Despite Heavy Shelling IOM Rescues Several Hundreds of Migrants and Wounded Civilians from Misrata
About 800 people, including stranded migrants and up to 50 wounded
civilians have been rescued today by IOM from the Libyan city of
Misrata despite shelling and shooting in the port vicinity.
IOM staff on its chartered boat, the Red Star One, report they
had to wait three hours after docking before people showed up,
giving them less than an hour to try and evacuate as many people as
possible.
Heavy shelling of Misrata in addition to mines having been laid
had prevented the IOM boat from docking for five days. The fighting
had forced at least 1,000 migrants who had been waiting at the port
to be evacuated to flee the area.
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IOM had been hoping to rescue about 1,000 stranded migrants in
addition to evacuating the most serious medical cases.
The boat, which has just left Misrata, is now en route to
Benghazi.
Also on board are a group of over 20 journalists and some
doctors.
In addition, IOM has been made aware of 109 Filipinos in
Misrata, including women and children who also need to be evacuated
but the Organization has not been able to establish contact with
the group.
IOM team leader on the boat Othman Belbeisi reported that
hundreds of Libyan civilians had also tried to board the ship in
desperation to get out of Misrata. But with a limited capacity, the
ramp of the boat had to be pulled up so that the ship could pull
away from the dock in safety.
Details on the nationalities and the exact number of migrants
will be known in the hours to come.
"We did our best and took everyone we could in a very short
time, including Libyan women and children whose relatives had been
wounded," says Belbeisi.
The sound of continuous gun fire could be heard in the
background during the satellite communication with IOM staff on the
ship.
The 180 tons of humanitarian aid comprising food, non-food and
medical supplies had been off-loaded before the boat departed for
Benghazi.
This is the sixth life-saving rescue mission to Misrata
successfully carried out by IOM since early April. In that time,
the Organization has delivered almost 2,000 tons of humanitarian
aid to the besieged city and safely brought back to Benghazi about
6,000 stranded migrants, wounded civilians and their families.
IOM’s humanitarian evacuation programme out of Misrata is
funded by the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civilian
Protection Office (ECHO), the US State Department's Bureau of
Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), Britain's Department for
International Development (DFID), Germany, Ireland and
Australia.
For further information, please contact:
Jean Philippe Chauzy
IOM Geneva
Tel: + 41 22 717 9361
+ 41 79 285 4366
E-mail:
"mailto:pchauzy@iom.int">pchauzy@iom.int
Jemini Pandya
Tel: + 41 22 717 9486
+ 41 79 217 3374
E-mail:
"mailto:jpandya@iom.int">jpandya@iom.int
or
Jumbe Omari Jumbe
Tel: + 41 22 717 9405
+ 41 79 812 7734
E-mail:
"mailto:jjumbe@iom.int">jjumbe@iom.int