Georgian seafarers save 52 migrants in Atlantic Ocean

Georgian seafarers saved the lives of 52 people, including seven women and three children, in the Atlantic Ocean during a five-point storm last week, the Maritime Transport Agency of Georgia announced on Wednesday. 

Nine Georgian sailors, who were heading to Morocco, joined a rescue mission to help a group of migrants left without water and food in an inflatable boat in the Ocean, after they had waited for rescuers for over 10 hours.

Our ship was circling the raft in order not to lose it in the open sea. The weather [then] got worse. Finally, the ship’s crew decided to get the migrants out of the raft and onboard [our vessel],” one of the sailors said in their summary of the rescue.

The Georgian Agency thanked the sailors for their “exceptional courage, bravery and professionalism” in the act, adding they would be presented for the International Maritime Organisation Award “for exceptional bravery at sea” next year.

Previous recipients of the award from Georgia include Archimandrite Ilia Cartozia, who was awarded posthumously in 2015 for sacrificing his life while saving the lives of a mother and child during an accident on the Italian ferry Norman Atlantic, and Captain Levan Mamaladze and his crew, who saved 13 people in 2017.