Doctors Without Borders News

U.S. President Joe Biden's plan to build a floating U.S. military port to speed up aid to Gaza could take up to 60 days to become a reality and involve more than 1,000 American troops, the Pentagon said on Friday.The Pentagon offered the timeline a day after Biden announced the initiative in his State of the Union speech, as he seeks to cool anger in his Democratic Party over his staunch support for Israel's offensive in Gaza since Oct. 7.The United Nations has warned that widespread famine in the Gaza Strip is "almost inevitable" without urgent action.

More than 80 migrants were saved, but two died and three were missing following two sea rescue operations in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya, the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity said on Sunday.MSF's vessel Geo Barents picked up over 60 people late on Saturday from a rubber dinghy in distress in international waters off Libya. It also recovered one body, and one of the migrants taken on board died shortly after the rescue.Another 19 people were picked up from a nearby abandoned Tunisian offshore oil platform, MSF said.

After 268 days in his kayak, 1643 hours of paddling and a journey of almost 6,800 miles, 65-year-old Mark Fuhrmann has completed his epic “Reverse the Bad” charity expedition across Canada and the United States.In doing so, he becomes the first person to solo kayak the ‘Greater Loop’ circuit, beginning (and ending) in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and traversing the Great Lakes, the Illinois, the Mississippi, the Tennessee and Tombigbee Rivers, before hitting the Gulf of Mexico and heading up the Atlantic Coast.A smiling…

Italy has arrested three people who they believe trafficked up to 200 migrants aboard a wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 64 people, police said on Tuesday. Lieutenant Colonel Alberto Lippolis said a Turkish man and two Pakistani nationals had sailed the boat from Turkey to Italy despite the terrible weather, and were identified by survivors as "the main culprits of the tragedy"."According to initial investigations, they allegedly asked the migrants for about 8…

Rescuers recovered four more bodies on Monday, a day after a wooden sailboat carrying migrants to Europe smashed onto rocks in stormy weather off southern Italy, bringing the death toll to 63, including at least 14 children.Rescuers said most of the migrants came from Afghanistan, as well as from Iran, Somalia, Syria and elsewhere. Pakistan's foreign ministry said 20 Pakistani citizens were on the boat, with four missing and 16 survivors of the nighttime shipwreck.Many of the victims washed ashore close to where the vessel sank near Steccato di Cutro…

The Italian government has rejected a request from a ship run by Doctors Without Borders non-governmental organisation (NGO) to assign a safe port closer to the place where it rescued 73 migrants, an NGO official said on Sunday.Italy's interior ministry did not comment on the issue.The dispute is part of a broader tug-of-war between Italy's right-wing government and NGOs over where to disembark migrants saved in the Mediterranean sea.On Saturday Doctor Without Borders' ship Geo Barents received permission from Rome to dock to Ancona port, which is in central Italy and on the country's east coast, far away from Sicily where NGO boats…

Sea rescue charities on Thursday condemned tough anti-immigration measures recently introduced by the Italian government, saying the new rules will cause ever more deaths in the Mediterranean.The decree, which was introduced last week, says charity ships must request a port and sail to it "without delay" after a rescue, rather than remain at sea looking for other migrant boats in distress, as it now happens.Ship captains risk fines of 50,000 euros ($52,760) and having their boats…

IMO announced that the Indian Ocean High Risk Area (HRA) will be removed on 01 Jan 2023. It was a rare but really reassuring example that international cooperation can be successful.Meanwhile at the time of this writing, the war in Ukraine carries on. Ukranian resistance has been bolstered by very significant western democracy support in the form of weapons supply that have done a great job of stopping Russia in its tracks. However, the Ukranian Crisis shows it is extremely difficult…

After two months in his kayak, 64-year-old Mark Fuhrmann has succeeded in covering 2,000km of his 10,500km ‘Greater Loop’ paddle. Although battered by high winds, and fighting against large swells and difficult tides, the intrepid Canadian has made his way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Quebec City, and is now on the boundary of Montreal. His year-long loop will eventually take him back to Halifax, by which time he hopes to have raised over EURO 100,000 for Doctors Without Borders and Captains Without Borders.Extreme commitmentFuhrmann…

