David Llado News Today

By Juan Medina ABOARD THE OPEN ARMS UNO, off Sicily (Reuters) - Migrants aboard the Open Arms Uno rescue boat cheered, hugged crew members, and danced

ABOARD THE OPEN ARMS UNO, off Sicily (Reuters) - Migrants aboard the Open Arms Uno rescue boat cheered, hugged crew members, and danced with joy on Friday as they were told they would be allowed to disembark at the Italian port of Messina after spending at least 10 days at sea.

ABOARD THE OPEN ARMS UNO, off Sicily (Reuters) - Around 30 nautical miles off the coast of Italy's Sicily, 99 migrants are awaiting an update on their future after nine days at sea as nearby nations discuss who should receive them.

Around 30 nautical miles off the coast of Italys Sicily, 99 migrants are awaiting an update on their future after nine days at sea as nearby nations discuss who should receive them.

RIGHT at the moment when the Open Arms rescuers began transferring the first person onto a rigid-hull inflatable boat (Rhib), the back of the refugees’ deflating rubber vessel tore apart, dropping 118 people into the Mediterranean. “Thank god everyone had already been given a life jacket,” says David Llado, the search-and-rescue (SAR) co-ordinator for the Spanish non-government organisation’s eponymous ship. “Because even with them, five people drowned. And then, later, a six-month...

THOUGH the European border agency tells the Star it is NOT its policy to ignore charity ships, MSF humanitarian affairs adviser Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui finds a number of contradictions to this claim. THE Osprey 3, a reconnaissance plane chartered by Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, alerted an NGO refugee rescue ship to a rubber boat in distress carrying 118 people in international waters off the coast of Libya on November 11. Almost all of the activists involved in the NGO refu...