"You should eat first" - a lawyer reports on an emotional moment on the sea rescue ship
Created: 10/26/2022, 11:02 p.m
By: Kathrin Reikowski
There are no regular escape routes, so people try to escape by sea.
Here a boat arrives on Fuerteventura.
(symbol image) © dpa
The Belgian lawyer Dounia worked as a volunteer for the international sea rescue service.
An emotional moment also occupies her after her return.
Italy/Libya/Mediterranean – People who want to travel to Europe without a visa from Pakistan, Syria, Bangladesh or African countries often choose a route via Libya and the Mediterranean.
As an independent commission of the UN Human Rights Council has been making public since 2020, they run the risk of being imprisoned in camps, tortured, raped, forced to have sex in exchange for water, or murdered.
Those who escape often choose to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
The Belgian lawyer Dounia is now reporting to
focus.de
how she encounters people when they are rescued from one of the tugboats by the German sea rescue ship SOS Humanity.
During their time as volunteers on the ship, a total of 414 people were rescued - including people from Mali, South Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Sea rescue: Rescued people can sleep through the night again for the first time
“Everyone who was rescued was in a state of extreme stress, exhaustion, often trauma or illness,” describes Dounia.
Even the simple question: "How are you?" was the first time people had heard it in years after they had been rescued, was their impression.
Most people fleeing across the Mediterranean have faced massive human rights violations in Libya, where torture, abuse, ill-treatment and sexual violence are commonplace for those fleeing.
For months or years nobody took care of them.
They only experienced violence and aggressiveness.
Lawyer and activist Dounia from SOS Humanity
"My job as a volunteer cultural mediator was to strengthen the trust of the rescued people in the crew and the organization," says Dounia.
For the first time in years, many of those rescued were able to sleep through the night without fear of torture or ill-treatment.
Sea rescue: Volunteers report on the moment on the ship that touched them deeply
There were a total of two rescue operations, after which people spent a long time together on the high seas.
Before the second mission, she worried whether people from the group of those who were rescued first would be suspicious of the new arrivals - and would not share their newly acquired comfort with them.
But the opposite was the case.
"After this second rescue operation was successfully completed, the first group of rescued people did not queue for the subsequent food distribution, but let the new group go ahead," reports Dounia.
“When I asked the first group why they didn't stand in line for the food, they said, looking at the newcomers, 'You are our guests here, you should eat first'.
I was very touched by this generous gesture of humanity.”
While Italy's new government is critical of sea rescue, organizations such as SOS Humanity are calling for compliance with internationally applicable human rights and, among other things, for preventing people from being brought back to the Libyan mainland by the Libyan coast guard.
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