In late May 2022, Mark Fuhrmann set out on an epic, solo 10,500 km kayak trip, a venture that the 64-year-old Canadian is using to raise more than over EURO 100,000 for Doctors Without Borders and Captains Without Borders.Fuhrmann has been a staple in the marine industry for the past three decades, running a PR and marketing businesses in Oslo, Norway. Solo paddles for charity are not new to Fuhrmann, who who undertook a 5,900km charity kayak from Oslo to Athens, Greece, in 2018.

A German aid group that operated a migrant rescue boat in the Mediterranean said on Wednesday Italian magistrates were set to charge 21 individuals and three human rights groups with aiding illegal immigration from Libya.The announcement came after magistrates in the Sicilian city of Trapani said they had concluded a three-year investigation centered on the Iuventa boat, which was run by the Jugend Rettet non-governmental group.The magistrates did not make their findings public, but the Iuventa crew, which is kept abreast of legal developments, said they had been charged and faced up to 20 years in jail."Saving lives is never a crime.

The commercial shipping world can benefit from greater range of communications and reduced satellite costs. Domestic brown water operators know all too well that’s easier said; than done. Until now.In the fast moving world of blue water, deep draft shipping, the availability of reliable ship-to-shore communications has been a non-issue for at least two decades. More than ever, they need it. These longtime users of so-called ship management software and now, sophisticated remote monitoring systems that watch over even the most obscure minutia on board far flung 1,000 foot ocean liners, need (and get) robust and reliable communications.On the domestic, brown water side of the equation? Not so much.

An NGO which runs the Mediterranean rescue ship Ocean Viking, with 104 migrants onboard, called on European authorities on Monday to designate a safe disembarkation spot.French association SOS Mediterranean, along with Doctors without Borders (MSF), said among those aboard the ship are two pregnant women and 41 children younger than 18."Their anxiety is growing", said Jay Berger, MSF’s project coordinator aboard the Ocean Viking. "They're unsure of what's going to happen to them next."On Oct. 18, the Ocean Viking picked up 104 people aboard an inflatable boat in distress 50 nautical miles off the Libyan coast. Libyan authorities say they assigned the port of Tripoli as a safe disembarkation site for the refugees…

The Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius arrived at Valletta harbour in Malta on Wednesday to disembark 141 migrants, ending a five-day tug-of-war between European Union countries which had seen the vessel banned from docking in several ports.The ship, run by the Franco-German charity SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders (MSF), was allowed in after France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain agreed on Tuesday to take in the migrants.(Reporting by Chris Scicluna Editing by Sarah White and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

The Libyan coastguard intercepted a humanitarian rescue ship in the Mediterranean on Tuesday, ordering it to sail to Tripoli or risk being targeted, a Reuters photographer aboard said. The Golfo Azzurro ship operated by Spanish humanitarian organisation Proactiva Open Arms was repeatedly contacted by a Libyan coastguard vessel, according to radio transmissions heard by the photographer. "You are sailing in our waters for months now and you are conducting activities that are causing problems to Libyan state sovereignty," said a man who identified himself as part of the Libyan coastguard, speaking in English. "Therefore I ask you to alter your course towards Tripoli port. If you do not obey the orders right now... you will be targeted," the voice said.

Humanitarian groups operating rescue ships off the coast of Libya picked up more than 700 migrants out of seven flimsy and overcrowded boats on Wednesday, Italy's coast guard said. The Phoenix rescue ship, operated by the Malta-based non-governmental organisation MOAS, rescued more than 300 people from three boats in international waters off the coast of the Libyan city of Sabratha. The Aquarius, operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders, went to the aid of four rubber boats, a coast guard spokesman said. Italy's coast guard coordinated the rescues. Migrants arriving in Italy on boats from North Africa are up some 30 percent so far this year, according to official data released last week.

