"I was hanging on for three days to that boat, in the middle of the sea with the waves that, little by little, took away and swallowed my travel companions. I tried to save a few of them but I was not able to. I saw them drown, one after the other, in front of my eyes."

This is the dramatic account of one of the survivors of the shipwreck that took place last week in the Mediterranean.

The young Syrian man, along with six fellow countrymen, was rescued off the coast of Lampedusa by a coast guard patrol boat. A tragedy that cost the lives of 21 migrants, officially "missing", among them three children.

After his transfer to the Lampedusa hotspot, the young man was unable to sleep.

"I am grateful to those who rescued me, my hope for the future never died. But the image of my lost travel companions at sea haunts me," he told the Red Cross staff who manage the shelter.

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'A story of love and hope' says Red Cross Italy president

The young Syrian man, despite losing part of his family in the shipwreck off the coast of the island last week "continued to help everyone" and showed "high hope for the future", recounts the President of the Italian Red Cross, Rosario Valastro, who talks about "a story of love and hope".

"When the survivors arrived at the center, workers and volunteers of the Italian Red Cross (CRI) found themselves before people who were suffering severely. It is not easy in these cases to assess if it is physical suffering, due to the level of exhaustion or something else."

"But among all of them, this young man stood out," explains Valastro. "He is young and he is the only one with an alert, focused expression in his eyes, the one who appeared to be the strongest in the group, the one who was in better condition compared to the others."

"In hours following the arrival at the hotspot shelter, this young man was the one who did the most for his travel companions, helping them to return to their rooms, at times he thanked us while smiling rapidly for what we were doing."

"Had we stopped at this superficial impression, we would have thought that he was the one who had experienced less suffering. But this was not at all the case," said Valastro.

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'Perhaps that habit of looking ahead is what allowed him to survive'

"Our team noticed that in some moments [the Syrian man] tended to isolate himself and his gaze appeared to be staring into space with a blank stare. Only later did we understand that he had also lost part of his family in the shipwreck, that he was left clinging on to the boat for days, in the middle of the sea, with waves that, little by little, were swallowing his travel companions, and that he tried to rescue some of them but was unable to, and that because of this he had difficulty sleeping at night."

"However, despite all of this, which is what struck us the most about him, these moments of gazing into space did not stop his great sense of hope for the future, his sense of gratitude toward all of us, his will to make plans for his future."

"Perhaps it was precisely this habit of always looking ahead that allowed him to survive, even when he could see that, little by little, the sea was 'hiding away' his travel companions," concluded Valastro.

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