Читать книгу The Times Companion to 2017: The best writing from The Times - Ian Brunskill - Страница 12
ОглавлениеBURNT AND TORTURED MIGRANTS FILLED DECKS AS WE RUSHED TO HELP
OCTOBER 8 2016
Saturday, October 1
“Dignity is a dancer,” jokes Captain Louis Ferres when the floor lurches sideways as we drop off a 2.5m wave. The battered ship that can hold up to 450 people is one of three that Médecins Sans Frontières uses to patrol the Mediterranean, searching for migrants in distress. Everyone on board, including Carla the cook, works on the rescues. Dignity pirouettes her way to the search and rescue zone 20 nautical miles off the Libyan coast where most migrant boats run into trouble. Huge waves wash over the deck. Half the non-sailors aboard are in their bunks throwing up.
We are told we may not see a rescue as even the most ruthless smugglers don’t force migrants into the sea in bad weather. But we still spend the afternoon putting together 450 emergency care packages — socks, nutritional biscuits, water and a towel. There is a strict cleaning schedule to prevent disease spreading through the ship. On Saturday night it’s my turn to scrub the inner decks, which I manage without vomiting.
Sunday, October 2
We are woken by news that there will be a rescue at 9am. More than 100 migrants in a rubber dinghy called the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Rome by satellite phone at dawn but it takes Dignity four hours to reach the position. By the time we arrive the dinghy is nowhere to be seen. Courtney, the ship’s nurse, begins to worry. They would have been at sea now for at least ten hours.
Likely weakened by months of starvation and ill-treatment in Libya, many don’t last a couple of hours exposed to the blistering heat of the sun. A co-ordinated effort with helicopters and nearby warships finds the dinghy. I jump aboard the rescue speedboat, which cuts through choppy waves to the dinghy. The terrified faces of women and children peer up from the bottom of the waterlogged tub, where they are crouched in lines as if on a slave ship.
This is the dangerous part. Desperate and delirious, people may try to jump aboard and risk turning the boat over. “Try to stay calm, we will rescue all of you,” urges MSF’s Nicholas over a megaphone while we hand out life jackets. The sickest — including an emaciated Ethiopian boy of 16 — are hauled aboard in the first round. When everyone is on deck and registered, people open up about the hell they escaped in Libya: floggings, rape and kidnappings for ransom. They are transferred to a Save the Children vessel returning to Italy.
Monday, October 3
The shriek of the rescue alarm wakes us. It’s 6.30am and a drifting boat has bumped the Dignity. The rescue goes well but the MSF team is told of a second, third and fourth boat in the area. The smugglers spotted a break in the storms and packed thousands into life rafts then scuttled home to make more quick profits before the winter ends the crossing season.
The stink of fuel knocks the breath out of me as the survivors of the second rescue stagger on board, their skin coming off in strips. The medics rush to treat a few who have stopped breathing. One pregnant woman grabs my arm and, pointing at a raw strip of flesh, screams. Another woman writhes on her back on the floor, screaming too. A third points to her shredded calf. Then it hits me: these are chemical burns from boat fuel.
“Get their clothes off and shower them now,” a voice shouts. We strip most of the 90 men, women and children and hose them down. I carry semi-conscious women to the showers. “We need to support a woman in the hospital to sit upright so she can breathe,” says Irene, grabbing me. I end up, covered in blood and faeces, cradling Lovett to keep her breathing.
I hold the hand of her pregnant sister, Joy, who dies on the bed beside us. Her body is packed in ice and placed in the bow. Lovett and the little boy are airlifted to hospital by the Italian coastguard, who won’t take Joy’s body.
Tuesday, October 4
The soft sobs of the Nigerian woman who lost her two boys, aged four and five, the day before are heard on deck. With nearly 420 migrants on board, including toddlers and a corpse, Dignity sails back to Italy. We are posted in shifts as guards to defuse any arguments, spot medical problems and regulate the endless queue for the toilet.
In French, Arabic and English, the men on deck, fleeing Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, tell their stories. In the evening I check on the Nigerian girls from Monday’s horrific sinking. They giggle at photos of my stupid cat and tell me about their favourite sugar-cane recipes.
Peace, who is spattered with torture scars, asks: “Do white people in Europe like black people? I’m afraid. We’re always treated like animals.” At night, while on watch on the men’s deck upstairs, I listen to Michael, 17, from Nigeria, talking of “making [his] mother proud” in Italy. “Do you think they will let me study? I want to be a doctor.”
Wednesday, October 5
Overnight the Italian coastguard again refused to take Joy. Her corpse is beginning to smell. In the morning we dock and the ship goes quiet. Everyone is split into groups depending on their injuries and their ages. They go ashore for medical checkups and registration.
The UN says that more than 80 per cent of Nigerian girls landed in Italy are trafficked into prostitution. I warn the girls to keep together and stay in the reception centres. Hope is mortified that she has only a blanket to wear. I wash and dry my pyjamas to give to her.
Hours later, as I leave the boat, I hear my name called. The girls are still being processed. Hope, wearing my pyjamas, is grinning. We hug and they board buses, promising to stick together.
Thursday, October 6
More than 10,000 people were pulled from the water in 48 hours this week. We have no idea where people have gone or if Lovett and the others made it. I add as friends the few who have Facebook. Kougan, 23, from Cameroon, who kept me company on night watch, pops up on Messenger: “I very grateful to become your friend Bella, take care for ur self.”
