E.U. Plans to Act Against Smugglers in Migrant Crisis - nytimes

UNITED NATIONS — Loaded with life jackets, medics and search-and-rescue teams, the ship sailed from port in Malta early last Thursday morning in search of migrants stranded at sea.

The first dinghy was found by midday, a wooden fishing boat, piled with 118 people, including 25 children, said Will Turner, head of aDoctors Without Borders team on board. The sea was rough. The wind swept the boat from side to side in six-foot swells, he recalled. The toughest part was ensuring that the babies — there were nine children under 5 — could be handed over safely, not dropped into the water or crushed between the boats.

Mr. Turner told this story on Friday in a Skype interview from the ship, the Phoenix, operated by a private nonprofit called the Migrant Offshore Aid Station, as the ship headed toward Sicily to drop off the migrants. On board were 100 other migrants, rescued later in the day on Thursday. The medics treated them for dehydration, some for hypothermia. One woman was pregnant.

The private rescue efforts come as the European Union prepares to launch military operations against smuggling rings that set off from Libya and cross the Mediterranean, in boats crammed with desperate migrants. The European Union’s top foreign policy official, Federica Mogherini, is scheduled to meet with diplomats on the United Nations Security Council on Monday, seeking authorization to launch military operations on international waters as well as on Libyan shores.

The European Union has said it will intensify border protection efforts on the Mediterranean — currently, it falls largely on the Italians — but humanitarian groups have said the efforts fall far short of the relief that migrants need to reach safety and have a chance to apply for political asylum.

Most of the migrants rescued from the first boat on Thursday were from Somalia and Syria. Among them was a father from the Yarmouk camp in a suburb of Damascus that has been a battleground between Syrian forces and a variety of jihadist groups in recent weeks. He told Mr. Turner that he left three weeks ago with his wife and two children when staying in Yarmouk became untenable. The United Nations has said that food and basic supplies had dwindled in the area, and that many residents were near the point of starvation.  Read More at NYT

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