Stranded In Malta: Meet The Volunteers Who Dropped Everything To Save Lives Of Traumatised People
It’s easy to forget that these are just volunteers. Caught in the middle of Europe’s latest migration storm, search-and-rescue NGOs have had to face growing accusations that they are promoting illegal migration, that they’re in league with the shadiest of human traffickers, and that they’re being funded on the sly.
Such intense focus would naturally be enough to make most people baulk at the prospect of joining one of these vessels as part of their makeshift crew.
Yet there is a gritty resilience about the two people who sit in front of me on board the Sea-Watch 3, a German rescue vessel which docked in Paola for repairs last month but which is now stuck here after the government banned all such ships from exiting or entering its harbours.
“I applied to join the Sea-Watch because I wanted to do something to change a political situation the I don’t recognise myself forming a part of,” says 28-year-old volunteer Samantha*. “I find it very shameful and unfair that EU migration policies are allowing people to drown in the Mediterranean. This mission gives all of us on board a chance to make a change, to rescue people and hopefully drive a more general policy change.”
The Sea-Watch-3 vessel is currently docked in Paola
“I find it very shameful and unfair that EU migration policies are allowing people to drown in the Mediterranean”
‘Samantha’
Across her sits Robert*, a 36-year-old engineer from the search-and-rescue vessel Lifeline, whose captain has been charged in Malta with improper ship registration – a case that triggered Prime Minister Joseph Muscat to impose the current blanket ban on NGO vessels in the first place.
“My friends know that I’m really good at repairing cars and told me that my expertise was needed on the Lifeline,” he says. “The first mission was very hard, but it’s clear to me that I’m doing something that really needs to be done. I’ve been to Africa and I can tell you that while we talk about poverty and quality of life problems in Europe, it’s so much more brutal and rough over there.”
Both volunteers are currently only on their second mission, and yet their experience has clearly jarred them. You can see it in the lines that form on Robert’s face and the haunted look in Samantha’s eyes as they recount some of the more heart-wrenching scenes they have witnessed.
The Sea-Watch’s mascot keeps watch
“There were people who had lost all energy and motivation to go to Europe, who wanted to return to their home countries but couldn’t make it back”
‘Robert’
“There was a man who planned to come to Europe with his wife and daughter but was forced to board a different boat, and by the time we rescued his boat he had no idea what had become of his family,” Samantha recalls. “There was another 17-year-old guy who had his phone taken away from him at a Libyan detention camp, which means he wasn’t able to speak to his family for years. He was abused and exploited there and made to work for no money, but when we rescued him, he dug his hand into a hidden pocket in his trousers, brought out a SIM card and started crying that he will be able to talk to his mum again.”
“Once there was a man who broke his ribs and punctured his lung, and there was liquid inside his chest,” Robert says. “There were people on the ship who had lost all energy and motivation to go to Europe and who wanted to go back to their home countries but couldn’t make it back.”
One of the Sea-Watch cabins
“You can tell from the way they cannot even look you in the eyes that they’ve been through so much”
‘Robert’
The EU’s main solution to the problem increasingly seems to be to shift the onus of rescuing the migrants at sea onto Libya, which has recently taken ownership of a large search-and-rescue area off its coast. Yet a common thread in the stories of the migrants rescued by the NGOs is they horror they witness and are subjected to at the Libyan detention camps.
“Every single person I spoke to was psychologically and emotionally challenged from what they passed through in the Libyan camps,” Samantha says. “They all spoke to me about how they are forced to work without pay, how they are tortured if they try to escape or rebel, how many people have been shot, how every woman there has been raped and how some have even had their babies ripped away from them…”
“When you make initial contact with these people, you can tell from the way they act and the way they cannot even look you in the eyes that they’ve been through so much,” Robert says. “The UNHCR has flagged the awful conditions at these camps, and these are just the 20% of the camps its officials have access to. How on earth can you send these people back to Libya knowing what they’ll be subjected to? That’s just twisting around facts that are provided by authorities.”
