One of the private vessels in the flotilla carrying aid supplies to the Gaza Strip has been evacuated.
“The fleet temporarily paused after “Johnny M” sustained a leak in the engine room,” the mission posted on Instagram in an official statement.
“The situation could not be resolved at sea and the vessel is unable to continue. All participants have been safely transferred to another vessel, some will be reassigned to other boats and others will be brought ashore,” it said.
“This will not cause significant delays to the mission, which is set to arrive in as soon as 4 days,” the statement added.
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The flotilla consists of 50 private ships that hope to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The “Johnny M” was located between Crete, Cyprus and Egypt when it sent out a distress call on Monday morning, Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu reported. The Turkish Red Crescent was a part of the rescue operation.
Semih Fener, the captain of one of the ships that helped with the evacuation, told Anadolu that they had taken on board 12 individuals, before distributing them among other ships.
Four of them were set to return home via Turkey.
According to Anadolu, the evacuated boat was carrying passengers from Luxembourg, France, Finland, Mexico, Malaysia among other countries.
