picked up 410 migrants from seven boats off the coast of Libya. After being rejected to dock in Malta earlier this week, the ship headed to Sicily to drop off the migrants, who the NGO says are “exhausted”.

According to the Italian newspaper, another NGO, Alarm Phone, has also reported that there are another 80 migrants waiting to be picked up in the search and rescue (SAR) zone off the coast of Malta as of Wednesday afternoon.

Migrant arrivals continue in Italy, particularly on Lampedusa, located between Sicily and Tunisia, where 1,215 migrants arrived on Saturday.

Since the weekend, migrant arrivals have continued, with nearly 700 estimated to have landed on the island on Tuesday, largely from boats that originated from Tunisia.

The migrants themselves, however, are a mix of various nationalities, including Bangladeshis, Eritreans, Sudanese, Pakistanis, and Senegalese.

The number of migrants has largely overwhelmed the reception facilities on the island, which are only built to accommodate 250 people. As of Tuesday afternoon, nearly 1,400 migrants were on Lampedusa.