As the gigantic red and white rescue ship sails through the Mediterranean Sea, the horizon is interrupted by the image of a dark blue inflatable boat, full of bobbing heads.
Rescuers from the NGO SOS Mediterranée don helmets and life jackets and rush to the scene in speedboats. They rush the migrants on board one by one, counting them.
Barely two weeks have passed since the shipwreck in which hundreds of migrants died off the Greek coast.
Children and young people, mostly from The Gambia, They have been at sea for 15 hours. and have traveled 54 nautical miles from the Libyan city of Castelverde, near Tripoli. They are distraught.
Some later claim that shortly before rescuers arrived, a fight nearly broke out aboard the crowded boat. Some were determined to keep going, while others begged to give up and try again later. One dropped his phone into the sea in the tumult.
One of them is wearing a pale blue Manchester City shirt, others are carrying iPhones. Few brought water or food. many do not know how to swimand they only carry a few inner tubes of tires to use as floats in case they end up in the sea.
Panic breaks out during the rescue when a Libyan coast guard ship appears on the horizon. Many of the boys have already been brought back to Libya on other occasions by the coast guard, for which the European Union has provided boats, training and funding.
Some of the migrants smile as they sit in the rescue speedboat; one even takes a selfie with his phone. Another recounts later that when he grabbed the hand of one of the rescuers, he thought: “Now I have entered Europe.”
The group rushes back to the SOS Mediterranée ship, the Ocean Viking, where they undergo medical check-ups and receive new clothes and bags of supplies such as toothbrushes.
The NGO alerts the Italian authorities, who quickly assign the southern city of Bari as the landing port, telling them to go there “without delay.”
The order responds to a new law that requires such ships go immediately to a port instead of continuing to patrol for more migrant boats.
Bari will take almost three days to arrive.
The ship has medical facilities, and has set up areas to accommodate migrants on the deck. Many of them speak English, although all their names have been changed.
Migrants say they were not unaware of the risks they faced. Many say that this was not his first attempt to reach Europe: some had even been on the verge of death when they were rescued and brought back to Libya.
“I’ve tried seven times,” confesses a 17-year-old.
They each have friends who have died attempting the same journey. Some also followed the news of the Greek disaster, one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in recent years, in which up to 750 people are believed to have died, occurred just two weeks earlier on social media. Those migrants had also set sail from Libya.
According to one of them, the news did not discourage him, since he believes that these migrants would have the same mentality as him.
“Either you get to Europe or you die at sea”, assures the teenager. “There are only two options.”
SOS Mediterranée had received the alert about the inflatable alarm phonean emergency helpline for migrants at sea, and the European border agency Frontex.
More than 80% of the group are unaccompanied minors. Many of the boys had started their journey years before, when they left home in the hope of earning money to send back to their families.
Many say they have lost one or both parents and, as the eldest children in their families, feel responsible for providing for their loved ones.
They are mostly from The Gambia, more than 3,200 kilometers southwest of Libya.
The Gambia is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) claims that Gambians have emigrated at a higher rate than any other African country in recent years.
According to their data, between 2015 and 2020, more than 32,000 Gambians arrived in Europe through what is known as “irregular” migration. They assure that a similar number arrived between 2020 and 2022.
The central Mediterranean is the main migration route to the European Union. Frontex details that in the first five months of this year, the number of crossings detected -50,318- more than doubled the records for the same period in 2022. It is the highest number recorded since 2017.
smugglers
Relieved to be on a ship headed for Europe, the boys relax enough to tell how they got there.
They took different routes to reach Libya, using smuggling networks that helped them cross various countries from West Africa to the north coast.
Eighteen-year-old Suma recounts that his journey began when he got in touch with an “agent” in nearby Mali, with whom he planned the start of his trip to Europe, which would go through Algeria to Libya. Along the way, she ensures that the traffickers they tied him up, beat him and denied him food.
None of the people he had traveled with to Libya were on the boat with him, and the BBC was unable to independently verify his claims, but other boys tell similar stories.
In the time it takes for the Ocean Viking to reach land, the migrants adjust to life on the ship, playing soccer, cards, Connect Four and dancing to music played on a loudspeaker.
There is a moment of emotion when the clothes with which they traveled are returned to them. They sift through a large pile to find their own items and carry them into buckets of soapy water to wash them, before hanging them on ropes to dry.
