'Ready for Rescue'

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Geo Barents Ship, Mediterranean Sea – It was Wednesday, May 11, 2022, and a small fishing boat drifted in the Mediterranean, some 240km (155 miles) south of the coast of Malta. On board, the 29 passengers – all without life jackets or supplies – faced their third night on the open sea.

Before the small fibreglass boat had set off from Sabratah, Libya, about 200km (120 miles) away, smugglers had handed a satellite phone with GPS to one of the passengers – the young, enterprising and charismatic Jay*, who they chose to pilot the vessel because of his previous boat-handling experience.

The boat slowly moved north, towards Malta’s search and rescue region (SRR), until Wednesday evening, when the passengers were safely out of the Libyan SRR, where, if they were found by the Libyan Coast Guard, they would be returned to Libya.

Just before 9pm, Jay took out the satellite phone and called Alarm Phone – a charitable organisation monitoring distress calls in the Mediterranean – which then relayed the call to the local Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) of Malta – RCC Malta – and to the MRCC in Rome as well as to non-governmental search and rescue (SAR) ships operating in the area.

Shortly after, shrouded in darkness, the passengers – among them a dozen minors and two women – noticed the lights of a ship on the horizon behind them.

Half the passengers were hopeful the ship would take them to Europe, while others worried it was the Libyan Coast Guard.

Every year, thousands of migrants and refugees depart from Libya, attempting to reach Europe in unseaworthy vessels. Last year, Frontex detections of what it calls “illegal border crossings” were at their highest since 2017, and attempts from January to May this year were 15 percent higher than during the same period in 2021, with the journeys across the Mediterranean becoming increasingly fatal, and around half being intercepted by authorities who return the refugees and migrants to Libya.

The passengers on the small fibreglass boat knew the odds of succeeding, as they sat watching the lights of the ship in the distance. They hoped to be rescued but were also terrified of being returned to Libya, so they spent the next few hours trying to outrun the ship. Finally, they agreed on a different plan: to circle around and identify their pursuer from behind.

A few miles behind the small fibreglass boat in the Maltese SRR, the Geo Barents – a 77-metre long SAR ship operated by Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) – was receiving the last of the survivors from a wooden vessel it had found in distress.

Over the preceding 60 hours, the rescue team had brought on board more than 440 survivors from six separate casualty vessels.

The ship’s heavy-duty cranes hadn’t yet hauled in the two orange, two-tonne rescue boats from the water when the exhausted team received the alert from Alarm Phone at 9.38pm informing them about a small fibreglass boat a few miles from their location.

It should have been less than an hour away, had the little boat not been running from them.

By 1am on Thursday, the ship was finally close enough to the fibreglass boat for Leo Southall, the 25-year-old deputy SAR leader who coordinates rescues on the water, to scramble his team: “MSF Team. MSF Team. Ready for Rescue. Ready for Rescue.”

Southall’s usual youthful vigour had slowed slightly from the exertions of the previous rescues, as he rushed up the steps of the ship – dressed in blue surgical scrub trousers and a white long-sleeved T-shirt – past the survivors resting on one of the men’s decks, where sleeping bodies filled every inch of floor space.

For a brief moment, sleep deprivation seemed to slow Southall down; his foot hovered between his boots and waterproof trousers, working out which to put on first. He chose the boots and then corrected himself.

At the same time, the marine crewmen prepared to launch the two fast rescue boats – named Mike and Orca – from each side of the ship.

Southall usually works on Orca with a driver, Minka*, a tall 31-year-old experienced German SAR technician with a long dreadlock running down her back; translator and crewmember, Nejma Banks, a 45-year-old Algerian-American mother of four; and crewman Gabriel Bouza, his first time working for MSF.

The team of nine circled around him, their helmets denoting their roles on the team: white for SAR team members, green for medics, and red for Southall, as team leader on the water.

Another three SAR technicians and a medic worked on Mike and two technicians, led by Miriam Willis, remained on board to transfer people and equipment to and from the ship.

Southall spoke loudly over the noise of the engine and the waves hitting the bulk of the ship. His message to his team was quick and concise, efficiently detailing the specs of the boat in distress, the number of survivors to expect and a possible location.

For six weeks, they had worked and trained on the same boats, with Southall and his crew always on Orca launching from the port side of the ship. But Orca was low on fuel, so Southall and his crew would be on Mike, which was stowed on the starboard side and would now become the lead boat.

“Pay attention when you are launching – it’s exactly the same thing, [but] in reverse but none of us have slept properly and it’s on the opposite side,” Southall reminded his team. “Really think about what you are doing, yeah?”

A lapse in concentration now could be catastrophic.

Adrenaline buzzed through the team, keeping them alert despite the fatigue. Some carried out final checks or drank water; others paced back and forth.

Minka – who has 14 of her 21 prior rescues marked by a tattooed black dot on her arm – ran through some of the quirks of her boat with Mike’s usual driver, 32-year-old David Inverardi.

