Luxembourg's Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs has issued a statement in relation to the news of migrant shipwreck near the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The Foreign Ministry said it "deplores" the sinking of two migrant boats which occurred off the Italian coast near Lampedusa on Saturday 5 August 2023. At least two people died and 30 people have been reported missing.
Nevertheless, 57 migrants have been rescued. The ministry stressed that this demonstrated "the importance of effective search and rescue mechanisms, with sufficient personnel".
Luxembourg participated through the contribution of an aerial surveillance helicopter operated by the Luxembourg Air Ambulance (LAA) in the joint rescue operation "Themis", coordinated by the Frontex agency in the central Mediterranean.
"Thus, thanks to the exemplary efforts of the crew, around 40 people who were at sea following the sinking were able to be detected and then rescued by the Italian authorities," noted the ministry. "The following morning, fifteen other migrants were spotted by the helicopter on the cliffs on the western side of the island of Lampedusa where their boat had run aground the previous day. These migrants were then rescued by an Italian Air Force helicopter, as the conditions at sea did not allow a rescue by sea."
The ministry also recalled that Luxembourg has been contributing, "in a spirit of European solidarity", to search and rescue efforts deployed within the framework of joint European missions coordinated by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) by providing aerial surveillance capabilities since 2017. This mission is carried out by LAA, a Luxembourg player with expertise in the field of international rescue missions, by means of a helicopter equipped with the technical elements necessary for the accomplishment of such a mission and operated by specially trained personnel. According to the ministry, the place of deployment is determined regularly according to the operational needs of the host country of the European joint mission and the trend of migratory flows. For this purpose, the LX-HSR helicopter has been active in Lampedusa since the beginning of 2023.
