Mare Jonio rescues 182 migrants in Mediterranean
By Joseph Tulloch – Aboard the Mare Jonio in the Mediterranean Sea
Between the evening of Saturday, August 24, and the morning of Sunday, August 25, the humanitarian ship Mare Jonio participated in the rescue of 182 migrants attempting the perilous sea crossing of the Mediterranean.
This was the eighteenth such operation carried out by Mediterranean Saving Humans, an Italian civil society organisation, but the first to be jointly-organised with the Italian Bishops’ Migrantes foundation.
The rescues
At 6pm on Saturday, the Mare Jonio sighted a wooden vessel in international waters, roughly 35 miles from the Tunisian coast. They reported its position to the Italian coastguard and distributed lifejackets to all onboard, since the boat appeared highly unstable. The Italian coastguard arrived shortly thereafter and transported its occupants – 67 in total, all of North African origin – to safety in Lampedusa.
In the meantime, the Mare Jonio had received a report of another boat nearby. As night fell, they headed toward its last known position, sighting the vessel – a highly overcrowded inflatable rubber boat – at roughly 23:20. Sometime after bringing its occupants onboard, the Mare Jonio was able to hand them over to the Italian coastguard. There were 50 in total, of mainly Ethiopian origin, including 43 minors and two women.
Finally, at around 6:30am on Sunday morning, while sailing southward in search of more migrant boats, the Mare Jonio happened across a third vessel. It rescued the occupants – 26 Syrians, 30 Bangladeshis, and 6 Pakistanis – and was instructed by the Italian government to deliver them to the port of Pozzallo in Sicily.
Struggles behind, struggles ahead
There were emotional scenes as the occupants of the third boat were brought aboard the Mare Jonio. Migrants embraced volunteers and thanked them for the rescue. “You are angels, sent by God to help us,” a man said.
The boat had set off from Libya the previous evening. Most of those onboard had at some point been imprisoned by the country’s vicious militias, and many bore signs of mistreatment and torture on their bodies and in their eyes.
One of those rescued had been a judge in his native country. Another – an Arabic teacher from Damascus – was desperate to discuss Shakespeare.
These interactions, though intensely moving, were tinged with sadness. Once the euphoria of the rescue had worn off, the migrants would have to face up to the titanic struggle of building new lives, in the context of a Europe increasingly hostile to their presence.
It was a reminder that, vitally important as the joint Mediterranea-Migrantes search and rescue operation was, it was nothing more than a beginning.
The real work of building networks of solidarity – of building the society of “fraternity and social friendship” dreamed of by Pope Francis – would begin in earnest on land.
Thank you for reading our article. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to our daily newsletter. Just click here
