30 March 2012

‘Left to die’ boat reveals collective failure to rescue migrants at sea

This week, a committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe released a draft resolution and report on the fateful voyage of what has been dubbed the ‘left to die’ boat – a story that was first picked up by The Guardian. The tragedy involved a boat carrying 72 Sub-Saharan migrants who fled from the conflict in Libya in March 2011, but ran into trouble and, despite a distress call by satellite from the ship’s Ghanaian “captain” to an Eritrean priest living in Italy who alerted the Rome Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (Rome MRCC), eventually washed up on the shores of Libya 15 days later. By then, only 11 people were still alive. (more…)