Migrant NGO files manslaughter claim against cargo ship

World
Europe

A Spanish NGO has filed a complaint for involuntary manslaughter against a cargo ship, and says it plans to sue the Libyan lifeguard as well, for failing to rescue distressed migrants in the Mediterranean.

A rescue boat operated by NGO Proactiva Open Arms docked in Spain on Saturday carrying the bodies of a woman and a four-year-old boy as well as one woman who was found alive floating on the remains of a dinghy off the coast of Libya last week.

The boat took four days to arrive in the Spanish port of Palma after finding the migrants adrift about 130 kilometers off Libya's coast, having been abandoned by the Libyan coast guard, the charity said.

A woman rescued from the Mediterranean waves to rescuers on board the NGO Proactiva Open Arms rescue boat in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, July 21, 2018. /VCG Photo

The NGO’s founder and captain of the Open Arms boat, Oscar Camps, told a news conference on Saturday: "We have filed a complaint against the captain of the [merchant ship] Triades for failing to help and for involuntary manslaughter and we'll also do it against the captain of the Libyan patrol."

Open Arms claims the ship's crew saw the migrant dingy but failed to provide help.

It also said the Libyan lifeguard left the three migrants to float amid the shattered remains of the raft after the two women and the boy had refused to board their patrol ship.

Libya's coast guard disputed the account on Tuesday but offered no explanation for how the three migrants came to be stranded on the remains of the dinghy.

The Triades is currently moored in the Libyan port of Misrata, where officials could not be reached for comment.

Proactiva Open Arms operates in the central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest areas of the sea and favored by people smugglers operating out of Libya.

Its rescue boat found itself at the center of the European migrant crisis at the start of the month when it rescued 60 migrants off Libya and brought them to Spain after being refused docking in Italy and Malta.

(Top picture: Oscar Camps, the founder of Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, attends a news conference in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, July 21, 2018. /VCG Photo)

Source(s): Reuters