AROUND 199 refugees have been saved in the central Mediterranean by NGO rescuers for the first time since European states blockaded seven civilian rescue ships over a month ago.

The Open Arms rescue ship left Barcelona, Spain, on November 4 and headed to international waters off the coast of Libya — where a protracted civil war and widespread human rights abuses in the country’s migrant detention camps has caused thousands to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe.

Late on Tuesday afternoon the Open Arms’s crew brought on board 88 people they found covered in petrol in a deflating rubber boat.