On-board log (VII): New Open Arms rescue, 130 people in two canoes

They raised their arms in victory sign, raised their fists or saluted with an open palm. Some were smiling exultingly. Others stared wide-eyed with enormous curiosity. In the faces of a few there was a mixture of distrust, fear and perplexity. And there were those who took out their mobile to immortalize the moment of the rescue and not forget the women and men of Open Arms who found them crammed into two cayucos crossing the Mediterranean, where more than 1,300 people have drowned so far this year trying to reach the European shores.

The rescue occurred at sunset on Sunday in international waters, about 30 nautical miles from the Italian island of Lampedusa. After a week of eventful Astral mission, one of the two ships of the Badalona NGO dedicated to maritime Rescue, the ship literally ran into two cayucos on the horizon While he was tracking another boat in distress. After Four days of powerlessness in Menorca due to a mechanical breakdown, the time had come to take action. “With your permission, I will check the conditions of these two boats& rdquor ;, reported its Greek captain, Savvas Kourepinis, to the maritime communication station Radio Lampedusa. On board the races began to activate the rescue device, led by a semi-rigid boat with two lifeguards, a skipper and two journalists, one of them from THE NEWSPAPER.

“Are you all right, are there any injured? Fat fingers in the wind in approval. The weather accompanied and also a smooth sea with hardly any waves. There were no injuries in any of them, according to their answers, but they were running out of fuel, as they were commissioned to emphasize brandishing empty diesel drums overboard. In total, about 130 people traveled in the two cayucos. All men and, except for a Syrian who managed to make himself heard amid the roar of the engines, all originally from Bangladesh, a country thousands of kilometers from the Mediterranean coast. Of the incidents on their way, they could say little else because none of them would get on board the Astral, which did not take long to report their situation to the Italian authorities.

Failed state

The cayucos had left the coasts of Zuara (Libya) two days ago, the main country of departure for the arrival of refugees and irregular migrants to Italy, which has received more than 59,000 people so far this year arriving in boats and cayucos through the Mediterranean, according to his Interior Minister said this week. The former fiefdom of Gaddafi, turned since the NATO intervention into a failed state controlled by various armed factions, is a bottomless pit for human rights, where torture, sexual abuse, labor exploitation and arbitrary detentions are committed. “Systematically & rdquor; against migrants, as denounced by the UN.

But both Italy and the European Union equip and finance their coastguards to curb migratory flows and intern migrants. intercepted in their fearsome detention centers. Nothing seems to matter to them that those coastguards have been led by Abd al-Rahman Milad, also known as Bija, one of the largest human traffickers in the North African country. But in this case, the people rescued by Open Arms will not have to worry about being returned hot to Libya, as others with less luck do.

Just 15 minutes after the meeting with the rescuers of the Catalan NGO, who did not take long to inform the Italian authorities of the position and conditions of the cayucos, a vessel from its Finance Guard appeared to take them on board and take them to Italy. A quick outcome and without the setbacks to which the Camps organization is accustomed, that only brings rescued people on board when they are in imminent danger of death or when none of the authorities of the riparian countries responds to their calls for assistance.

Search and rescue zone

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The mission of the Astral, in any case, is far from over. Since the ship sighted Lampedusa on the port side and entered the search and rescue zone (SARItalian, one of the demarcations into which maritime law divides the Mediterranean, forcing their respective countries to provide assistance to vessels in distress, the radio hasn’t stopped playing. Shortly before the rescue, a fishing boat warned of the “very serious situation & rdquor; experienced by a “wooden boat & rdquor; that supposedly would carry about 35 African people, including 20 children. “Very serious situation& rdquor ;, he insisted over and over again on Radio Lampedusa.

But finding those potential castaways isn’t easy. The Italian coastguards do not always respond quickly And for the NGOs it can be like finding a needle in a haystack, a haystack that, in these latitudes, is a great cemetery of broken dreams.