Baby dies on rescue boat after Mediterranean shipwreck

A six-month-old boy who survived a shipwreck has died onboard a rescue boat in the central Mediterranean.

The child, named Joseph and originally from Guinea, was saved by rescuers from the Spanish non-governmental organisation Open Arms late on Wednesday morning after the dinghy in which he was travelling with more than 100 migrants capsized off Libya’s coast. At least five other asylum seekers died as a result of the incident.

‘‘Despite the enormous commitment of our medical team, a six-month-old baby has just died. We requested an urgent evacuation for him and other people in serious conditions, but he didn’t make it. How much pain and sorrow!” Open Arms wrote on Twitter.

The dinghy had allegedly left Sabratha, Libya, but began to deflate after a few hours. After a patrol aircraft from the European agency Frontex raised the alarm, the Open Arms ship promptly intervened.

“When our rescuers arrived, they found themselves in front of a dramatic scene,” Riccardo Gatti, the president of Open Arms Italy, told the Guardian. “The boat had practically imploded and hundreds of people found themselves in the water, in the open sea – some were children.”

Judging Joseph’s condition to be serious, the rescuers asked the Maltese and Italian authorities to evacuate him for medical treatment. However, when the Italian coastguard arrived, Joseph had already died.

“We did all we could to rescue those onboard,” said the medical team of the NGO Italian Emergency, operating onboard the Open Arms. “All this took place just a few kilometres away from an indifferent Europe. Instead of preparing a structured search and rescue system, they instead continue to bury their heads in the sand, pretending not to see the cemetery that the Mediterranean Sea has become.”

On Tuesday, another child, whose age is unknown, was among 13 people who died in a separate shipwreck off Libya’s coast. Eleven survivors were taken back to Libya.

‘‘Change is necessary now, more than ever, to guarantee effective rescue at sea and prevent new tragedies,’’ said Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesperson for the UN Migration Agency, IOM.

In 2020 alone, “over 10,300 migrants have been intercepted at sea and sent back to dangerous Libya,” Di Giacomo said.

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According to IOM figures, since the beginning of October, at least 30 migrants have died at sea while trying to reach Italy.

Since the beginning of 2020, about 575 people have died in the central Mediterranean, but the real number is estimated to be considerably higher, according to IOM.

Open Arms is currently the only NGO rescue boat operating in the Central Mediterranean. Many other rescue boats are blocked in Italian ports because officials refuse to authorise their departure.

“Is the European Union watching?” wrote Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF), on Twitter. “Step the search and rescue capacity up, or let us save lives.”