MILAN — A humanitarian organization announced that an 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone has been rescued from the Mediterranean Sea near Italy’s Lampedusa. She is believed to be the sole survivor of a migrant boat that had capsized after departing from Sfax, Tunisia.
On Wednesday morning, the girl was found by the German sailing vessel Trotamar III, which has been conducting rescue missions in the Mediterranean since August 2023. According to the report, she was discovered without any food or water and was suffering from hypothermia.
The captain of the Trotamar III, Matthias Weidenluebbert, shared his astonishment at hearing the girl’s voice amidst the noise of the running engines. The crew quickly shut down the motors to locate the source of the voice, explained Katja Tempel from Compass Collective.
When the crew pulled her from the water, they noted that while she was cold, exhausted, and shivering, she was generally in good condition. The girl recounted her harrowing experience of drifting in the sea for three days, using inflatable innertubes and a life jacket for floating. She mentioned that she had embarked on the journey with around 45 others and had kept in contact with two people until a couple of days before her rescue, when communication ceased.
“We don’t know what happened to the others,” Tempel stated. “It’s feared they may have drowned, but we lack information.”
The girl’s survival came after a severe storm that had been ongoing for several days, characterized by winds exceeding 23 knots and waves reaching over 2.5 meters (approximately 8 feet). The Trotamar III, measuring 13 meters in length and operated by a rotating team of six crew members, has rescued upwards of 230 people in the past 16 months.
Following her rescue, the vessel also distributed life jackets to 53 individuals aboard a motorless wooden boat and notified Italian authorities of their location. In total, the crew of the Trotamar III has assisted approximately 1,700 people, providing life jackets, alerting rescue authorities, and remaining with those in distress until help arrives. In critical situations, the stranded individuals are brought on board the sailing vessel, as stated by Tempel.
According to U.N. reports, which rely heavily on survivor testimonies, a total of 1,536 individuals have either died or are missing and presumed dead in the central Mediterranean this year. Meanwhile, the Italian Interior Ministry reported that 64,234 migrants have arrived in Italy as of Thursday, marking a 58% decrease compared to the same period last year, which saw 153,211 arrivals.
Tempel emphasized that the girl’s story is a reminder of the ongoing tragedy in the Mediterranean, stating, “She symbolizes the deaths occurring in the region. It’s heartbreaking that she may have lost her family, but her case represents a larger, tragic reality.”
