Migration across the Mediterranean is a brutal throw of the dice
There is a lottery within the boats that take the migrant route across the Mediterranean.
Some get over without incident; some get into distress and are rescued; some sink without witness.
There are a lot of bodies at the bottom of that sea.
And now the list of deaths grows, and probably by a ghastly number after a fishing vessel capsized with what a charity feared was up to 750 on board.
There are already many questions about this incident. Why did the boat start to turn so sharply, apparently causing its own downfall? Who was turning down the offers of assistance, and why? Was the rescue operation adequate – and if not, why not?
But other things are more clear-cut – an overloaded boat, transporting people from a Libyan port to Europe in dreadful conditions.
I know about that, because I’ve seen it up close.
A few weeks ago, cameraman Marc Hofer and I were on board the rescue ship Geo Barents, run by the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.
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Sky News has joined Italian coastguards and Medicin San Frontieres as 600 migrants were rescued from a sinking ship off the coast of Italy.
It patrols the Mediterranean, helping ships in distress and, on that sunny Saturday morning, a call for help is exactly what happened.
The Italian coastguard had been alerted to a ship, full of people, that needed assistance. When we got there, it was an extraordinary sight – a fishing boat that had been converted to carry as many people as possible.
It looked almost exactly the same as the one that has sunk off the southern Greek coast – a similar rich blue paintwork, apparently the same structure, with an upper deck and then a hugely crowded main deck.
On the boat we filmed, there was a lower area, called an underbelly, in which hundreds more people were crowded. On both boats, you can see the signs that it had previously been a fishing vessel, and you can also see the rust and wear of a long life.
My guess is that you could probably get about 40 people on to a boat like that before it started to feel too crowded.
At the end of a rescue mission we saw, which lasted several hours, more than 600 people had been transferred off the boat, and on to the Geo Barents.
When we spoke to some of those who were rescued, a story emerged that is now being echoed by survivors in Greece – of a boat that set off from the Libyan port of Tobruk, under the control of a captain.
Hunger, thirst and fear
On the Geo Barents, people told me that they had initially left the port with even more passengers on board but the vessel was so heinously overloaded that it could not be moved safely.
So, at gunpoint, around 150 people were then ordered off before the trip could start again.
They told a story of food and water running out; of people having to sit in the underbelly cramped together and of being ordered to stay in place so the boat would not sway from side to side. And of fearing that they would die on the journey.
We were also told that the captain left the ship one night, collected by a small boat that arrived alongside. After that, the passengers were left to their own devices, even though none of them knew how to control the boat.
Already, similar reports are emerging from the shipwreck – of a captain abandoning his ship, and those on board.
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In both cases, the boats had actually been tracked by Frontex, the European Union’s border agency.
They scan the Mediterranean for vessels such as this and try to monitor their progress, handing on the information to the various nations that run search and rescue operations in the area.
But what is different is that the people we encountered were happy to be rescued. Many thought they were genuinely facing death and they willingly clambered off the boat and into the fast dinghies that took them to safety.
They wanted to reach Italy and, having been rescued by a boat in Italian waters, that was now going to happen.
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Dozens of people have died off the coast of Greece after a small boat carrying migrants capsized and sank.
The boat that sank seems also to have been determined to reach Italy, or perhaps Italian waters.
Maybe that’s why, as it meandered through the Greek zone, it repeatedly denied that it was in trouble – because it wanted to reach Italy’s jurisdiction before accepting any help.
But if the captain had left, then who was making that call? At times like this, there is a surfeit of questions and a paucity of answers.
Whatever – the sight of a dangerously overloaded vessel that won’t ask for help places the authorities in a difficult position.
Maritime law dictates that you must attend to a vessel that says it is in distress, or which is sinking or on fire.
But when a boat denies there’s a problem, then things become more complicated.
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‘A night-time rescue is the worst’
To an extent, all you can do is watch, hope for the best and prepare for the worst. The problem for the rescue teams is that the worst happened at 2am.
The rescue that we filmed happened on a sunny afternoon on a relatively flat sea. But operations at night, especially with so many people in the water, are notoriously difficult.
A person does not have to drift far before they are effectively out of sight. And it is incredible how the break of a wave can hide what’s behind it.
“A night-time rescue is the worst,” one of the crew told me, shaking his head.
