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A rescue boat funded by British street artist Banksy is stranded at sea after the crew assisted 130 migrants, and requests for help from European authorities were ignored, the ship’s leaders said.
The ship, named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, secretly set sail on August 18 from the Spanish port of Burriana, near Valencia, and is now in the central Mediterranean, where, on Thursday, it rescued 89 people, including 14 women and four children. It now protects more than 200 people off the coast of Libya.
On Friday, the crew of European activists responded to an emergency call from Moonbird, an aircraft monitoring the ship of migrants in distress in the central Mediterranean, which had detected a boat that was not moving and was entering water.
“Louise Michel sped forward,” said a spokesman for the ship. “We distributed life jackets to 130 people to ensure the situation.”
The inflatable boat is located in the search and rescue area of Malta, dangerously overcrowded and filling with water, with a body on board and several others suffering fuel burns and injuries, after having spent several days at sea.
On Saturday, Banksy posted a short video on his personal Instagram account and accompanied by a comment.: ‘“Like most people who succeed in the art world, I bought a yacht to sail the Mediterranean.”
“It is a French navy ship that we turned into a lifeboat because EU authorities deliberately ignore calls for help from ‘non-Europeans’.”
The video ends with the words All Black Lives Matter.
The passengers had previously contacted the Alarm Phone, an emergency hotline that helps refugees at sea, and requested immediate rescue. Activists from Alarm Phone and Moonbird alerted European authorities to the ship in distress.
The crew claimed that neither the Maltese nor the Italian authorities reacted adequately.
The Louise Michel is safeguarding the 130 passengers, as the ship already carries 89 migrants and can accommodate a maximum of 120 passengers on board. The ship has moved dozens of other migrants on board – the most vulnerable – and deployed life rafts for the others while they wait for help.
The crew said on Twitter: “We cannot move safely and no one comes to our aid. The rescued people have experienced extreme trauma. We need immediate help. ”
Activists declared that people had been left alone in a European search and rescue zone and warned: “Don’t let it become a death count. Do your work. Rescue them. “
Lea Reisner, Louise Michel’s chief operating officer, said: “People have been sitting in a mixture of salt water and fuel for days.” She accused the European states of not doing their job, saying: “They deny responsibility while we try to keep everyone alive … we need immediate help.”
Moonbird’s Neeske Beckmann said: “We were surprised when we saw the rubber boat – it was incredibly crowded and the people on board were trying to get the water out of the boat with their bare hands.
“We knew that it was a serious emergency situation and we decided to send an emergency relief to all the authorities and actors in the surroundings. The responsible European authorities did not react to our distress call and only Louise Michel responded to this serious distress case. “
Painted in bright pink and featuring a Banksy artwork depicting a girl in a life jacket holding a heart-shaped safety buoy, the Louise Michel sails under a German flag. The 31-meter motor yacht, formerly owned by French customs authorities, is smaller but considerably faster than other NGO rescue boats.
Claire Faggianelli, an activist who prepared Louise Michel for her first mission, saw the project as a wake-up call for Europe. “We really want to try to awaken the conscience of Europe and say, ‘Look, we’ve been yelling at you for years. There is something that should not be happening on the borders of Europe and you close your eyes. Awake! ‘”, Said.
So far in 2020, more than 500 refugees and migrants are known to have died in the Mediterranean Sea, and the actual number is estimated to be considerably higher.
On Wednesday, 45 people, including five children, were killed when their ship’s engine exploded off Libya, in the country’s deadliest shipwreck this year, the UN said. More than 19,500 migrants have survived the Mediterranean crossing along the central sea route this year and have reached Italy or Malta.
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