Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/712794
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JULY 2016 16 Special Report "M iriam, wake up. It's a wooden boat." 4.15am and it's pitch-dark. I scramble out of my bunk bed, grab my camera and rush downstairs. The rest of the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) crew and the medical team from Emergency NGO are outside, ready on deck. A searchlight from the Topaz Responder suddenly shines light on the target: it's a 45ft, blue wooden boat. Once used for fish- ing, it's now carrying 356 men, women, children and babies. John Hamilton, head of MOAS's rescue operation, is leading the rescue mission: the fast rescue daughter craft (FRDC) is bat- tling small waves as it tries to make its way towards the rickety boat in the darkness. Faint shouts are heard in the distance as the boat swings against the waves. Within minutes, the crew had reached the boat and lifejackets were thrown over. Hamilton asks whether anyone is injured or seriously ill, and the migrants reply in the negative. These are the people on the upper deck, unaware that four young men were already dead in the hold. Nick, a rescue diver, jumps onboard the wooden boat. His job is to ensure that eve- ryone remains sitting down, and is heard shouting "sit down", "life jacket", "don't push". Packed as it was, the slightest move- ment by the migrants could capsize the boat. The rescue operation started at around 5am, when the boat was finally out of Lib- yan territorial waters, 17nm off the Libyan coast. The group had left Zawija on Mon- day night at around 11 and the ship's radar picked them up at around 3.30am. Although they appeared as just a dot, the realization that it was a migrant boat came as soon as it was noticed that the boat was sailing at four knots. By 6.45am, MOAS had ferried all Eritrean migrants on board, with the exception of a few. Although this wasn't their first rescue of the sort, the crew was shocked at seeing over 100 migrants packed like sardines in the hold. Air was limited, coming from only two holes, just large enough for a slim per- son to pass through. It was then they realized that four had died from suffocation: carbon monoxide was leaking from the fuel pipe. One of them had been dead for at least six hours, rigor mortis already setting in. A cardiologist from the Emergency NGO performed CPR on three of the migrants and struggled to revive a fourth on the wooden boat. No one knows the name or age of the man, but he appeared to be still young. The assistance of an Italian navy ship was requested and the patient was medically evacuated by helicopter to a hos- pital in Lampedusa. The medical crew performed miracles: a young man, Daniel, was unconscious and very close to death. But thanks to the crew, Daniel would walk off the Topaz Responder two days later when the ship docked at the port of Messina. It's a combination of hunger, dehydra- tion, exhaustion and sitting crammed in the same position for hours on end that lead to many of them being unable to walk or breathe properly. Two brothers held onto each other as they walked off the ship, one of them in shock. They sat down on the plastic pallets and the elder brother forced his sibling to drink water. The younger one kept fainting as the medical crew wrapped him in a space blan- ket. It would take around six minutes until he came to his senses: at times, his brother would slap his face – not to hurt him but to force him to stay awake. And then it hap- pened: the young one sat up straight, turned to face his brother and, having finally recog- nized him, burst out crying. The two held onto each other for dear life, sobbing in each other's arms as the younger one started shaking uncontrollably. A few minutes later, he was sleeping, exhausted but knowing that he was finally safe. It's a dual reality unravelling before your eyes: those who are a step closer to their European dream and those whose crossing marked the end of their life's journey for good. Amongst the crying of men and wailing of women, the four bodies were wrapped in body bags and transferred onto the Topaz Responder by the MOAS crew. There was It's been 14 months since Malta stopped taking in migrants but the dangerous crossings still happen every day. A private search and rescue mission is present outside Libya's territorial waters, saving hundreds of lives every week, as MIRIAM DALLI found out during six days spent on board the Topaz Responder The journey for survival Death never too far off Four men lost their lives in the crossing: their bodies were buried in Messina, Italy