On July 2, the humanitarian vessel Geo Barents of Medicine Without Borders made landfall in the port of Ancona, carrying 34 shipwrecked individuals: 15 minors and 19 adults, of whom 14 are unaccompanied. A young girl was one of the shipwrecked migrants who was saved on June 27 off the coast of Libya. It is the tenth humanitarian ship to disembark in the port of Ancona since the beginning of 2023, welcoming a total of one thousand shipwrecked individuals; the third ship of this kind landed in the Italian Marche region in 2024. Among the migrants and shipwrecked individuals who boarded the humanitarian vessel Geo Barents were travelers from a number of nations, including Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria.
Giovanni Zinni, the deputy mayor of Ancona, told Italian news agency ANSA regarding landings: “The European Union will address this issue: considering the origins of migrants.” The most crucial thing, in my opinion, is to bring about more political, economic, and social stability in North Africa. It is clear that the more the Mediterranean region develops into a bustling hub for trade, cross-cultural interactions, and political stability—and the more North Africa does the same—the more clearly we can stop these landings.
The people who were rescued months ago were taken from their home countries, traded and sold between militias in Libya, and subjected to abuse and torture—even while on a video call with their parents or relatives—by human traffickers seeking more money. According to Fulvia Conte, rescue research manager for Doctors Without Borders, “these are always dramatic and particular situations—also because people would not have taken the sea route, they would not have passed through Libya through everything they had to live.” There are numerous unaccompanied minors, including a young girl.
“There are also very young children who travel alone, teenagers who in our country perhaps would not let school go alone: they travel alone for months, they have not seen and hear families for a long time, and they tell us that it was the only possibility to be able to have a future” “An unjust journey. It required four days of sailing, and the ships move very slowly. It would have been more equitable and preferable to let passengers off at a nearby port before transferring them to quicker cars in Italy. Conte said, “They are people who have already endured enough injustice.”