Six migrants died and up to 100 more were missing and feared dead after their rubber boat sank in the Mediterranean on Thursday, the president of the Italian unit of aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said. A British navy ship rescued 27 people and recovered six bodies about 20 miles from the coast of Libya early on Thursday morning, MSF Italy president Loris De Filippi said. The new disaster adds to a death toll which aid groups had put at 240 for the three days ending on Wednesday, as migrants continue to leave Libya despite rough seas. The migrants were transferred to the MSF ship Bourbon Argos, one of several aid agency vessels operating in the area. Survivors told staff that another 90 to 100 people had also been on board and had died.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Wednesday 25 migrant men and women were found dead at the bottom of a rubber boat in the Mediterranean, and 107 survivors were rescued from the same raft.   The bodies were discovered late on Tuesday, an MSF spokeswoman said.   MSF's Mediterranean rescue unit said on Twitter: "23 of the rescued people had horrific chemical burns, 7 were so severely injured that they needed to be evacuated to Italy, 2 by helicopter".   More than 3,500 people have died or disappeared trying to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa this year, the International Organization for Migration estimates.   Rescuers plucked 500 migrants from overcrowded boats to safety on Tuesday, Italy's coast guard said. (Reporting by Isla Binnie)

Ships manned by humanitarian organisations, the Italian navy and the coast guard helped rescue more than 2,000 boat migrants on Thursday as calm seas returned to the Mediterranean prompting a surge in departures. The Topaz Responder, a ship run by the Malta-based humanitarian group Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), said 23 different migrant boats had been spotted in the sea about 20 nautical miles from the Libyan port city of Sabratha. Rescue operations were ongoing, the Italian coast guard said. "The mass movement is probably the result of week-long, unfavourable weather conditions" that have come to an end, MOAS said on Twitter. The Topaz Responder picked up 382 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa from three different large rubber boats.

Ship crews pulled more than 2,000 migrants from overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean on Friday, Italy's coastguard said, as people smugglers stepped up operations during two consecutive days of good weather. More than 7,100 people have now been plucked from international waters since Thursday, many of them on the dangerous journey from Libya. Europe's worst immigration crisis since World War Two is in its third year, and there has been little sign of any let up of the flow of people coming from North African to Italy since last year.

The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Carney (DDG 64) aided in the rescue of 97 migrants adrift in the Mediterranean Sea, July 29. Carney is forward deployed to Rota, Spain, and is conducting a routine patrol in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national security interests in Europe. Carney provided food and water to the migrants aboard the vessel before coordinating with a nearby merchant vessel to take them to safety. It also provided aid for the migrants until the SOS Mediterranee ship MS Aquarius arrived and took the migrants to safety. "Today Team Carney aided in the rescue of 97 migrants while operating in the Mediterranean Sea," stated Cmdr. Kenneth Pickard, commanding officer, USS Carney (DDG 64).

The crew of a speedboat labelled "Libyan Coast Guard" attacked a migrant boat packed with some 150 migrants, beating them with sticks and causing many to fall into the water and at least four to drown, humanitarian group Sea-Watch said on Friday. Rescuers recovered three more dead bodies on a different rubber boat and picked up a total 3,300 survivors from 24 different boats during the day, Italy's coast guard said. Germany-based Sea-Watch, one of several non-governmental organisations operating vessels off the coast of Libya, said the speedboat swooped in just as they were about to go to the aid of the overcrowded rubber boat in the early hours of Friday.

The European Union will go ahead with training for the Libyan coast guard this week, days after a coast guard vessel allegedly attacked a boat carrying migrants, causing four of them to drown. The German humanitarian group Sea-Watch recovered the four bodies after an attack on Friday that its members say was carried out by a vessel with the markings of the Libyan coast guard. "The aim was to start the training this week, and this week it will start," the spokesman for the EU's Operation Sophia, Antonello De Renzis Sonnino, told Reuters. The bodies of the four migrants reached Palermo, Sicily, on Monday aboard the Norwegian rescue vessel Siem Pilot, which carried 1,100 rescued migrants and 13 other bodies.