A rescue service said Wednesday that an 11-yr-old Sierra Leonean girl was the only survivor of a shipwreck off the island of Lampedusa in Italy, having been recovered overnight after three days at sea, reports Breaking News.
The girl, who was wearing a life jacket and clinging to a pair of tire tubes, was picked up by the crew of Germany’s CompassCollective at approximately three in the morning when they were on their way to another emergency.
She informed them that she had left Sfax, Tunisia, on a metal boat with forty-five people, which sunk during a storm, reports Breaking News.
The girl was cared for by charity workers and sent to Lampedusa, which is frequently the first destination for migrants and is closer to North Africa than the rest of Italy.
Following medical treatment, the youngster was sent to a detention facility for migrants, where she was being cared for by Italian Red Cross volunteers and employees, according to the Red Cross.
“My thoughts go out to the girl from Sierra Leone during this festive time, when most of us are fortunate to be with our loved ones,” said Nicola Dell’Arciprete, head of the United Nations children’s agency Unicef in Italy, reports Breaking News.
“Yet another tragedy that increases the number of dead and missing in the Central Mediterranean,” reports Breaking News.
The International Organisation for Migration reports that over 24,300 people have been killed or gone missing since 2014, making the maritime migration route between Tunisia, Libya, Italy, and Malta one of the most hazardous in the world.
In a statement, the nongovernmental organisation Mediterranea expressed concern that three further migrant boats had vanished in the route connecting Tunisia and Italy in recent weeks and asked authorities to begin a search and rescue effort in order to find any potential survivors, reports Breaking News.
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