The record of the voyage runs from Wednesday to Saturday. A rubber dinghy left Zawiya, on the western Libyan coast, on Wednesday. By Saturday afternoon, two children were dead and 59 people were being lifted off it by a German charity.
RESQSHIP, the sea rescue organization, gave the account on Sunday. On board were 62 people, including 17 women, two babies and four small children, according to the Independent. The engine failed. LibyaReview reported that it happened less than 24 hours into the trip, while the Independent put the failure at two days before the rescue. Either way, the passengers were left exposed to sun, saltwater and leaking fuel.
Spotted from the air, reached at 4.30
A surveillance aircraft of the EU border agency Frontex located the boat south of Lampedusa. RESQSHIP’s crew arrived at around 4.30 p.m. “By the time [we] reached the rubber boat,” the charity said, “it was too late to help some of the people.”
The dead were two children, aged three and four, and a man. A paramedic identified only as Rania told the charity the children “had died the day before, probably of thirst.” The man was found unconscious and could not be revived. Survivors also told RESQSHIP that a further passenger had drowned on Friday after falling overboard.
The condition of the survivors
Hannah, a doctor on board the NADIR, said many survivors had “extensive burns from the toxic mixture of salt water and fuel.” Women were hit hardest, she said, because they sat inside the boat where the liquid collects.
Two children and four adults in critical condition were handed to the Italian coast guard to be brought ashore more quickly.
The wider count
The International Organisation for Migration says almost 25,000 migrants have died or gone missing on the central Mediterranean route since 2014. The total includes around 1,700 last year and 378 so far this year. Lampedusa, lying between Tunisia, Malta and Sicily, is the first port of call for many who reach the EU from North Africa.
Sources
- Two children dead after rubber dinghy floats adrift in Mediterranean for days
- 2 Children Die After Migrant Boat Departs Libya – LibyaReview
