A particularly deadly drama. The sinking of a migrant ship in the Ionian Sea off Greece killed at least 79 people on Wednesday, making it one of the deadliest migrant shipwrecks in the region. “Hundreds” of people were on board, according to the Greek coast guard, so the balance could still increase.
A volunteer for the Alarm Phone emergency hotline, Nawal Foufi received calls for help from the ship and provided remote assistance to the migrants by providing, from Italy, where she lives, the GPS coordinates of the ship to the authorities.
Since Tuesday morning, he has shared live the information he receives on his personal Facebook account and confesses his concern.
A “dramatic situation”
“Managing the SOS of a ship of 750 people from Libya,” he wrote Tuesday at 9:33 a.m. on his account.
“People on board are at risk of drinking seawater, the water ran out after the fourth day of navigation,” Nawal Foufi is already worried.
Less than an hour later, the volunteer’s fears, who evokes a “dramatic situation”, seem to be confirmed. “We need immediate help,” he said.
6 deaths announced at the end of the afternoon
In the early afternoon, the young woman clarified the information she had about the boat and provided the exact GPS coordinates of the shipwreck site.
“Seven people on board fainted,” he said, adding that the Italian, Maltese and Greek authorities have been informed of the situation. “We are waiting for the rescuers,” she said, before announcing a little later that Greece had promised to send water and food.
At the end of the afternoon, at 5:53 p.m., a first report falls: “6 people dead and another 2 in critical condition,” announces Nawal Foufi, saying that he was informed directly by the migrants. “I hope with all my heart that this is a misunderstanding or a way to speed up the rescue operation,” he wants to believe.
“A serious imbalance with the risk of sinking the ship”
In the afternoon, the volunteer worries about the evolution of the situation. He says that an approaching freighter threw bottles of water into the sea to help the migrants, but that not everything went as planned.
“Every time a bottle was thrown away, all the migrants went to one side of the boat to look for water, which caused a serious imbalance, with the risk of the boat sinking,” he explains, indicating that the boat later sank. .
“We demand an immediate rescue from Greece or Malta,” he said, assuring that the rescuers were then trying to “manage the panic on board.”
“They were left to die”
On Wednesday morning, the young woman breaks down and lets go of her pain. “My God nooooooo”, she spills it in the middle of the morning in a message accompanied by emoji of tears.
“Nonnnnnn. They were left to die. I received news of a shipwreck ”, he laments again in the comments.
At 11:21, Nawal Foufi publishes this time a more detailed message in which he pays tribute to the castaways.
“750 is not just a number,” he recalls. “His voices of him go through my mind… Dozens and dozens of calls, crying, crying,” she emotionally recalls.
Among these calls, he mentions in particular that of a man, Will, with whom he exchanged a few seconds. “It looked like he was dying of thirst. He couldn’t say a word. He was begging me, telling me to inform any European country so that they would come looking for them, ”he laments.
confusion on board
Later in the evening, Nawal Foufi recounts in a lengthy account that the sinking occurred when the migrants were “lost.” Seeing a freighter coming in his direction, no one knew “whether it was a rescue operation or a way to further put their lives in danger.”
He remained on the phone with them Tuesday morning until the evening around 11pm, he claims to have tried in every way to reassure them and promise that help was on the way. She said she was convinced that the migrants “did not intend to continue the journey to Italy, because they did not know how to navigate to reach Italian waters.”
One of the migrants confided to him before the sinking: “I have the impression that this is going to be the last night of our lives.”
“Your words stay in my mind”
Moved by the calls she has received, she pays tribute to these disappeared migrants, to “their determination” and “their will”. “I would like to tell this woman and this man (with whom I spoke) that they are true heroes. (…) Her words, coming out of a dry throat after days spent at sea, are marks that stay in my mind,” she says.
“All of Europe must act! Didn’t the cries of these children reach the headquarters of the EU institutions?” he asks.
In a tweet, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) denounced this new “tragedy” this Wednesday, which, it believes, recalls the need for “concrete and comprehensive actions by States to save lives at sea and reduce dangerous voyages “.
Source: BFM TV