For many, these garments are your only personal items; everything else had to be left at home or in Libya.
Life on the ship marks a sea change from the way they lived before they set sail.
In Libya, they say they lived in compounds controlled by smugglers while trying to raise the money to cross the Mediterranean. Many say this leg of the trip cost them 3,500 Libyan dinars ($727).
Suma’s stepfather sent him some of the cash, and another boy says his family had taken out a loan to help finance the trip.
Others make vague references to having worked for smugglers.
“I didn’t pay for this trip… so I’m very lucky,” says one. “I was working with the man. I helped him organize things.”
Many of the teenagers say they also spent months in Libyan detention centers after being stopped by the Libyan coast guard when they tried to cross. There they say they were tortured and given little food. Many of them have scabies.
When they managed to raise enough money to cross the Mediterranean, the migrants contacted the agents to make arrangements.
Suma explains that she has learned not to trust them: “What they tell you and what they do is something different most of the time.”
According to him, they told him that they would take him on a boat with 55 or 60 people on board, however he found a small inflatable raft with between 80 and 90 passengers.
“You have to believe and leave everything in the hands of God. And everyone has to get on that rubber boat,” he points out.
Adama says that he was on a ship with about 125 occupants that sank. He was one of the 94 survivors.
“I saw my friend die. I helped many but I couldn’t help them all… I saw them, they were leaving”.
As the ship approaches the Italian coast, hope grows, but also some traces of regret. sum says that misses homebut that it would be “humiliating” for him to return after having borrowed money from his loved ones for the trip.
“It’s a shame,” he confesses.
Some knew very little about the plan for their perilous journey or where they were headed, beyond the promise of Europe, while others had their minds set on docking on the Italian island of Lampedusa, a common entry point for immigrants.
Several also recognize that always they trusted to be picked up at sea by the Ocean Viking of SOS Mediterranée, and that they do not believe that they could have reached Italy alone.
A teenager claims he tracked the ship on his phone before leaving.
“I like social networks, also ship trackers, I have them all on my phone. (Before leaving) I looked at the weather and (where) the rescue boats are, ”she admits.
Critics of groups like SOS Mediterranée argue that they act as a pull factor that encourages migrants to undertake dangerous journeys.
However, SOS Mediterranée assures that the fact that they patrol or not does not affect the number of migrant crossings.
“People leave regardless of whether there are boats or not”says Claire Juchat, operations communication manager.
He adds that, in the 72 hours that followed the rescue of the teenagers, when there was no NGO boat patrolling, 5,000 migrants arrived on the island of Lampedusa.
He also points out that most rescues are carried out by the authorities.
According to figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency, more than 64,000 people have arrived in Italy by crossing the Central Mediterranean so far this year. More than 1,000 of them were from The Gambia.
Adolescents say they see Europe as a place of security and stability, where they can go back to school and get a good job.
On the ship, the crew gives the group a lesson in basic Italian, while they sit on deck, carefully taking notes and repeating phrases.
While some have friends who crossed before them and have shared details of their new lives, Europe is mainly an abstract idea for migrants. Much of his knowledge is based on his favorite soccer teams and players.
“I want to be a football player. Like Ronaldo”, says one. “Marcus Rashford!” exclaims another. Many are excited to land in Italy, the country of the Serie A league and its new champion, Napoli.
But its future remains uncertain.
As the ship docks in the port of Bari, the teenagers, who had previously been singing and dancing on the deck, stand in silence, clutching gray blankets and documents to present to the authorities. Some tremble as they wait to be called.
They are received at the port by toilets and border officials, as well as by workers from the Cr Red Light and United Nations. Some are taken away pediatric ambulances to receive health treatment. Others are put on buses to take them to reception facilities, where they will undergo further evaluation.
Sara Mancinelli, Operations Manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, who is also traveling on the ship, explains that her right to stay in Europe will be determined by her individual circumstances.
“Even if there is no war in their country and they do not suffer persecution, they may have reasons why they receive some kind of protection”, he points out.
Chiara Cardoletti, UNHCR representative for Italy, says that due in part to an “impressive increase in arrivals”, reception capacity in the country is “currently insufficient to respond to the needs of unaccompanied migrants and others”.
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See original article on BBC