More than 100 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in the past 3 days

Doctors Without Borders accused the EU of the tragedies and “its criminal policies of non-assistance and blocking of rescue ships”.

More than 100 people have drowned in the central Mediterranean in the past 72 hours when trying to reach European shores, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) reported on Friday 13 November, which accused EU members of what is happening. .

“The responsibility for these deaths falls directly on the EU Member States, as a specific and inevitable result of their criminal policies of non-assistance and blocking of NGO rescue ships,” the NGO head of humanitarian affairs said in a statement. MSF, Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

In his opinion, it is “utterly hypocritical” that European governments and the European Commission “say they are distressed by this terrible loss of life”, because “shipwrecks like these are the direct result of their management of migration”.

These latest shipwrecks – he observed – occurred while six humanitarian search and rescue boats were present “held by the Italian and European authorities”.

In this regard, he stressed that almost 700 people died trying to cross the Mediterranean from Libya this year and at least 267 of those deaths occurred after Sea Watch 4, one of those humanitarian ships in which MSF has a team. doctor, was blocked on 19 September in the port of Paleremo by the Italian authorities.

On the other hand, he explained that in recent weeks the number of those who have been intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard while trying to leave the country by sea has skyrocketed, with almost 1,000 between 3 and 9 November.

The head of MSF programs for Libya, William Hennequin, stressed that “the leaders of the states that promote and support these interceptions and repatriations should see for themselves the result of their policies”.

Hennequin referred to the “inhuman conditions” in detention centers, which are “only a small part of the deadly cycle of violence in which thousands of vulnerable people are trapped”.

For example, he said a 15-year-old Eritrean teenager was shot dead last week after gunmen broke into a shelter in Tripoli.

“Murders, kidnappings, extreme violence, including torture to extort money from prisoners and their families remain daily threats that will continue to force these vulnerable people to cross the sea to escape this abuse in the absence of other safer forms of foul play”, he pointed out.