UNHCR / MIGRANTS TRAGEDY

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called for creation of “safe legal alternatives for refugees to find protection in Europe” in aftermath of the tragedy in Mediterranean in which as many as 500 migrants may have died. UNHCR / FILE

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:00:55
• Production Date: 20 April 2016
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: WILLIAM SPINDLER
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES - UNHCR
• Subject Topical: MIGRANTS
• Geographic Subject: MEDITERRANEAN SEA
• MAMS Id: 1606775
• Parent Id: 1606775
• Alternate Title: unifeed160420b

Description

STORY: UNHCR / MIGRANTS TRAGEDY
TRT: 00:55
SOURCE: UNHCR /FILE
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS

DATELINE: 20 APRIL 2016, GENEVA SWITZERLAND /FILE

Shotlist

FILE - 29 AUGUST 2015, MEDITERRANEAN SEA

1. Wide shot, rescue boat sailing
2. Zoom out, unloading body bag
3. Tracking shot, rescue workers carrying a body

20 APRIL 2016, GENEVA SWITZERLAND

4. SOUNDBITE (English) William Spindler, UNHCR Communications Officer:
“A UNHCR team has interviewed 41 survivors of an incident in the Mediterranean where as many as 500 people might have lost their lives. This is one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean in the last 12 months. It brings home the need to create safe legal alternatives for refugees to find protection in Europe.”

2 - 3 SEPTEMBER 2015, ON BOARD SIEM PILOT, MEDITERRANEAN SEA

5. Wide shot, Siem Pilot deck with migrants on board

Storyline

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called for creation of “safe legal alternatives for refugees to find protection in Europe” in aftermath of the tragedy in Mediterranean in which as many as 500 migrants may have died.

If confirmed, as many as 500 people may have lost their lives when the large boat went down in the Mediterranean Sea at an unknown location between Libya and Italy. The 41 survivors – 37 men, three women and a three-year-old child – were rescued by a merchant ship and taken to Kalamata, in the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece on April 16. Those rescued include 23 Somalis, 11 Ethiopians, 6 Egyptians and a Sudanese.

A UNHCR team has interviewed survivors who said that they had been part of a group of between 100 and 200 people who departed last week from a locality near Tobruk in Libya on a 30-metre-long boat.

According to survivors, after several hours at sea, the smugglers in charge of the boat attempted to transfer the passengers to a larger ship carrying hundreds of people in terribly overcrowded conditions.
At one point during the transfer, the larger boat capsized and sank.

The 41 survivors include people who had not yet boarded the larger vessel, as well as some who managed to swim back to the smaller boat. They drifted at sea possibly for three days before being spotted and rescued on April 16.

UNHCR visited the survivors at the local stadium of Kalamata where they have been temporarily housed by the local authorities while they undergo police procedures.

So far this year 179,552 refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea across the Mediterranean and Aegean. At least 761 have died or gone missing attempting the journey.

UNHCR continues to call for increased regular pathways for the admission of refugees and asylum-seekers to Europe, including resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes, family reunification, private sponsorship and student and work visas for refugees