The volunteers on board Ocean Viking were somewhere between Libya and Italy at about 10pm on Tuesday night as they prepared for their third rescue mission of the day: a crowded wooden boat adrift with 56 people suffering from dehydration and exhaustion. “Among them were 27 unaccompanied minors looking numb, as if they didn’t know what was happening,” said Morgane Lescot, the ship’s spokeswoman.
Ocean Viking, operated by the charity SOS Mediterranee, is now carrying 234 migrants picked up in a series of rescues, including Syrians, Eritreans and Bangladeshis, and is looking for an Italian port to dock in – but Giorgia Meloni’s new hard-right government in Rome has other ideas.
Hours before the children were picked up, Meloni made her maiden speech to parliament
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