In late October, the crew sailing aboard the multipurpose ship Fehn Lyra rescued a boat carrying eight refugees in the western Mediterranean.
According to Fehn Ship Management, the 10 m-long boat was spotted approximately 50 miles (80.5 km) southeast of Ibiza while Fehn Lyra was en route from Chornomorsk, Ukraine to Dordrecht in the Netherlands.
After informing the maritime rescue coordination centre in Valencia, the ship stayed with the refugees for three hours until a Spanish rescue boat arrived.
This was the third time in two months that a Fehn Ship Management vessel spotted a boat with refugees in the western Mediterranean and ensured their safe recovery.
On September 25, the multipurpose ship Catania found two men drifting at sea and stayed with them until the Spanish coastguard picked them up. On September 2, a similar incident occurred in the Alboran Sea, where Fehn Ship Management’s ship Fehn Calypso rescued ten refugees.
Manfred Müller, ceo of EMS-Fehn-Group, said: “Regardless of the ongoing discussions about refugees coming to Europe, we will not abandon our conviction, that it is the duty of everyone to save people in distress.
“Those people our vessels found and saved on high seas were in grave danger of loosing their life. I am therefore very grateful that the captain and crew of Fehn Lyra acted accordingly. Their behaviour was exemplary.“
