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Karl Stagno-Navarra
The only survivor from a boatload of irregular immigrants, believed to have drowned 100 miles south of Malta, revealed yesterday that three children were among the group that never made it.
Speaking in tears from his hospital bed at St Lukes, where he is being treated for hypothermia, the 23-year-old immigrant from Ivory Coast told immigration police that he was the only one to have bought a life-jacket before boarding the wooden boat in the port town of Zliten in Libya.
The immigrant is reported to have explained in French to the police that the boat was laden with 30 immigrants from Ivory Coast and Congo, and capsized after being battered for hours by rough seas.
The boat set sail from Libya on Monday night and ran out of fuel on Wednesday, after which it drifted on the high seas and eventually was tipped by high waves, throwing all passengers overboard.
According to what he told the police, nobody – including himself – knew how to swim, and he tried to keep at least one of the children afloat by offering him to hold onto his life-jacket.
However, after some hours, the child lost consciousness and slipped off into the depths.
The immigrant, who last night was transferred from St Lukes Hospital to Safi Detention Centre, was picked up at sea by a Maltese trawler after having spent no less than 11 hours in the water. He was later airlifted by an AFM helicopter to St Lukes.
While a search and rescue operation in the area that stretches far beyond Malta’s rescue zone yielded no result, news about the tragedy travelled around the world with major news networks and news agencies reporting the plight of the sole survivor.
The office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Rome last night paid tribute to the Maltese fisherman who saved the immigrant’s life, and appealed to the Maltese government not to leave the immigrant at Safi Detention Centre and to guarantee all necessary medical and psychological support to the traumatised youngster.
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