On November 17, the ship Life Support arrived at the port of Ancona with 49 rescued shipwreck survivors on board, including six women and six unaccompanied minors from Syria, Egypt, and Bangladesh.
On November 17, the NGO Emergency’s ship Life Support arrived at the port of Ancona carrying 49 shipwreck survivors. The rescue took place on November 12 in international waters within the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) area in the Central Mediterranean.
Among the rescued were six women and six unaccompanied minors. They had departed from Al-Zawiya, Libya, aboard a small, overcrowded fiberglass boat that was ill-equipped for a Mediterranean crossing and lacked adequate safety measures.
The migrants come from Syria, Egypt, and Bangladesh, explained Emergency, meaning "Countries victim of violence, political insecurity, poverty, and natural disasters made work by climate change".
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Many of those on board came from Syria
Chiara Picciocchi, the cultural mediator for the ship Life Support, stated that "Many of the persons rescued come from Syria, a country where the conflict continues to affect people's lives even if there is little covered or talk about it."
"At least we ended the disembarking of the people rescued and it all went regularly," explained Domenico Pugliese, the captain of the Life Support vessel.
"It is the first time that authorities assign us the port of Ancona, but overall it is the fifth time that we are sent to the northern Atlantic. To come all the way over here means long navigation away from the SAR area, therefore a long absence from the operational area, and further complications for the shipwrecked," he commented.
"Often we hear stories about people that have to leave Syria to find work or not to be discriminated against," added Picciocchi.
"It is important to remember that the consequences of the war continue for years after the direct armed conflicts decrease in intensity, for these reasons there are still many people who risk their lives leaving Syria and going first to Libya, and then to Europe: they are looking for a better life in a place where they can have their rights respected, and we can only wish them the best," he added.
'To be able to pass I had to do soldiers some favors in Libya'
A forty-year-old Syrian woman recounted her story: "After earning my Degree as a pharmacist in Syria, I decided to move to Baghdad in Iraq because I could not find work in my country. It was not an easy choice, but my family counted on me. I lived and worked in Iraq for several years, and over time, I decided to go to Europe. In August I finally left. I took a flight for Benghazi and from there I went by car to Tripoli together with other Syrian women."
"Traveling only with women and with only one male as a driver was suspicious in Libya, we were stopped on several occasions: they would ask us where our husbands were, and where we were going. We were told that the only way to get through was to pay the soldiers some 'favors', obviously we could not say no," she continued.
"From August until November I tried four times to make the journey by sea, but three times we were intercepted at sea and they made us go back. Only the fourth time, thanks to Emergency's intervention, we were able to cross. One of our engines broke and the other one did not work properly: a little longer and we would have been left drifting in the middle of sea, and many of us were ready to die. Only when we saw your red ship we felt life coming back. Now I dream of reaching my family and friends in England," she concluded.
This rescue marks the 48th intervention of Life Support, which has completed 26 missions since it began search and rescue operations in December 2022. To date, the ship has rescued 2,342 people.