11-year-old girl rescued after boat capsizes near Lampedusa

An 11-year-old girl from Sierra Leone was found adrift in the Mediterranean off Lampedusa, Italy, as the sole survivor of a migrant boat that capsized after leaving Sfax, Tunisia.

According to Katja Tempel, spokeswoman for Compass Collective Germany, “she told us that they had left four or five days ago from Sfax, Tunisia, in an iron boat… there were very strong storms between Lampedusa and Tunisia… the boat capsized three days ago.”

“For a day, she was in the water and two other people were in contact with her in the water, in one way or another. But after a day in the water, the two people disappeared… She couldn’t reach them with her voice. She then said she stayed in the water for two more days until we found her”.

While responding to another emergency, rescuers from the non-governmental organization Compass Collective heard a young girl urgently calling for help.

The anonymous girl, originally from Sierra Leone, said she had set off with 44 others from Sfax, Tunisia.

Their boat had sunk and the other migrants were presumed dead.

“The coincidence between our presence and that of this young girl, so close that her voice could reach us, is remarkable,” Katja noted.