This is really a tale of two boats: that look the same, were just as packed as each other and set off from the same place.
On both of them, there were points where the people on board thought they were going to die.
On one of them, everyone survived. On the other, they didn’t. Migration across the Mediterranean really can be a brutal throw of the dice.
World
Egypt: Two Britons believed to be among 16 missing as tourist boat sinks after being ‘hit by large wave’
Two Britons are believed to be among more than a dozen people missing after a boat sank in the Red Sea off the Egyptian coast.
The yacht, called Sea Story, had 44 people on board, including 31 tourists of varying nationalities and 13 crew.
Authorities are searching for 16 people, including 12 foreign nationals and four Egyptians, the governor of the Red Sea region said, adding that 28 other people had been rescued.
Preliminary reports suggested a sudden large wave struck the vessel, capsizing it within about five minutes, governor Amr Hanafi said.
“Some passengers were in their cabins, which is why they were unable to escape,” he added in a statement.
Survivors rescued from the Sea Story in Marsa Alam. Pic: STR/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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Passengers rescued from sunken tourist boat
The people who were rescued only suffered minor injuries such as bruises and scrapes with none needing hospital treatment.
A Foreign, Commonwealth and Development office spokesperson said: “We are providing consular support to a number of British nationals and their families following an incident in Egypt and are in contact with the local authorities.”
The foreign nationals aboard the 34-metre-long vessel, owned by an Egyptian national, included Americans, Belgians, British, Chinese, Finns, Germans, Irish, Poles, Slovakians, Spanish, and Swiss.
Sea Story had no technical problems, obtained all required permits before the trip, and was last checked for naval safety in March, according to officials.
The four-deck, wooden-hulled motor yacht was part of a multi-day diving trip when it went down near the coastal town of Marsa Alam following warnings about rough weather.
Officials said a distress call was received at 5.30am local time on Monday.
The boat had left Port Ghalib in Marsa Alam on Sunday and was scheduled to reach its destination of Hurghada Marina on 29 November.
The Sea Story had 44 people on board. File pic: Dive Pro Liveaboard
Some survivors had been airlifted to safety on a helicopter, officials said.
The firm that operates the yacht, Dive Pro Liveaboard in Hurghada, said it has no information on the matter.
According to its maker’s website, the Sea Story was built in 2022.
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The incident comes after the Egyptian Meteorological Authority issued a warning on Saturday about turbulence and high waves on the Red Sea.
The organisation had advised against maritime activity for Sunday and Monday.
Some tourist companies have stopped or limited operations on the Red Sea due to the potential dangers from conflicts in the region.
A motion has been filed to drop the charges against Donald Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result.
Mr Trump was first indicted on four felonies in August 2023: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and an attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The president-elect pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case was then put on hold for months as Mr Trump’s team argued he could not be prosecuted.
Special Counsel Jack Smith. Pic: Reuters
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On Monday, prosecutors working with special counsel Jack Smith, who had led the investigation, asked a federal judge to dismiss the case over long-standing US justice department policy, dating back to the 1970s, that presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.
It marks the end of the department’s landmark effort to hold Mr Trump accountable for the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 when thousands of Trump supporters assaulted police, broke through barricades, and swarmed the Capitol in a bid to prevent the US Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Mr Smith’s team had been assessing how to wind down both the election interference case and the separate classified documents case in the wake of Mr Trump’s election victory over vice president Kamala Harris earlier this month, effectively killing any chance of success for the case.
In court papers, prosecutors said “the [US] Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated”.
They said the ban [on prosecuting sitting presidents] “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind”.
Mr Trump, who has said he would sack Mr Smith as soon as he takes office in January, and promised to pardon some convicted rioters, has long dismissed both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case as politically motivated.
Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol in Washington. Pic: AP
He was accused of illegally keeping classified papers after leaving office in 2021, some of which were allegedly found in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The election interference case stalled after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, which Mr Trump’s lawyers exploited to demand the charges against him be dismissed.
Mr Smith’s request to drop the case still needs to be approved by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
No date had been set for a trial.
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At least 1,500 cases have been brought against those accused of trying to overthrow the election result on 6 January 2021, resulting in more than 1,100 convictions, the Associated Press said.
More than 950 defendants have been sentenced and 600 of them jailed for terms ranging from a few days to 22 years.
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