I’m just so lucky to have made it, says tearful survivor of migrant boat hell
HER image was broadcast around the world as she was plucked from the sea by an army sergeant.
Wegasi Nebiat was saved after the wooden boat carrying her sank off the island of Rhodes.
It was on a day when up to 1,000 migrants died as they tried to cross the Mediterranean in the hope of a better life.
Now the 24-year-old eritrean is on her way to Athens after spending three days in hospital suffering from exhaustion.
Last night as Miss Nebiat and her fellow refugees were put on a boat bound for Athens, she said tearfully: ‘I am lucky that I made it. I am so happy. We are not sure what we will do but we hope to travel across europe.’
Meanwhile, in Malta, those who had not been so lucky were remembered. Friends and families attended the funeral of 24 refugees who drowned when the ship carrying them from Libya capsized en route to the Italian island of Lampedusa, with the loss of about 920 lives.
Miss Nebiat told of how she began her perilous journey to europe from east Africa more than a month ago. her family paid more than 10,000 dollars (£6,600), hoping that she would eventually reach Sweden.
After a bus ride and a 50-mile walk from eritrea into Sudan, she was picked up by smugglers and taken by car to Khartoum before flying to Istanbul on a false passport.
In the Turkish resort of Marmaris, she was put on the boat bound for Rhodes.
The wooden vessel, designed to carry 30, had 100 migrants crammed on board when it foundered off the Greek island.
Three passengers, including an eritrean woman and her six-yearold son, drowned as the others clung to debris while locals desperately tried to save them.
Miss Nebiat’s friend Aziza Tekle, 27, described the journey as the most terrifying experience of her life. She said: ‘We all thought we were going to drown.
‘We were all down in the cabin so we couldn’t really see anything and then there was a bang and we [were] in the water. I [was] very scared.’
Jamil Alratzle, a Syrian translator living in Greece, said some of the survivors would become homeless as they would not be able to afford the 85 euro (£60) ferry to Athens.
he said: ‘Many of them lost all of their money at sea and have
‘We thought we would drown’
‘Beg for food from the church’
nothing. They will have to beg for food from the church and local people. Some of them may be able to afford a hotel.
‘Most of them want to go to Sweden where they have the best chance of getting a job and some money so they can survive.’
Two men reported to be the boat’s captains, who were spotted abandoning the passengers and arrested, appeared in court yesterday.
Prosecutors are considering whether to charge Khaled hawari and Abdul Baset Ramadan, both 26, with manslaughter. Their lawyer claimed the two Syrians, who face six months in jail awaiting trial, were ‘heroes’ who took control after the ‘real captain’, a Turk, abandoned ship.