Rome
CNN
—
An 11-year-old woman has been discovered clinging to tire tubes off the Italian coast after the migrant boat she was on sank three days earlier.
The woman is from Sierra Leone and has been named as “Yasmine” in Italian media.
She was discovered with a life jacket within the Mediterranean Sea early Wednesday morning by the crew of Trotamar II rescue vessel, which is run by the German NGO Compass Collective.
She instructed rescuers that the boat had left Sfax in Tunisia over the weekend with round 45 individuals on board, together with her younger brother, based on a press release from the rescue charity German NGO Compass Collective.
A storm within the space on the time had halted operations for a number of NGO rescue vessels across the Italian island of Lampedusa.
The woman mentioned two others had initially survived when the metallic boat overturned within the storm, however they disappeared into the water hours earlier than she was rescued. All different migrants are presumed useless.
Trotamar III skipper Matthias Wiedenlübbert mentioned they heard her cries within the darkness round 3:20 a.m. Wednesday (9:20 p.m. ET Tuesday). The boat, which had been on its solution to one other rescue, began patrolling the world after recognizing particles from the capsized vessel.
“It was an unimaginable coincidence that we heard the kid’s voice though the engine was working,” he mentioned. “And in fact we appeared for different survivors. But after the day-long storm with over 23 knots and a couple of.5-meter-high waves, it was hopeless.”
The woman was rushed to Lampedusa the place she is being handled for hypothermia. She is anticipated to outlive, based on the Red Cross, which manages the migrant heart on the island.
The identical evening, the NGO distributed lifejackets to a different boat in misery with 53 individuals on board earlier than alerting Italian authorities of its location. It is just not clear if these individuals had been rescued.
Crew member Katja Tempel mentioned: “Even throughout storms, individuals are pressured to make use of dangerous escape routes throughout the Mediterranean. We want protected passage for refugees and an open Europe that welcomes individuals and provides them quick access to the asylum system. Drowning within the Mediterranean is just not an choice.”
More than 64,000 individuals have been rescued within the Central Mediterranean attempting to achieve Italy between January 1 and December 11, based on authorities statistics. Of these, 7,879 have been unaccompanied minors.
The miraculous rescue has reignited the controversy about offering protected corridors for these searching for asylum in Europe. Earlier this yr, Italy tried to open migrant processing facilities in Albania, however their legality has been caught up within the Italian court docket system.
