AN 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone has been rescued as the sole survivor of a shipwreck in the Central Mediterranean. After three harrowing days at sea, she was found clinging to tyre tubes near Italy’s Lampedusa island, a major migration hotspot.
The German rescue charity CompassCollective reported that its crew discovered the girl around 3 a.m. on Wednesday while en route to another emergency. Her cries for help led rescuers to her, where they found her wearing a life jacket and holding onto makeshift flotation devices.
The girl revealed she had departed from Sfax, Tunisia, aboard a metal boat carrying 45 people. Tragically, the vessel sank during a storm, leaving her as the lone survivor.
After her rescue, the charity’s crew took her to Lampedusa, which lies closer to North Africa than mainland Italy and serves as a common landing point for migrants. There, she received medical care before being transferred to a migrant holding centre under the care of the Italian Red Cross.
Nicola Dell’Arciprete, head of UNICEF in Italy, expressed his deep sorrow over the incident, telling Reuters: ‘In this festive period, when many are surrounded by loved ones, my thoughts go out to this girl from Sierra Leone. Yet another tragedy adds to the toll of deaths and disappearances in the Central Mediterranean.’
The International Organisation for Migration reports that over 24,300 people have died or gone missing on the perilous migration route between Tunisia, Libya, Italy, and Malta since 2014.
Italy’s government, which has taken a hardline stance on immigration, claims this approach is reducing migrant arrivals. This year, sea arrivals dropped to approximately 64,000, a significant decline from the 153,000 recorded by this time in 2023.
The girl’s survival highlights both the horrors of the migration crisis and the urgent need for international action to prevent such tragedies. Her story is a poignant reminder of the human cost of unsafe migration routes and the resilience of those seeking safety.