The bridge of the Sea-Watch
While the volunteers get to encounter the migrants on a very personal level, there is of course a much wider context to what they’re doing – sending more asylum seekers to Europe, even though EU countries have repeatedly failed to come to a consensus on how to handle such migration flows. And now, with Italy’s new Home Affairs Minister Matteo Salvini taking a hardline stance against search and rescue NGOs, the role of these vessels has come under scrutiny like never before.
And judging from comments left underneath articles about these ships, the Maltese public seems to have taken a very antagonistic stance towards them.
I decide read out some of the top comments (reproduced below) that people left under a recent Times of Malta interview with the Lifeline’s captain, and their response is one of both sadness and frustration.
“It should be obvious that you can’t let people drown”
‘Samantha’
“These people are going to Libya because the country is so unstable when compared to the strong centralised militaries in Egypt and Turkey, not because they know we’ll be there,” Robert says.
“There’s been a media frenzy against NGOs and, although we keep pushing the EU to do something, its only response seems to be to criminalise NGOs,” Samantha adds. “It’s not true that people will stop fleeing Libya if NGOs aren’t at sea; everyone I met told me they would rather risk drowning at sea than remain in Libya.”
“These people are being completely dehumanised. You read about 60 deaths or 100 deaths but don’t feel that these are actually people who are fighting for their lives, their families and their future. Can you imagine how bad their lives must have been if they decided to leave their friends and families behind for the mere hope that something better could be waiting for them? And yet here we are complaining about them…”
“Many of these people would die if we’re not there to rescue them,” Robert interjects. “To say that what we’re doing is not right is to say that we should let these people die.”
“Yes, how can you even say something like that?” Samantha asks, frowning in confusion. “It should be obvious that you can’t let people drown…”
Robert shakes his head. “It just doesn’t work for me…they have to be rescued.”
The Sea-Watch 3 at work rescuing people at sea. (Photo: Sea-Watch)
And yet, while this logic doesn’t work for them, the harsh reality is it does work with many people, who believe that knowledge of the precariousness of the sea crossing will disincentivize migrants from making the journey in the first place.
“I feel that multiculturalism is an amazing richness that can bring so much to society”
‘Samantha’
Do the volunteers feel that people’s concerns and fears about migrants reaching Europe’s shores are justified at all?
“No, there’s no justification, I just don’t understand it,” Samantha quickly responds. “I feel that multiculturalism is an amazing richness that can bring so much to society, and Europe has the capacity to embrace it. Perhaps we should also consider the dynamics and political situations that impoverished their counties of origin in the first place before complaining that their people are coming here.”
Robert shakes his head.
“It’s hard for me to understand, but I think people are starting to realise that some politicians are liars and are losing some of the hope their parents’ generation still had,” he says. “Youth unemployment is high in the south of Europe, which is a fact we must work with if we are to deal with this fear of asylum seekers. Look at Italy, there’s a feeling there that they’ve been left alone.”
“All of Europe must help,” Samantha says.
“They didn’t come up with a solution for years, and now here we are,” Robert says, despondently.
A poem by Charles Baudelaire scribbled in the engine room
“If people drown because governments block their rescue, then those government are responsible for their deaths”
‘Samantha’
“Yet everyone must take responsibility,” Samantha says firmly. “If people drown because governments block their rescue, then those government are responsible for their deaths because they definitely have another option, which is to welcome people if they can.”
Perhaps it’s because the sun is hot, the crew are friendly and the ship is far away from the horrors it has witnessed, but I do have one one niggling question I need to get off my chest before I leave: Do they enjoy what they do?
“Enjoyable is the wrong word, but in terms of working with amazing people and feeling that you’re trying to make a difference – yes, that does change you, although it is extremely frustrating seeing what governments are doing to these people.”
Robert thinks about it a bit before saying: “That’s the wrong word. I like working and learning new things everyday, but I really hope my children will not even be able to comprehend why we had to do this just as our generation cannot comprehend living in a state of war. I really hope these missions won’t be necessary in the future.”
*Their names have been changed at their requests
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