100 Migrants Rescued by German NGO Sea-Watch

On Friday July 30, the German NGO Sea-Watch announced that it had rescued approximately 100 migrants in the Mediterranean over the course of the night, many of them were injured, with several suffering from serious “fuel burns,” chemical burns produced by exposure to gasoline mixed with seawater. 

In recent months, migrant boat departures from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and other regions of Europe have grown. 

More than 1,100 individuals have died in the Mediterranean this year as they were fleeing conflict and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. 

The vessel Sea-Watch 3 rescued 33 migrants from two boats intercepted by the Libyan coast guard in the Mediterranean on Thursday, according to the NGO. 

Nine unaccompanied juveniles, three of them were extremely small children, and a mother who was seven months pregnant were among them. According to a Reuters witness aboard the Sea-Watch 3, the rescued hailed from South Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, the Ivory Coast, and Mali. 

According to the witness, many migrants were already on board a coast guard ship but jumped overboard  when they saw the NGO vessel approaching. The crew of the Sea-Watch 3 got them all to re-board. 

Sea-Watch 3 rescued approximately 60 individuals from an overcrowded wooden boat within the Libyan search and rescue zone in a second operation early Friday. According to the Reuters witness, the majority of those rescued were Libyans.