Twenty-three migrants from the Sos
Medtirranee rescue NGO Ocean Viking were disembarked in Catania
as a precautionary measure and the ship continued on to Ancona,
the port initially assigned, with on board 359 shipwrecked
migrants.
They were saved during four rescues carried out by the
humanitarian ship of the NGO: 265 men, 31 women, 20 accompanied
minors with their families and 43 unaccompanied minors.
Also on the ship were the 25 surviving migrants rescued by the
crew of the humanitarian ship after their dinghy sank from
Libya.
According to the dramatic accounts of the shipwrecked survivors,
about 60 of their companions died.
Two migrants had been transported by helicopter from Ocean
Viking Friday due to the seriousness of their condition; one
died at the hospital in Agrigento, while the other is
hospitalised in Palermo.
The Ocean Viking had been assigned to the port of Ancona, a
mid-Adriatic port, in a move that was criticised as being too
far away by migrant and human rights groups.
Due to the general seriousness of the migrants' conditions, many
of them with burns and suffering from days at sea adrift, the
crew and even opposition politicians had asked Interior Minister
Matteo Piantedosi to have the migrants disembark at a port
nearer than Ancona to prevent the situation from worsening.
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