One young girl survived a shipwreck off the Italian coast after being stranded at sea for three days, CompassCollective, a German charitable organization that performs sea rescue missions, said in a Dec. 11 press release.
The 11-year-old girl was believed to be on a metal boat, which was caught in a storm that lasted several days in the central Mediterranean Sea. The ship departed from Sfax, Tunisia, and was destroyed off the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was caught in a storm with waves 11.5 feet high and sank, per the BBC. It is believed the remaining 45 passengers were all killed.
CompassCollective was already out on the water on its Trotamar III vessel conducting a different rescue operation when they heard the young girl shouting from the water at 3:20 a.m.
“It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the child’s voice despite the engine running,” skipper Matthias Wiedenlübbert said in the press release.
Compass Collective Dec. 6, 2024 Rescue Mission.
Compass-Collective.org
The child, originally from Sierra Leone, said she drifted in the water for three days with two improvised life rings made from air-filled inner tubes and a simple life jacket. She said she was in the water with two other passengers, but lost contact with them, per the BBC.
The child survived and was “responsive and oriented” despite having no drinking water or food and suffering from hypothermia, according to CompassCollective, which also provided medical attention at the scene. Around 6 a.m., she was transported to a migrant holding center in Lampedusa and was watched after by the Italian Red Cross staff.
The team looked for other survivors, but it was difficult due to “the days-long storm with over 23 knots speed and 2.5 meter [8.2 feet] high waves,” Wiedenlübbert said.
Compass Collective Dec. 6, 2024 Rescue Mission.
Compass-Collective.org
The young girl’s rescue is another example of migrants making dangerous journeys on boats to reach Europe, CompassCollective’s Katja Tempel said.
“Even in storms, people are forced to use risky escape routes across the Mediterranean. We need safe passages for refugees and an open Europe that welcomes people and gives them easy access to the asylum system. Drowning in the Mediterranean is not an option,” Tempel said.
“In this festive period, in which the majority of us are lucky to be with our loved ones, my thoughts go out to the girl from Sierra Leone,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Italy, Nicola Dell’Arciprete said, per Business Insider Africa. “Yet another tragedy that increases the number of dead and missing in the Central Mediterranean.”
“The persisting humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean is intolerable,” International Organization for Migration (IOM) Director General António Vitorino said in 2023.
The IOM reports that the migration route between Tunisia, Libya, Italy and Malta is one of the most dangerous in the world. Since 2014, over 24,300 people have either disappeared or died embarking on the journey. “I fear that these deaths have been normalized,” Vitorino said.
