Categories: World

A lone survivor tells the story of one by one death of migrants in a boat tragedy

An Ethiopian man was the only survivor among the boat full of migrants. The boat ran out of water, food, and fuel in the middle of the Mediterranean. The survivor told the horror of being a lone survivor among the people dying one by one. There were fifteen people in a rubber dinghy when it left the Libyan coast.

Mohammed Adam Oga was the only survivor who was rescued by a Maltese armed forces helicopter after 11 days. Oga said, “There was a woman in the boat who was pregnant.” Oga was collapsed over a dead migrant in the dinghy when he was rescued. Malta released the shocking photo of him in that situation. He was transported to a hospital in Msida, Malta. His treatment is ongoing in the hospital as he suffered from extreme dehydration.

Oga told the Malta Times, “There were 15 of us on the boat and I am the only one alive.” He told the media that they ran out of fuel, water, and food in the boat. Two people died after 5 days, and then two people died every day, according to him. He said that they started drinking seawater. “They died in the boat. It was sunny, hot. No food and no water.”

The migrants were from Ghana, Ethiopia, and Somalia. “We spotted many boats but no one stopped”, Oga said. He added, “We were waving and they were just passing.” The dead bodies of the migrants started to decompose in the boat and they were pushed overboard. The EU border force’s, Frontex, plane saw the dinghy in the water and it alerted the Maltese authorities.

Malta sent two rescue swimmers on a helicopter for the operation. Maltese authorities reported that Mr. Oga, 38-year-old, was alive and there was a dead body on board as well. Michael Farrugia, home affairs minister of Malta, said in a tweet, “Malta has just rescued a lone survivor in critical condition from a dinghy.” He added that their army did this every day and they could not do it alone. It was a dramatic tragedy happened with the immigrants in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Ivan Cease

Senior editor of the Chicago Morning Star

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