Valletta (AFP)
An Ethiopian rescued Monday in critical condition on a small canoe departing Libya 11 days earlier told Malta the hell aboard and the slow death of his 14 traveling companions.
"We were 15 on the boat and I'm the only one alive, God sent the Maltese to save me," said 38-year-old Mohammed in an interview with the Times of Malta on his hospital bed with help an interpreter.
Member of a rebel group in Ethiopia, he says he fled 15 years ago in Eritrea and Sudan. On the advice of friends settled in Germany, he recently joined Libya to try to join them in Europe.
For 700 dollars (630 euros), he embarked on 1 August Zaouia, 45 km west of Tripoli, aboard a small blue dinghy. With him, two Ghanaians, including a pregnant woman, two Ethiopians and ten Somalis.
The smuggler "gave us a GPS and told us + go to Malta +".
It's the fuel that ran out first, then the food, then the water. "We started drinking sea water." After five days, two people died, and then two people died each day, "says the man with the bald head and short beard.
"We saw a lot of boats, we shouted for help, for help!" We waved at them but they passed without stopping, and a helicopter went by and left, "he says.
With the heat, the smell of the body quickly became unbearable. So Mohammed and Ismail, a Somali he met in Libya, threw them into the water one by one, until they were left alone.
Mohammed does not remember seeing Ismail die in his turn. He also does not remember the arrival of the Maltese navy, warned by a plane from the European agency Frontex who had spotted the small blue boat. Held in a helicopter, he woke up in a hospital in Malta.
Since military ships withdrew from the relief zone off Libya and humanitarian ships are facing increasing obstacles, Malta has been regularly on the front line in recent months to welcome migrants.
Since the beginning of the year, the smallest country in the EU has rescued and hosted more than a thousand migrants, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
© 2019 AFP