The heartbreaking story of 6-month-old baby killed in Mediterranean immigrant rescue

The last thing Joseph, the six-month-old baby who died in one of the last migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, heard were his mother’s heart-rending cries. “I don’t have my baby! I lost my baby! “,

Joseph and his mother were born in Guinea but left Libya. They were members of the boat in which they were traveling 118 people and he split in the middle Wednesday as the NGO Open Arms rescue ship handed them out life jackets.

It was cloudy, windy and cold. The baby fell into the water, frozen and furious, from where he was rescued and cared for.

“To think that if the boat had lasted five, ten seconds longer, Joseph would be alive,” lamented David Lladó, head of the Open Arms mission, a ship that was once a tug and that today it has the capacity to save 300 people.

“He arrived with cardiopulmonary arrest and was resuscitated at first, he remained stable for a few hours and an hour before the helicopter arrived to be evacuated, he died,” Lladó said while waiting for ‘an Italian port opens its arms to disembark. the 264 people they had saved from the sea after three wrecks and 36 hours of rescue.

“We evacuated the mother by helicopter a few hours later,” Lladó said. She said she embarked on this journey because she wanted a future for her son and now that he was dead nothing made sense. It was very hard. We couldn’t comfort her. “

Bangaly was also traveling in the gomon, a 6-year-old Guinean who in the video of the rescue seems to be throwing up behind Joseph’s mother. “Our boat was broken and I swallowed a lot of water,” the boy said. Then I asked my dad, “Where’s mom?” And said to me: ‘I do not know’. “Besides Joseph, five other people died in the shipwreck.

In already hostile geographies, like many African countries, the coronavirus pandemic is adding to the desperation and expelling more and more people who throw themselves into the sea with the desire to achieve a protective sky in Europe.

Canary Islands, port of arrivals

For weeks now, the Canary Islands, which belong to Spain despite being located on the Atlantic Ocean and very close to Africa, have become a port of mass arrivals of illegal immigrants, a small part of which will arrive. to become refugees.

“The Atlantic route has regained strength. Arrivals in our country currently represent 57% of arrivals from all over Europe. This gives an idea of ​​the dimension, ”declared the Minister of Territorial Policy and Public Service, Carolina Darias, on Friday during her visit to Tenerife in the face of the emergency that the Canary Islands are going through.

“With regard to the Canary Islands, this year we have increased by 900 percent of arrivals by sea in canoes and boats compared to the previous year,” he added.

According to the Minister of Territorial Policy, “the migratory phenomenon has structural nature to which, following this bloody pandemic, there are additional consequences that complicate a lot ”.

And he announced, “We are going to have two ocean-going vessels, a high-altitude patrol boat, a plane, a helicopter and a submerged boat” to stop illegal immigration.

Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska will visit Morocco, and Foreign Minister Arancha González Laya will visit Senegal to work on cooperation deals that reduce waves of immigrants jumping into the sea in rubber bands.

“The government will focus on the expulsion of people who are not in a vulnerable situation. Those who are have been gradually transferred to the peninsula, ”said Darias.

Last weekend, 78 boats docked off the Canary Islands. Of them have landed 2,213 immigrants. “We are among the 16,000 people so far this year against the 1,500 who arrived in 2018,” said the minister.

The President of the Canary Islands, Angel Víctor Torres, said: “We must reactivate the repatriation mechanisms in accordance with the signed agreements”, he asked. That there are humanitarian corridors in the European Union because the irregular immigration that arrives in canoes and boats reaches Europe, the 27 Member States and not just eight islands (which make up the Canary Islands) ”.

Consulted by Bugle, the Spanish Commission for Refugee Assistance has expressed concern about the reactivation of some repatriation flights and the risk that people likely to be returned to their country of origin they are in danger of death.

“It is essential that everyone who arrives in our country has guaranteed access to legal aid, has information on the possibility of applying for asylum and, if a return procedure is initiated, has all the guarantees”, said Juan Carlos Lorenzo, coordinator of this NGO in the Canary Islands.

“The Canary Islands cannot become a black hole in terms of rights, as the Greek Islands have been, nor can the coronavirus be the excuse not to deal with an increase in arrivals that is occurring. For more than one year. Let’s look for alternatives that are more consistent with reality, ”added Lorenzo.

“The migratory route to the Canary Islands is already the deadliest in the world: 480 young Senegalese lost their lives in a week trying to reach the islands, ”said de Podemos Canarias, the political arm of Pedro Sánchez’s government partners in the islands.

Senegal declared this Friday, November 13 a day of mourning for these deaths.

Madrid. Corresponding