issuing time:
The humanitarian vessel “Viking of the Seas” leased by the non-governmental organization “SOS Mediterranean” left the military port of Toulon in southern France today. It is reported that after making a technical anchor in another port, it will go to the Mediterranean coast again to search and rescue refugees who have fled at sea. Doctors Without Borders also announced the restart of rescue ships to the Mediterranean. All 230 migrants on board the “Viking of the Seas” have gone ashore and have been resettled in France. France has started the immigration screening process.
France took over the “Viking of the Seas” 230 migrants ashore operation completed last night this morning, and the rescue ship has also left Toulon. The vessel will stop at another French port for a few weeks for technical replenishment before heading to the Libyan coast again.
After 20 days at sea looking for a port of disembarkation, all 234 migrants rescued by the Mediterranean SOS group between the Libyan and Italian coasts were able to disembark, 230 of them in the military port of Toulon and four initially on the French island of Corsica. They were transferred to mainland France. 189 of them, including 23 women and 13 minors, are currently temporarily housed in a resort on the Jeans peninsula, about 20 kilometers from Toulon, where a closed “international waiting area” has been opened for them. They are not considered to be in France for the time being. The men are barred from leaving the site until an initial assessment of their asylum claims is carried out.
For now, everyone has expressed a desire to make an asylum claim, according to French local authorities. But before that, they must pass security checks, particularly by France’s internal intelligence services, and then be interviewed by France’s Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra), whose staff is expected to begin examining their applications on Saturday Whether the information meets the requirements.
The 44 unaccompanied minors aboard the Viking of the Seas, most of them teenagers, were placed under the care of French social services, according to local governor Evence Richard. Outside the Jeans camp.
Two-thirds of the 230, or 175, will leave France and be resettled to 11 countries, including Germany (which will receive about 80), Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Norway.
Agence France-Presse said the rescue ship Viking of the Seas sparked a diplomatic crisis between France and Italy, but this rescue ship off the coast of Libya brought survivors ashore in France for the first time. According to Mediterranean SOS, their rescue ship will set sail again as more than 20,000 people have died in the Mediterranean since 2014. “We do not accept the Mediterranean Sea as a cemetery,” the humanitarian aid group said. Médecins Sans Frontières also said it would restart the rescue ship Geo Barents to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 1,891 migrants have gone missing in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since the beginning of the year.