Skip to main content

Dozens of migrants found dead on Mediterranean Sea

                                     Migrant boat used to illustrate the story [Photo credit: CBC]
No fewer than 25 people are believed to have died or are missing, including a pregnant woman, when a group of migrant boats got stranded at sea and was rescued off the Spanish coast on Thursday.

Briefing reporters in Geneva on Friday, Spokesperson for the UN High Commission Refugees (UNHCR), Elizabeth Throssell, said that colleagues in the field had reported that bodies had been found on two of the boats.

“You can imagine how traumatising that was for the people who were rescued,” Ms Throssell said.
According to reports, the migrants had sailed from North Africa.
On one of the six vessels found adrift in the Straits of Gibraltar, in the western Mediterranean Sea, 33 people had been rescued, but 12 had died and a further 12 were missing, UNHCR said.

On another of the boats, the UN refugee agency said 57 people had been on board, including one that had already died by the time of the rescue.
“There was a massive sea-swell that threw them into the water,” Ms Throssell said, adding that among the survivors was a mother and her two-year-old child who was evacuated by helicopter, after she was found to be suffering from hypothermia.
 
She added that many of the survivors were being held at detention centres at the Port of Almeria in Spain.
“Our implementing partner is there to provide the people with information and support and to help any potential protection and other needs and of course to promote access to the asylum process for those who may need it,” she said.

Delivering the latest overall statistics on the deadly Mediterranean migration route, UN migration agency (IOM) spokesperson, Joel Millman, said that as of December 19, 113,000 migrants had entered Europe by sea so far in 2018.


According to him, the figure is the lowest recorded in five years.
Recently, however, he said the death rate for migrants attempting to reach Spain, had tragically begun to tick upwards, with 769 fatalities registered on the western Mediterranean migration route.

“That’s only slightly more than half of all on the Central Mediterranean route from North Africa to Italy, but what’s remarkable is how rapidly that number has increased over the last three months,” he said.
Mr Millman said it was likely that there would be “more incidents like this” in the next 10 days. (NAN)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Banker arrested for defrauding a Chinese national to the tune of £79,000

                                         banker and Account Officer with Access Bank, Ojo Adefemi Adedoyin, who allegedly connived with one Favour Oriafoh, 30, to defraud a Hong Kong national, Xu Yue of £79,000 (Seventy Nine Thousand Pounds) has been arrested by EFCC. They were arrested by operatives of the Uyo Zonal Office of the Commission, following investigation into a petition received from the Hong Kong Police Force, that the young lady was a victim of romance scam traced to Nigeria. Admitting to the crime, Oriafoh who goes by the con name, Terry Mac, confessed that he opened a FaceBook account in the name, just to defraud whoever falls prey to his baits. “She had fallen in love with me as Terry Mac, a football agent,” he said. He thereafter took advantage of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Court denies Fred Ajudua bail again, remands him in Kirikiri prison

Justice Mojisola Dada of the Special Offences Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, on Thursday, July 5, 2018, refused a bail application filed by Fred Ajudua, a serial fraud suspect. Ajudua is facing trial alongside one Joseph Ochunor on a 12-count charge bordering on fraud and conspiracy. The defendants were alleged to have defrauded one Ziad Abu Zalaf of Technical International Limited in Germany of a sum of $550, 000 in 1993. At the last adjourned sitting on June 13, 2018, counsel to Ajudua, Norrisson Quakkers, SAN, had urged the court to grant bail to his client on health grounds. "We filed a seven-paragraph affidavit dated June 12, where we stated the medical situation of the defendant,” Quakkers had said. However, counsel to the prosecution, Temitope Banjo, who stood in for the lead counsel, Seidu Atteh, had told the court that Ajudua's claim of ill health was no longer a valid reason for him to be granted bail. The prosecution had further describe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Parents charged in horrific murder of their 4-year-old daughter who was boiled alive on New Year's day

                      A Michigan couple has been charged with one of the most heinous murders that is being referred to as the "worst child death case" ever after their 4-year-old daughter died in a "scalding bath" in Michigan. Candice Diaz, 24, and Brad Fields, 28, were charged with murder, torture, and child abuse and both denied bail. Gabrielle died on New Year's Day after living a life filled with abuse. Doctors say she suffered multiple injuries, including severe burns on her limbs after she was in a bath with scalding hot water. A medical practitioner, who examined Gabrielle Barrett's body, described the alleged murder as the "worst child death case" in 27 years of his career, according to a court document. The document also allegedly states that the four-year-old was burned so badly that her big toe fell off, and police found melted skin in the drain. Gabrielle's mother, Diaz, and her partner, Fi...
Post a Comment
Read more