Migrants were ‘like sardines in a tin’

If wind or rain had whipped up before the LÉ Niamh reached a wooden barge crammed with more than 500 migrants, the death toll onboard would probably have been far higher.

The 13 men and one youth who died on the vessel, which was not seaworthy, were probably crushed and suffocated because people-smugglers had crammed them in “like sardines in a tin”.

Space was so tight on the craft that one senior Navy officer said, had the weather deteriorated and migrants tried to seek cover, more deaths would probably have occurred from crushing.

It was the first time the Naval Service had encountered such a harrowing scene since deploying in the Mediterranean Sea more than two months ago.

On Monday afternoon LÉ Niamh and the Medécins Sans Frontiére (MSF) vessel MV Dignity 1 were tasked with rescuing migrants spotted floating in the barge, which was about 80km north-west of the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

It had only left Tripoli 12 hours earlier.

Members of the Irish vessel LÉ Niamh as they rescued refugees in the ongoing humanitarian mission in the Mediterranean.

Of the survivors, LÉ Niamh took onboard 137 men, 38 women, and 35 children, while the MV Dignity 1 took onboard the remainder.

The survivors included people from Morocco, Sudan, the Palestinian territories, Syria, Eritrea, and Bangladesh.

LÉ Niamh is sailing to the Sicilian port of Messina where the crew will hand over the bodies to the Italian authorities this morning.

Commander Brian Fitzgerald of Naval headquarters said there were far more people crammed into the barge than they had encountered before.

He said it took boarding teams longer than usual to calm down the survivors and they tried to keep families together on rigid inflatable boat transfers back to LÉ Niamh so as not to add to their distress.

“It was only when they removed all the living that they went back for the dead. This was done in absolute darkness. That was a tremendously challenging operation and those who undertook it put in a sterling performance,” said Cmdr Fitzgerald.

MSF co-ordinator on MV Dignity 1, Paula Farias, said they were outraged at the deaths.

“It is heartbreaking to see human lives lost at sea,” she said.

“We not only need a large scale search and rescue operation to stop this humanitarian crisis but also need for safe and legal channels to be created so that people fleeing their countries can find protection in Europe.”

MSF estimates that so far this year, more than 1,900 people have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

While there are trained counsellors onboard the Irish ship, the Naval Service has taken the decision to fly out a specialist team of counsellors to the vessel this weekend.

The LÉ Niamh is travelling to Sicily with 453 migrants on board, because she had rescued more in an earlier operation.