Lampedusa (Italy) (AFP)

"I almost went crazy": Mohammed, a young Libyan, lived an endless wait aboard the humanitarian ship Open Arms before arriving Tuesday night in the crowded reception center of Lampedusa.

"We were about fifty to cook like spaghetti in our boat, the engine stopped, when we were saved by the Open Arms," ​​said Mohammed, 23, piercing green eyes. "I then isolated for several days at the bottom of the boat".

Tuesday morning, the prosecutor of Agrigento (Sicily), inspected the boat and decided to everyone's surprise that the survivors should land on this island between mainland Italy and Tunisia. Some, desperate, had already fled to the water to join the swimming.

The report of the prosecutor, quoted by Italian media, describes passengers immersed in an "extreme emotional context (...) between the perception of death in case of return home, and hope for a new life, even if it requires to jump to the sea and swim to the island. " A context that made "impossible individual and collective risk assessment", and convinced him to let them land and open an investigation against X for kidnapping people, omission and refusal of official acts.

After 19 days at sea for some, the 147 occupants of the Open Arms, chartered by the Spanish NGO of the same name, joined Tuesday evening the reception center of the small island, called "hot spot".

On Wednesday, in overwhelming heat, the Italian police began to check the identity of the survivors of the Open Arms, confined in this reception center with many Tunisians arrived on other boats.

-200 migrants in two buildings-

There are more than 200 in two buildings designed for 96 people, according to a source in the center, which ensures that some could be transferred Thursday to other centers in Sicily, Trapani or Caltanissetta.

"This is not a prison," said one of the police officers of the center, where the comings and goings are controlled by the army. To "lighten" the load, the rescued people are transferred after a few days to other places of residence, in Sicily in particular. The center of Lampedusa, called "the gateway to Europe", was able to accommodate up to 600 migrants, but some of the buildings were damaged by fires.

The Open Arms passengers stayed in the center all day, resting after their long crossing. A large part of the ship's crew, sequestered by the Italian courts in a Sicilian port, left for Spain.

At the end of the afternoon, a tourist stopped to take a shot of the imposing entrance gate, without getting off his convertible.

Migrants who have been arriving for several days are wallowing in small groups to go to town, a few hundred meters from the "hot spot", to buy some cigarettes or fruit.

In the crowded pedestrian street overlooking the port, they cross without seeing hundreds of tourists, crowded terraces and renters of Méharis. "I give it up and I escape to Lampedusa," says a store. These Tunisians thank God who allowed them to dock safe and sound after this crossing.

Mohammed, who attempted the crossing for 500 dollars, would like to go "anywhere in Europe" to work, in Sicily perhaps, or in France where he has family.

© 2019 AFP