BY OSABUOHIEN VIVIAN ROSE
An 11-year-old girl has been found clinging to tire tubes after the migrant boat she was on sank three days earlier in the Mediterranean sea.
The girl is from Sierra Leone and has been named as “Yasmine” in Italian media.
She was found off the Italian coast with a life jacket in the Sea early Wednesday morning by the crew of Trotamar II rescue vessel, which is run by the German NGO Compass Collective.
She told rescuers that the boat had left Sfax in Tunisia over the weekend with around 45 people on board, also with her young brother, according to a statement from the rescue charity German NGO Compass Collective.
A storm in the area at the time had halted operations for several NGO rescue vessels around the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The girl said two others had initially survived when the metal boat overturned in the storm, but they disappeared into the water hours before she was rescued. All other migrants are presumed dead.
Trotamar III skipper Matthias Wiedenlübbert said they heard her cries in the darkness around 3:20 a.m. Wednesday (9:20 p.m. ET Tuesday). The boat, which had been on its way to another rescue, started patrolling the area after spotting debris from the capsized vessel.
“It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the child’s voice even though the engine was running,” he said. “And of course we looked for other survivors. But after the day-long storm with over 23 knots and 2.5-meter-high waves, it was hopeless.”
The girl was taken to a hospital in Lampedusa where she is being treated for hypothermia.
According to the Red Cross, which manages the migrant center on the island,she is expected to survive.
The same night, the NGO distributed lifejackets to another boat in distress with 53 people on board before alerting Italian authorities of its location. It is unclear if those people were rescued.
Crew member Katja Tempel said: “Even during storms, people are forced to use risky escape routes across the Mediterranean. We need safe passage 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.”
Over 64,000 people have been rescued in the Central Mediterranean trying to reach Italy between January 1 and December 11, according to government statistics. Of those, 7,879 have been unaccompanied minors.
The miraculous rescue has reignited the debate about providing safe corridors for those seeking asylum in Europe. Earlier this year, Italy had tried to create migrant processing centers in Albania, but their legality has been caught up in the Italian court system.
