Royal Navy rescues 1,000 migrants in Mediterranean

Following intelligence from Italy, migrants were picked up from nine small vessels off the coast of Lybia over the course of a 10 hour operation.

Those rescued came from Syria, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Sudan among other places. The total number of people rescued by HMS Bulwark now stands at over 2,700.

Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said: “HMS Bulwark continues to play a vital role saving lives at sea and I want to thank them for their unwavering efforts.

“However, we cannot simply deal with the symptoms of this problem; we must go after the route cause and the trafficking gangs behind it who are making money out of human misery.

“Working alongside the Italians, Germans, French, the Netherlands, Irish and the Portuguese, we are showing how European navies are working together with their ships and helicopters, to bring about a successful temporary solution. But now it’s time for Europe as a whole to work together to agree a solution, before we see a greater loss of life.”

Nick Cooke-Priest, Captain of HMS Bulwark, said: “Starting very early this morning this has been an intense, complex day. My helicopters have done a brilliant job locating a number of migrant vessels and my landing craft have effected their rescues with typical professionalism and complete success.

“While the rescue operation is still ongoing, this is already Bulwark’s largest rescue mission to date. We have conducted five separate rescues already today with a further two ongoing.

“In many ways this search and rescue mission is like an amphibious operation – I’ve deployed landing craft and aircraft in multiple waves, in poor visibility, operating autonomously over the horizon – the objective this time of course, being to save life.

“But it’s only through being trained for high intensity warfighting operations that we are able to execute such activities in peacetime.”

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