ON BOARD THE OCEAN VIKING: The Ocean Viking charity ship rescued more than 80 migrants off the coast of Libya on Saturday, according to Doctors without Borders (MSF), which operates the vessel along with the French charity SOS Mediterranee.
The migrants, mainly Sudanese men and adolescents, were picked up after the Ocean Viking rescued 85 people including four children on Friday.
The white rubber dinghy was spotted after a plane was seen repeatedly flying over it, MSF mission head Jay Berger said.
European forces regularly patrol the central Mediterranean looking for boats leaving the Libyan coast, particularly during mild weather.
The Ocean Viking sailed towards the area where the plane seemed to be focusing on and found the dinghy, Berger said.
“But the plane never tried to communicate with us,” he added.
Some 170 migrants, all from sub-Saharan Africa, are now on board the Ocean Viking, which left Marseille on Sunday. An AFP journalist is also on board.
TRUCE IN FIGHTING
Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, who has taken a hard line against migrants and this week sparked a political crisis by pulling his support from the country’s governing coalition, has sent a warning to Oslo, where the rescue ship is registered.
“Italy is not legally bound, nor disposed to taken in clandestine, unidentified migrants from on board the Ocean Viking,” he wrote.
He has said the same about more than 100 migrants on Spanish charity Proactiva’s Open Arms ship, which Hollywood star Richard Gere boarded on Friday.
Norway’s Minister of Justice and Immigration, Joran Kallmyr, said on public television that the migrants should be “transported back to Africa, either to Tunisia or Libya”. “They should not be sent to Europe because then this action will be an extension of the refugee route instead of a rescue operation,” Kallmyr said.
Meanwhile, Libya’s government has said it is willing to accept a truce in fighting around Tripoli for Eid al Adha that starts on Sunday but on four conditions.
HUMANITARIAN TRUCE
The United Nations had called on the UN-recognised Government of National Accord and forces of strongman Khalifa Haftar to commit to a humanitarian truce by midnight on Friday.
Late on Friday, the GNA said it was keen to “ease the suffering of the citizens and allow rescue workers to accomplish their mission”. Therefore it said it “accepted a humanitarian truce for Eid al Adha”, which will be celebrated in Libya on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
But it listed “four conditions”.
It said the ceasefire must be observed “in all combat zones, with a cessation of direct and indirect fire and movement of troops”.
It said the truce must include “a ban on flights and reconnaissance overflights across the entire (Libyan) airspace as well as a halt to flights from airbases”.
The GNA had also called on the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL) to “ensure the implementation of the truce and note any breaches”.
— AFP
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
