Dozens of shipwreck migrants are stranded on the lower decks of a gas installation on drift in the Mediterranean – with an international row brewing about who she should save.
One of the men went to social media to explain how they left Libya and spent five days aboard a rubber rubber boat before she was hired on Saturday at the Rig in the Rig in the Miskar Oil and Gas Field, located off the coast of Tunisia.
Dozens of people, including women and children, are seen those shivering while they lay or on metal grapes that rags on the waves raging on the waves. It is already said that one has died.
'You see here, on the floor. We are sick, we are hungry and cold. If you can come and help us, we will differ differently if the others end, “he said in Tigrinya, suggesting that he had traveled from Eritrea or the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
“We don't have a way out. We are sick and starved. We didn't eat for five days, we die from the cold. '
It is believed that a total of 32 migrants on the rig in the Miskar gas field were stuck according to the Med Alarm phone, an activist-based group that takes emergency calls from migrants in the Mediterranean, and Sea Watch, a rescue organization for refugees.
But four days after their trand, there is still no word of a rescue.
According to international law, refugees have the right to be taken to safe haven, but neither Libya or Tunisia are considered safe countries.
Sea Watch and the NGO Saving Humans Mediterranea called on the European authorities to intervene and reported that the Italian and Maltese authorities had been informed, but that the Italian authorities brought back the case to Libya.
Migrants left stranded on the lower decks of a gas installation on drift in the Mediterranean Sea, have made an urgent call for help
Dozens of people, including women and children, are seen those shivering while they lay or on metal grapes that rags on the waves raging on the waves. It is already said that one has died
On Saturday, March 1, 2025, the watch of the Med Alarm Phone Network gave a warning that 32 migrants were shipwreck in the Miskar Gas Field for Tunisia
Sunday spoke with the civil fleet on Sunday, said spokesperson for Sea Watch Paul Wagner that employees on board the Miskar Gas Rig have informed the reconnaissance aircraft of the NGO that the stranded migrants were still alive.
“We demand that the Italian and Maltese authorities save the people on the platform. They are in international waters, in the Tunisian and the Maltese search-and-rescue (SAR) region-it is their right to be taken to a safe haven, “said Wagner.
He added that the Tunisian Navy was reportedly offered voluntarily to collect the shipwrecked migrants, but that no ship has ever appeared.
“Italian or Maltese authorities must save people on the platform and bring them to a safe European port as quickly as possible,” he concluded.
Activists said that the operators of the Miskar Gas Rig, Amilcar Petroleum Operations (APO), would be complicit in violating human rights if they would not offer help to the prisoners on board their platform.
APO is run by Tunisies' State Oil and Gas Corporation. MailOnline has contacted APO for comment.
Although the Miskar gas field is and is operated in Tunisian ownership, it is in international waters and it is a few dozen miles from the Italian coastal town of Lampedusa.
The news of the shipwreck is because the Tunisian authorities said that 64 more migrants were saved from a boat that capsized the east coast of the land after he no longer had fuel.
The migrant vessel is seen that is taken by a migrant next to the oil in this image and shared with the Medarm telephone
The Miskar -Gas platform in Tunisia
The national customs agency of the country said that maritime patrols to the capsized ship saved 64 people from different nationalities off the coast of Mahdia on Friday evening, a day before the migrants got stranded at the gas installation.
No deaths were reported.
“The rescued migrants tried to cross illegally by boat to the European room,” said the customs agency.
The first findings of the investigation suggest that the migrants had left a public neighbor, probably Libya.
The migrants were taken to the port of Chebba, 37 miles (60 kilometers) north of Sfax, for further research.
More than 30,000 migrants sail from Libya and, according to UNHCR, arrived in Italy in 2024 in Italy.
The UN refugee office said that 61% of those who arrived by sea in Italy came from Libya, followed by 32% from Tunisia.
The international organization of the UN for migration estimates that more than 100 migrants died or since the beginning of 2025 have died or missed in the Central Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Tunisia and Libya.
There are no official information about the actual number of migrants who live in Libya.
