Libya sees mass exodus of migrants over Easter

Rescue workers and some commercial ships in the Mediterranean saved about 8,360 migrants from rubber dinghies and wooden makeshift boats over the Easter weekend.

“Our crew says they’ve never seen anything like it,” Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) said on Twitter. The nonprofit said it pulled more than 1,500 people from nine vessels in an “unprecedented” rescue operation. At some point, the group said its Phoenix rescue ship was already packed to capacity had to wait on standby beside seven rubber and two wooden boats loaded with more than a thousand people until they received help.

“This was an overwhelming search and rescue operation by all sides involved,” said Babar Baloch, spokesman for the United Nations high commissioner for refugees.

The European border and coast guard agency, Frontex, said it rescued more than 1400 migrants in 13 search-and-rescue operations. The agency said it transferred the migrants to boats headed for southern Italy. Doctors without Borders said its Prudence boat also helped in the weekend rescue efforts. The entire operation recovered the bodies of 13 migrants, the group said.

A Reuters photographer aboard the MOAS Phoenix ship also said the weekend was unlike any other he witnessed in 19 years. Darrin Lupi recounted how, on Easter Sunday, the Phoenix helped another nonprofit take the bodies of some migrants from a dinghy where they had waited for rescue.

“I covered the face of a dead woman with a discarded shirt and said a silent prayer,” Lupi said.

The International Organization for Migration said improved weather conditions motivated smugglers to send as many migrants into the sea as possible. The number of migrant arrivals would increase in the next few days, the group said.

Libya descended into crisis in 2011 after NATO-backed rebels overthrew and killed longtime authoritative leader Muammar Qaddafi. The country’s political vacuum and insecurity has allowed traffickers to thrive. Smugglers often tell the migrants who set off from Libya the 300-plus mile journey only lasts a few hours. They pack the migrants in small, unseaworthy boats, and, in some cases, the engines break down after a few hours. Rescue operators last week rescued 23 migrants from a boat near the Libyan coast, but 93 others remain missing.

Rescue workers have been accused of encouraging migration by aiding migrants stuck at sea. But they say the migrants would continue to head to Europe regardless. The European Union last year struck a deal with Turkey that reduced the number of migrants who follow the route to arrive in Greece. But it triggered a surge in the number of people who set a course for Italy instead.

“Human traffickers have no conscience about these people dying, and they’ll continue to send them whether they live or die,” Christopher Catrambone told NPR.