‘We were 107 [on board] … the waves were taking the boat up and down ... I can’t count how many died’ - Lamin, from Mali

 

The European Union’s limited search-and-rescue resources contributed to the soaring death toll after four rubber dinghies carrying hundreds of migrants sent out an SOS in stormy weather in the Mediterranean last week, Amnesty International has said after a visit to Lampedusa.

 

When the distress call came in on Sunday 8 February, the main vessel used in the pan-EU border management scheme (“Operation Triton”) was docked hundreds of miles away in Malta for maintenance. In a separate incident, the Italian coast guard has confirmed that the Italian authorities and merchant vessels have rescued more than 2,800 people in at least 18 boats between Friday 13 February and yesterday, with 2,225 people rescued from a dozen boats on Sunday alone.

 

Many of those rescued after the 8 February tragedy are from Ivory Coast (41, including two children), followed by Mali (23, including a child), Senegal (nine), Guinea (seven), Gambia (two) and Niger (two). Ivorians also reportedly account for more than half of the confirmed fatalities among those rescued - 15 out of the 29, along with seven men from Mali, five Senegalese and one each from Guinea and Mauritania. 

 

Amnesty is urging EU countries to provide collective and concerted search-and-rescue operations along routes taken by migrants, to at least the same level as now defunct “Mare Nostrum” operation. In the meantime, Amnesty is urging Italy to provide additional emergency resources until this happens. 

 

Amnesty International’s Italy campaigner Matteo de Bellis, who just returned from Lampedusa, said:

 

 

 

NEW TESTIMONY

An Amnesty research team has now carried out interviews - in Rome and Lampedusa - with 8 February survivors, as well as with members of the Italian coastguard and the local authorities. This summarises the main findings:

According to survivors’ testimonies, 400 migrants in all, most of them young men from West Africa, were attempting to travel across the Mediterranean in four boats from Libya when they ran into trouble on 8 February. People smugglers had kept them near Tripoli to await the journey after charging them the equivalent of around £500 each. On the evening of 7 February, the armed people smugglers brought the migrants to the Libyan port town of Garabouli, 25 miles west of Tripoli, and made them board four inflatable dinghies.  Early the next day, as the boats drifted in the Mediterranean Sea north of Libya, it was clear that they were in serious danger. 

 

Italian coast guard officials told Amnesty they received a satellite phone call for help early in the afternoon on 8 February, from a location 140 miles south of Lampedusa and 45 miles north of Libya. The call was mostly unintelligible but the officials could make out the words “dangerous, dangerous” in English. Coast guard officials stressed that, under the circumstances, the migrants were sailing to their almost certain death. The weather forecast in that part of the Mediterranean was bad for the entire week. The boats were powered by small outboard motors, and the people smugglers had apparently not provided enough petrol for the trip. According to survivor accounts, more than 300 people perished. The migrants, many of whom were scantily-clothed, were exposed to extreme weather conditions for up to two days, including near-freezing temperatures, rain and hail as their boats were at times tossed about on waves of up to 25 feet. 

 

Italian coast guard officials managed to rescue 105 people from one dinghy at 9pm on Sunday, but 29 of those died of hypothermia and other causes after the rescue. Two merchant vessels in the area rescued nine remaining survivors from two other boats. Survivors confirmed that there were four dinghies in total, which were numbered 1-4. One boat is still missing. 

 

Amnesty spoke to Ibrahim, a 24-year-old man from Mali who was one of only two survivors in his dinghy: 

 

“[At around 7pm on] Sunday the boat started to lose air and to fill with water. People began to fall into the sea. At each wave, two or three were taken away. The front part of the boat rose, so people on the back fell in the sea. At that point, only about 30 people remained on the boat. One side of the boat … stayed afloat …and [we clung to a rope as we had] water up to our belly. [Eventually] only four of us remained. We kept holding on, together, all night. It was raining. At sunrise, two slipped away. During the morning we saw a helicopter. There was a red shirt in the water; I shook it so they would see me. They threw a small inflatable boat, but I didn’t have the energy to reach it. So we stayed, holding on. Half an hour later, a cargo boat arrived. It threw a rope to get us onboard. It was about three in the afternoon [on 9 February].”

 

Lamin, also from Mali, was on board the other dinghy approached by a merchant vessel: 

 

“We were 107 [on board]. In the high seas, the waves were taking the boat up and down. Everyone was afraid. I saw three people falling in the water. No one could help. They tried to catch the boat but couldn’t. Then many others died, maybe for lack of food or water. I can’t count how many died. When a big, commercial boat came to rescue us, only seven of us were [left]. The rescuers threw a rope and got us onboard. During the rescue, [our] boat folded in two and went down, taking down all the bodies.” 

 

The Italian coast guard responded to the SOS call on 8 February by sending a search aircraft and four patrol boats - two of them were dispatched immediately, followed by two more after one of the initial boats had an engine problem. The head of the Italian coast guard’s rescue operation centre was frank about the limited resources at their disposal: 

 

“Can you imagine what it means to cover that distance in an 18-metre boat with waves as high as eight or nine metres? We feared for the lives of our crew … When departures pick up after the winter, we won’t be able to take them all, if we remain the only one to go out there.”

 

Lampedusa residents and officials are reeling after the latest in a long series of sea tragedies to befall their island. Mayor Giusi Nicolinini told Amnesty: 

 

“When the dead arrive, one feels defeated. One wonders why nothing ever changes. Europe is completely absent - one does not need to be an expert in politics to understand that.” 

 

The UN Refugee Agency said it expects the trend of migrants crossing the Mediterranean to continue in 2015. Some 218,000 crossed in 2014 and the numbers for January already show a 60% increase in incoming migrants registered in Italy compared to January 2014. There were close to 3,500 recorded deaths last year, making it the deadliest sea crossing in the world.