Reflections on departure: Heading to the migrant tragedy in the Med
The phone wakes me early on the morning of my departure. I’m heading for Malta, to join up with the MSF/MOAS
(Migrant Offshore Aid Station) team on the Phoenix, rescuing people
attempting to cross the Mediterranean in leaky, un-seaworthy vessels.
It seems that yesterday yet another leaky, unseaworthy vessel was the
cause of another tragedy. “We may have to reroute you to Rome,” John,
our logistician in Malta, tells me. “The team has gone out on a rescue, a
big one, over 40 dead... we’re not sure yet where the boat will land.”
I think of the terror the migrants must have felt as their boat
filled with water, or capsized – I haven’t heard the full story yet. And
I know that only desperation would have forced them onto that perilous
journey across the deep waters of the Med. Desperation with their lives
in Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya: war-torn, anarchic,
little-hope places.
I think back to my time working with MSF with Syrian refugees in
Turkey, in 2012. Medically-trained Syrian refugees were staffing our
clinic, and I remember the stories they told me. Of the bombs falling
daily near their homes, of friends and family members killed, of there
being no choice but to escape. Of exhausting, terrifying treks to the
border, one with a pregnant wife and small child, all with no
possessions but a small suitcase.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to my country,” I
remember one consultant, a very qualified, highly educated man in his
50s, telling me. He and the others are just some of the four million
people who have had to flee Syria to save their lives, most of whom will
now have been living in overcrowded refugee camps in the countries
bordering Syria for three years. Maybe some of them are now attempting
to reach Europe in the hope of a better, safer life.
Alison Criado-Perez
