Tears and pain as migrants are rescued, others die on Mediterranean sea

                 

A photographer who was onboard a migrant vessel from which four young African men of Eritrean descent were discovered dead, said people inside the vessel’s hold were packed so tightly it would have been easy for survivors not to realise that they had died.

“People are packed so tightly in the hold,” said Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) photographer Mathieu Willcocks, “they wouldn’t realise if someone was simply sleeping on their friend’s shoulder or unconscious.”

He was resuscitated and survived

Two other men were found in critical condition. One was given CPR by a search-and-rescue crew member and an emergency doctor on board and stabilised enough to be evacuated with an Italian Navy helicopter. The other migrant was stabilised by emergency staff and is still on the Responder.

A man grieving over the loss of a friend

The bodies were found in three separate compartments of the small wooden vessel from which 352 migrants were rescued early on Tuesday July 12, not far from the Libyan coast by MOAS.

Still in shock

The rescued included 150 women and 20 children, the majority being Eritrean.

Tuesday’s deaths are sadly not a new phenomenon. A total of 2,942 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in 2016 alone, as of July 11, 2016 according to reports. 

So far, 2,521 migrants have died along the Central Mediterranean route as of July 10, 2016, making up approximately 85 percent of all deaths in the region.