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Rescue Ship Picks Up 128 migrants Off Libya Coast

SOS Mediterranee team trying to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. (SOS Mediterranee Twitter account)
SOS Mediterranee team trying to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. (SOS Mediterranee Twitter account)
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Rescue Ship Picks Up 128 migrants Off Libya Coast

SOS Mediterranee team trying to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. (SOS Mediterranee Twitter account)
SOS Mediterranee team trying to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. (SOS Mediterranee Twitter account)

The rescue ship “Ocean Viking” rescued on Saturday 128 men, women and children from an overcrowded inflatable boat off the Libyan coast in the Mediterranean

The humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee, which operates the rescue ship, tweeted that two people were found deceased on the overcrowded rubber boat.

“Due to the extreme weather conditions, we were only able to recover one of the bodies,” it added.

The boat was on its way to Sicily, Italy, according to the VesselFinder vessel tracking website.

Most migrants leave from Libya in unfit boats to sail off the coast of North Africa, attempting a hazardous Mediterranean crossing to try and enter Europe through Italy.

The Italian Interior Ministry has recorded the arrival of 6,500 migrants by boat so far this year, up from 6,180 during the same period in 2021.

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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.