“Green light to launch,” came over the radio and the teams climbed onto their rescue boats. Once on the water, in the dark and cool of the night, they were calm and methodical as they began to search for the little boat.

Minutes later, Minka caught a reflection in one of the team’s searchlights.

She circled around the fibreglass boat to allow the team to assess the situation. The back of the boat was dangerously low, with water sloshing around next to the two outboard engines.

The SAR team typically uses one rescue boat to disembark passengers while the other watches from a distance. However, the fibreglass boat was too unstable to draw people over to one side to disembark, so Southall chose the rare – and risky – “sandwich” manoeuvre, so named because both of the rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs), used as the rescue boats, approach the casualty vessel at the same time, sandwiching it between them.

On the ship a few days later, Southall explained his decision, “We quite often see during rescues … what we are calling the submarine effect [where] an escape route is presented, people really start to rise up and panic…  The people are very, very desperate to get off the boat.”

On Southall’s command, Minka and Inverardi simultaneously moved their RHIBs to “sandwich” the little boat.

Southall bent forward to hold the side of the casualty vessel as the men pushed a young child to the front. Eight-year-old Aron Asmerom, now wearing an MSF life vest over his grey sweatshirt, faced Southall, his wide eyes almost covered by a loose beanie.

He appeared to listen to Southall’s instructions, although the young Eritrean did not understand English.

Other passengers stood behind him, protectively holding his shoulder as their boat wobbled back and forth; his mother, Tigisty Mengsteab, 26, was hidden in the sea of men behind him.

Southall pulled Asmerom on board. The child stood disoriented on the deck of the rescue boat. He walked in circles, wobbling and struggling to maintain his balance before he sat down to wait for the others.

One by one, the survivors climbed onto the boat, causing it to rock violently in the two-foot waves. Passengers desperately tried to maintain their balance while searching for a place to sit. The searchlight at the stern of the boat created a strobing effect, briefly silhouetting each passenger.

The rescue was fast and frenetic – the survivors were transferred in less than four minutes.

It was eerily quiet when Southall jumped onto the fibreglass boat to check that nothing of importance had been left behind. He tipped the running engines out of the water and leaped back onto the RHIB as they started to choke, smoke pouring out of them. In minutes they would be burned out, unable to be reused by another smuggler.

This was the Geo Barents’s second rescue in the Maltese SRR in 12 hours. In that time, the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre responsible for the Maltese SRR, RCC Malta, acknowledged neither the messages from Alarm Phone nor from the Geo Barents.

Juan Gil Donantueno, the head of mission for MSF’s SAR operations in the Mediterranean, described RCC Malta as “displaying negligence and a total lack of coordination”.

In a moment of calm after the rescues, he sat barefoot in his makeshift office – a micro-sofa and coffee table on the bridge of the ship. RCC Malta is “aware of everything we do”, he said, searching through several laptops to confirm that they had not responded to any of his emails for more than two weeks.

Ina Fischer, the spokesperson for Alarm Phone, said, “as always, we didn’t receive any reply [from RCC Malta] if they would launch a rescue operation or not”.

“In our opinion – and we have years of experience with them – RCC Malta and [the Armed Forces of Malta] are doing all to prevent rescue operations and arrivals in Malta, backed up by the government,” Fischer said.

Malta RCC did not reply to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.

In January 2022, the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council for Europe also expressed concern about the “reported deterioration in Malta’s approach to search and rescue in recent years” and the “numerous reports of delays and non-response by its Rescue Coordination Centre to distress calls (contested by the authorities)” as well as “instructions given to commercial ships to return migrants to Libya”.

For many of the survivors on board the ship, being returned to Libya is a fate worse than death. “Whatever happens to me, even if we die, we don’t want to go back to Libya,” explained an unaccompanied minor from Eritrea. “We would prefer to drown at sea.”

Talking through a translator, he said, “When I was rescued, I felt like I was born again.” In English, he added: “Happy. Happy. Happy.”

Jay has experience of the Libyan immigration system. He left home after his father died and he was tasked with providing for the family. Despite being an educated polyglot, he was unable to find work, so he left his home country, which Al Jazeera has chosen not to name for his safety, to try to find work elsewhere.

Once in Libya, he was arrested in Tripoli, along with hundreds of other migrants, during Ramadan this year. The police took their money and phones and then drove them 97km (60 miles) to an abandoned immigration centre in Bi’r al Ghanam, he says.

They were held in large sheds that Jay describes as a kind of pen, used to house animals, where the guards controlled them with guns and beatings while slowly starving them.

“I was skinny before, but then I became too skinny,” he said. “I met someone who went mad because he had spent seven months in there.”

Then tutting and shaking his head, he added: “Too skinny. Too skinny.”

Jay explained how every morning a man would come and say “Who wants to go out? If someone wants to go out of here you can use the phone and then call your people… then they can send the money and you can leave”.  The price to leave was 3,000 Libyan dinars ($622).

