Loujin was part of a group of Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian migrants who sailed from Lebanon to Italy seeking job opportunities, but they ran into trouble on the way, and their boat started to sink.

Activist network Alarm Phone, which said it was in touch with the migrants via a satellite phone, said the people told them they didn’t have enough water or food on board and that they were bailing out water that was seeping into the boat.

Alarm Phone also warned that a child had died on board due to dehydration, while Sicily-based human rights activist Nawal Soufi named the victim as Loujin and shared a photo of her.

Soufi said Loujin died in her mother’s arms as she said “Mum, I’m thirsty”.

Worse, her death could be part of a major human tragedy, with the migrants claiming that three children had died before the rescue.

Alarm Phone said the boat’s GPS signal showed it had reached Malta’s search and rescue zone, an area in the Mediterranean in which Malta is legally responsible for coordinating rescues.

However, it warned that the Maltese authorities didn’t respond to its request to launch a rescue mission, and similar calls to Greek and Italian authorities also fell on deaf ears. Eventually the Greek coast guard intervened, the migrants were picked up by the BBC Pearl cargo ship and taken to Crete.

The coast guard said in a statement that the BBC Pearl had rescued the migrants inside Malta’s search and rescue area.

It said Greece was reacting to a request from the Maltese authorities, who the BBC Pearl’s captain had contacted, to airlift a severely ill child and her mother to safety. However, the child was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital in Crete. It is unknown whether this child was Loujin or another child migrant.

Former Maltese President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca has said she was saddened to learn that Malta was among the countries who reportedly refused to rescue Loujin. 

“She could have been my daughter, my granddaughter, the daughter of my cousin, neighbour, relative or friend… she could have been your daughter,” Coleiro Preca wrote. 

“This picture [of Loujin] represents injustice against all those who have the same rights as I do to live in peace, and not in war.”

University social wellbeing lecturer Andrew Azzopardi argued that all laws and international relations should be placed secondary to the human need to save lives. 

“When it comes to saving lives, we shouldn’t be dictated by laws or rivalries… in my opinion we should save people who are in our SAR, and if needs be, even those who are outside it. We have a duty to save lives as we had a duty to save Loujin.”

Barely any Maltese MP has spoken about Louijin, although PN MP Mark Anthony Sammut has been an outlier here.

“The Maltese authorities had known of Loujin’s case for days but they chose to ignore it,” Sammut said. “This is a government that listens… but only to the clinking of money and not to people’s cries.”

The government has yet to issue a statement about Loujin and the rescue mission that reportedly took place within Malta’s search and rescue zone. Lovin Malta has reached out to them for a statement.

Should Malta set up a monument in honour of Loujin?