Tragedy on ships of death
Heart-breaking pictures show the daily struggle for life on refugee boats as desperate migrants flee
Crammed painfully into the hold of a small boat, a group of desperate refugees peer up at the sky.
They have watched friends and relatives die and endured days without food and water at sea.
Even before this, the migrants from across Africa and the Middle East have braved the anarchic “hell on Earth” that is Libya. To them, the perilous and painful crossing to Europe is preferable to their war-torn homelands and the lawlessness of Libya, where they entrust their lives to r ut hl e s s pe op l e smugglers.
Ou r mov in g pi ct u r e of the refugee boat is one of an incredible series taken by photographer Mathieu Willcocks.
The Isle of Coll-based lensman is embedded on the ship Topaz Responder with the rescue crew from US charity MOAS, who save men, women and children every day off the Libyan coast.
Throughout al l the agony and suffering Mathieu has seen, there is a common theme – the refugees’ horror stories of Libya.
He said: “Over this summer on the Topaz Responder, I have heard many migrants’ stories.
“The one common thread of each and every one of the thousands of migrants that I have personally seen pass through the ship is Libya, and the ‘ hell on Earth’ that it has come to represent for these migrants.
“Libya is definitely the worst part of every migrant and refugee’s journey.
“It is there that they get kidnapped and ransomed, beaten or killed, robbed or forced into slavery, abused or raped. One horror story after the next.
“Even if the crossing of the sea itself is still a very dangerous step in these people’s migration, many would rather face that risk than staying in Libya. ‘ I’d rather die in the sea than die in Libya’ or words to that effect are very common.
“I often ask if they’d tell their friends or family members back home to try the journey themselves … not a single one has answered yes, so far.”
Mathieu has photographed the agony of a brother lying over his drowned sibling, watched grown men collapse with relief to be on the stable deck of the rescue boat and put down his camera to help pluck hundreds to safety.
The photographer believes he will be haunted forever by the scenes of suffering, grief and loss.
He said: “One day we rescued around 450 Eritreans from a large vessel.
“As we started to transfer people on to our rescue boat, some migrants pulled up four dead men and two in critical condition from the engine compartment and the bow hold.
“The doctor and one of the rescue swimmers went to work and saved the two guys who could be saved. The family and friends of the men who didn’t make it were grieving right beside the corpses of their loved ones.
“The boat was cramped. We were all there; the dead, their relatives, the medical personnel working on saving the two other men and myself , all very close together, each in our own world it seemed to me.
“When we transferred the bodies from the migrant vessel to the morgue on our ship, the reaction from the 400 migrants on board was astounding. I’d never seen crying and grieving on such a scale. That memory will never leave me.”
Mathieu, 28, believes the testimony of these refugees, who have watched family drown in front of their eyes, is enough to change the most f ixed anti-immigration stance.
He said: “I think if people could see what these people go through on their way and in Libya, if they could get a glimpse of these people’s humanity, a lot of people back in Europe wouldn’t be as opposed to migration as they might be now.”
Every day, the MOAS charity rescue vessel is guided to another overcrowded ramshackle boat tottering on the brink of disaster.
In one day alone this summer, the charity, along with other organisations, helped to save 6500 people.
There are times on the ship when Mathieu has felt compelled to put down his camera to help his colleagues with a rescue. He says he did it without hesitation. Mathieu explained: “I have never been directly asked, but on many occasions I have helped.
“I have had to help pull people from
migrant boats on to our fast rescue vessels many times, especially when we have had to put one of our guys on the migrants’ vessel in order to control the crowd.
“The last thing you want during a rescue is people panicking, so having someone on board to keep everyone calm and seated is sometimes necessary.
“These boats are not seaworthy. I wouldn’t cross a pond in them, let alone the Mediterranean.
“Hundreds of people, sometimes as many as 500 on a boat, panicking and moving about is a disaster waiting to happen.
“I’m trained in emergency f irst aid and have had to help out medical pe r s on ne l on board with chest compressions on an Eritrean man in the past.
“There have been many cases where putting down the c ame r a is a no- bra iner and you just do it.”
Mathieu hopes and believes that his pictures and other images of migration across the Med are important records which will become part of history – with consequences “down the line”.
He said: “It is even more important to document it here at sea because it would otherwise be invisible to the public.
“There’s no one around here to witness it apart from myself and my colleagues who come aboard other rescue ships.”
I’d never seen grief on such a scale. The memory will never leave me