Hey! Don’t! Don’t look away! Right. The baby is not sleeping. The little one, probably less than a year old, half dressed in baby clothes, was pulled from the sea by the team of a German humanitarian organization operating a rescue boat between Libya and Italy on Friday.
Rescuer Martin who had spotted the baby in the water “like a doll, arms outstretched” after the wooden boat carrying its parents capsized writes in an email organization Sea-Watch distributed to the media.
“I took hold of the forearm of the baby and pulled the light body protectively into my arms at once, as if it were still alive … It held out its arms with tiny fingers into the air, the sun shone into its bright, friendly but motionless eyes.”
The rescuer, a father of three and by profession a music therapist, added:
“I began to sing to comfort myself and to give some kind of expression to this incomprehensible, heart-rending moment. Just six hours ago this child was alive.”
The boat capsized last Friday. 45 bodies arrived in the southern Italian port of Reggio Calabria on Sunday aboard an Italian navy ship, which picked up 135 survivors from the same incident. It is not known whether the baby’s parents were among the survivors. The German rescuers handed out the baby to the Italian Navy.
The picture of the drowned migrant baby in the arms of German rescuer Martin was distributed on Monday by the humanitarian organization aiming to persuade European authorities to ensure safe passage to migrants.
“Like the photograph of the three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan lying lifeless on a Turkish beach last year, the image puts a human face on the more than 8,000 people who have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014,” Reuters stresses.
The Sea-Watch team said it unanimously decided to publish the photo critizing the EU policies saying “it becomes obvious to the organizations on the ground that the calls by EU politicians to avoid further death at sea sum up to nothing more than lip service.”
According to UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, 700 people are feared to have drowned in three shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea last week. The journey of the desperate continues without a break.
Many on the boats sailing form Libya to Italy are Syrians and Iraqis.
Migrants fall into the sea from a boat that capsized last week as Italian navy ships attempted a rescue. Photograph: Reuters – Article The Guardian
A total of 13,000 people were rescued last week.
Sea-Watch.org posted a picture of a rescuer and a child survivor noting: one of the happiest moments despite the ugly experience of last week.
Bei all den schlimmen Erlebnissen der Crew in den letzten Tagen, hier einer der schönen Momente auf der #SeaWatch2 pic.twitter.com/eN9EChYNZt
— Seawatch (@seawatchcrew) May 30, 2016
Closing of the Balkan Route borders or signing an EU Turkey Deal has not stopped the people from trying to each Europe. Even trying more risky ways like the long journey through the dangerous waters of the Mediterranean Sea, when trying to reach Italy. The drama has no end.
A Safe Passage will never happen. The EU was and is still clueless on the Migration crisis. Cruel reality. Tragedy touches Cynicism.
A phone number on your t-shirt could be the only way to inform your family that you didn't make it to #Europe. pic.twitter.com/s71VNNvwcu
— MSF Sea (@MSF_Sea) May 30, 2016
But as the Sea-Watch NGO writes:
“If we do not want to see such pictures we have to stop producing them.”
Do you think that EU politicians will suffer a nervous breakdown and collapse when seeing such pictures?
I doubt it. Local voters have much more power than the masses of the nameless migrants, even if they have their name and a phone number on their t-shirts.
Turkey deal is almost finished. Safe passage to Greece will be open soon. And the story is is a hoax. And the brave rescuer Martin is a hypocrite. Why his not letting invaders in his own house. Migrants are not bigoted nazis so his 3 children would be completely safe. Don,t hate, open your own house…:D
Seriously, get some medical help. You need it more than the dead child.
The only invaders are these East-European classwar-traitors that work much too cheap in EU instead of striking for all the same pay and after 1000 years still don’t know how to paint proper letters and to excuse their stupidity they call this fake an own language; they are also so stupid to think they belong to a “race” but history showed that the “Aryans” like them only for slavery – only dogs know races, wolves don’t bark anyway.
Dear Sir, I know life can be very hard and often frustrating. And too much frustration can make the best of us a little bit strange, even you.
I guess you’re waiting now eagerly for the next comment flood to come, waiting for all your playmates here who will call you (once again) a nazi, who will insult your nationality and play one more time the usual game with you. And after this you will feel much better because you feel once again confirmed in your view of the world. And hey, between the two of us: There’s also a slight masochistic tendency in you, right? I mean this overwhelming feeling of getting offended, the ecstasy you feel when they call you a fascist, a barbarian… and last but not least there’s also the adolescent joy of playing the asshole who makes fun of a dead child.
I know you try desperately to provoke, but the problem is: All this is very boring. And it will be even more boring when your playmates start to reply and in the end we’ll have another collection of 35 senseless comments – so please have mercy with poor KTG who has to moderate all this crap.
You are not evil. You are just a hoax.
nice and politely said
Just like religion national identity belongs into madhouse, Germoney ceased to exist long ago
Hi Thomas. Thanks for answer. Do I understand right that you have problem with 35 comments but you are fine with millions jihadis flooding into Europe ?
I,m not frustated, just trying to explane that white quilt is over and nonwhite problems are not our business. So border will be closed at any circumstances.
And when I feel frustated and need medication suggested by Xenos, then I will go to the doctor and feel great happiness that I live in 99% white country so doctor is not killed or escaped and hospital is not burned down.
Why Greece don,t want to join fight for Europe and white race ? Let,s tear down the marxist EU and get rid problems from invasion to banksters. Why we need economy crisis, debt ridden poverty and thirld world savages ????
Ho, ho, ho…Why Greece? Suck your history teacher for not telling you that it was Marxist resistance fighters in Greece who stopped your white fuckersuckers dream and saved Russia enough time to finally roll over you Nazi-scum while Churchill was already collaborating with Nazis in Greece to “stop communism”, deporting thousands of war-hungry Greek soldiers into concentration camps in Africa and so started the cold-war already in 44, it was also Greece who enjoyed the 1st ever napalm bombs against partisans in the same areas there these partisans were starting to teach the modern Greek, todays Greek, so I guess everybody who is speaking this language must be a commie.
BTW: Your “autonomous nationalist” movement was invented by German media.
We white people don’t want you in our country, so you had better leave. I feel more comfortable with decent black or whatever people; their skin colour and religion do not matter, it is their character. Your character stinks, like a rotting corpse.