On July 22, a migrant charity organisation has filed a complaint against the captain of a cargo ship for allegedly causing manslaughter.
What happened?
The migrant charity ‘Proactiva Open Arms’ filed a complaint against the captain of a cargo ship for causing involuntary manslaughter.
The complaint was filed by the Spanish police when the captain of the cargo ship failed to help migrants adrift on a destroyed dinghy in the Mediterranean. The captain of the charity’s rescue boat has also planned to file a separate suit against the Libyan coastguard.
Migrants abandoned
The migrant rescue boat ‘Open Arms’ was 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 Mallorcan port of Palma after finding the migrants adrift about 80 miles (130km) off Libyan coast after being abandoned by the Libyan coastguard.
Oscar Camps, the Open Arms’ captain and founder of the NGO said, “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”.
Failed to help
The rescue vessel claimed that the cargo vessel and the Libyan coastguard failed to help the migrants.
Rome and the European Union have trained and financed the Libyan coastguard to halt the flow of migration across the Mediterranean.
The Spanish charity operates in the central Mediterranean, one of the deadliest areas of the sea and favoured by people smugglers operating out of Libya.
Charity boats have been locked out of Italian ports, the closest European landing point, since Italy’s new government vowed to crack down on illegal immigration from northern Africa.
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Source: Reuters