Prisoners who paid the money were released, but Jay, who had no money, was transferred to another unofficial detention centre in Tripoli where he and his friends made a hole in the wall, escaping into what looked like an old stadium by the sea. As soon as they were free, he rang the smuggler who subsequently put him in charge of the boat and the satellite phone.

It was 2am by the time the rescue boats returned to the ship, where Willis and Virginia Mielgo waited to pull the survivors up, one at a time. Both the drivers and the deck crew must pay close attention during this critical part of the rescue, as slipping between the rescue boat and the ship could be fatal.

“It’s about double, triple checking, and repeat, even if it sounds stupid,” said Willis, who is also an experienced mountaineer.

A few days beforehand, while sitting on a box, organising the team’s equipment before entering the Libyan SRR, her hair in plaits under a black beanie hat and her nails showing the last remnants of red nail varnish, Willis had talked about safety in her job. “It’s the consequences versus the actions. The actions are quite simple, but the consequences are very big.”

The dazed and exhausted survivors Willis pulled up were met with cheers and applause as they stumbled onto the ship’s deck. The medical team and humanitarian affairs team registered the survivors and handed out emergency clothing, blankets and hygiene kits.

When Jay finally made it onto the ship, he was relieved.

“I remember feeling happy. Finally, I had made it … I was surprised because the people was very many. A huge number. All of us was in the sea. Imagine it!” he said.

Caroline Willeman, the project coordinator responsible for the MSF team on board, welcomed the survivors with what she calls the most “meaningful words” in her life: “Welcome on board the Geo Barents. You are safe here. You will not go back to Libya.”

The deck erupted into more cheers. But the work was not over for the crew. With 472 survivors on board, they had to appeal to, and wait for, one of the nearest coastal states – Malta or Italy – to give them a port of safety.

Again, Malta ignored the request.

During the frenzy of a rescue, the survivors are at first just anonymous faces. But over the next few days, the hundreds on board come to know one another.

On the lower of the two decks, a group of Gambian men hung out behind the porta potties.

Nearby, Ghanian boys played endless games of cards – some rowdier than others as they ignored the crew’s pleas to keep the noise down while others around them were trying to sleep.

Upstairs, the deck was divided to create a space exclusively for women and children. Two young Syrian women – an engineer and a pharmacist – and a middle-aged Moroccan woman hung up a blanket to create enough privacy for them to remove their headscarves.

Little Asmerom made model planes, ships and houses out of cardboard with a slightly older Egyptian boy. Every time a crew member came into his area, he would embrace them in a long, tight hug.

Men stood in groups, leaning on the waist-high railings watching the water below rush by.

For many survivors, this was the safest they had felt in years. One young Gambian explained that he hadn’t been able to sleep without fear of the police coming to round them up for many months.

They spent the next few days sleeping on the floor under brown blankets, drinking sweet tea and talking. Stories started to come out. Even when there was no shared language, they would convey to one another where and how they had been tortured on their journey. A group of young Somali boys pointed to scars on their bodies and then to a table leg to indicate how they had been beaten, miming that they were bound and hung upside down.

The Gambians started to mock each other. “Don’t worry about him, his network is down,” they called out one day when one of their friends said something unintelligible. They all erupted into giggles.

For the MSF team, the process of anonymising to humanising is something they know well.

Janne Malmstroem, the on board logistician, who saw a “bump” on the water that led to the rescue of more than 200 people, admits that in the heat of the moment, the priority is the rescue. “At that moment, you don’t think of them as people … that realisation comes after.”

Despite coordinating the rescues, Southall said he is rarely recognised by survivors when he is back on deck. “I think in rescues you are viewed less as a person because you are more representative of a concept of safety. They aren’t thinking about who you are or what you look like; they’re just thinking about how you can help them get from one dangerous boat to a safer one.”

On May 19, six days after being rescued, Asmerom was allowed to disembark in Sicily together with his mother and the other women and children on board. They left the ship with large smiles, ready for the next stage of their journey.

But then, without warning, the Italian police stopped disembarking people and the ship – with all the men still aboard – was sent back out to sea, despite appeals for information from the MSF team.

The frustration was too much for some survivors; a group of men wrote messages on cardboard, which they held up in protest. Six people jumped overboard, trying to swim to land just a few hundred metres away, but were returned to the ship by the Italian Coast Guard.

Finally, on May 21, the remaining men were allowed to leave the ship. As Jay walked down the ramp onto the port in Augusta, Sicily, he looked up at the MSF crew who had come to wave the survivors goodbye. Something of a celebrity on board, he heard people call his name as he gave a slow wave with a huge grin on his face. He planned to set off on the next stage of his dream, opening a business in Belgium.

On land, the Italian police led the men into a fenced-off area next to the Geo Barents, where they were processed and then transferred onto a quarantine ship. The MSF team pushed their hands through the metal chain fencing, for final handshakes and goodbyes before returning to the ship, to prepare for the next rotation to the Libyan search and rescue region.

*Names have been changed to maintain privacy