Ahmed Khalid has not seen his only surviving daughters since their boat capsized three weeks ago. Photos: Jason Borg

A migrant at Ħal Far open centre, Ahmed Khalid, who was rescued off Lampedusa last month, has spoken of how the sea swallowed up his wife and seven children and now he was being kept away from his two surviving daughters.

While being grateful for his rescue by a Maltese patrol boat, he said: “I still cannot understand why families were split up, and some were taken to Lampedusa, and others brought here. When we capsized we were scattered all over, but aboard the army vessels we were told we were all being taken to Lampedusa. It wasn’t until I landed that I realised none of my children had been brought to the same island.”

Behind him, the black suit he wore for his daughter’s funeral hangs from the ceiling of the container shared by Syrians who like him were scooped from the deadly seas on October 11.

The captain of the Maltese army vessel that was first to reach the capsized migrants had described the rescue as one of the toughest in his career at sea.

I am scared that it will be months until I see my daughters, and I don’t think I will make it till then

More than 50 people, including many children, drowned in the incident. The armed forces managed to rescue 143 migrants, while the Italian Navy took another 56.

Contrary to sub-Saharan Africans who normally flee Libya, the incident involved mainly Syrians and Palestinians.

Mr Khalid’s family, of Palestinian descent, fled war-torn Damascus to Egypt 10 months ago.

From there, they made their way to Libya, from where they left for Europe on a nine-metre fishing boat. But only 57-year-old Mr Khalid and two of his daughters, who are 17 and 25 years old, made it alive.

Mr Khalid attended the funeral of his daughter Qeem Dahshah, 26, in Malta last week. The bodies of another daughter and his wife were taken to Lampedusa. Five other children are still missing, aged between four and 19.

But hope is the last to die, and Mr Khalid believes they might have been saved and are being treated in a hospital in Sicily, but have not yet been identified.

He has in the meantime spoken to his two daughters over the phone. He has been reassured that he will be reunited with them, but three weeks on, the family is still waiting.

“All I can do is wait and think. But the days are long. I am just scared that it will be months until I see my daughters, and I don’t think I will make it till then.”

Two other families sharing a container a few metres away had a better fate.

They too are of Palestinian descent, and were all born in Syria.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, some four fifths of the Palestinian-Arab population fled to the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

They settled down in refugee camps that have over the years grown into districts.

A woman who goes by the name of Maha, 42, urges me to watch a Youtube video about the beauty of her hometown, Yarmouk, before the civil war.

“Then the rebels came to the city, followed by the regime, and they moved on from camp to camp, destroying houses. We moved from camp to camp, until there was nowhere else we could go,” she says.

With no travel documents and no way to apply for the necessary paperwork due to the conflict, together with her husband Kaled, 53, and sons Mohamed, 24 and Moakaz, 23, they went to Egypt with “unofficial visas”.

But they did not feel safe there and since they could not return to Syria, as they would get arrested, they left for Libya, where they felt even less safe.

They stayed in a house in Tripoli with four other families until they met a “Libyan gang” asking for 1,300 each and 500 for children “to go to Europe by boat”.

But like other survivors, the family claims the boat came under fire as it left the Libyan coast.

The shooting went on for hours, and as those aboard started moving from one side to the other, the vessel started swaying until it capsized. Those in the boat drowned immediately, Kaled says.

“Swimming through a sea of bodies, we tried to group our families. But I could not see anything because the waves were so high. All I could hear was my children screaming and shouting,” another woman, Lina, 40, says.

All I could hear was my children screaming

She was saved with her husband Eiad, 50, and children Mulham, 18, and Mohamed, 10.

More than a year after leaving Damascus with a few packed clothes, which they lost on their way here, they finally feel safe, and have a bed they can sleep on.

“The first thing we want to do now is learn to swim. We were wearing safety vests and when we fell off the boat we promised God we would learn to swim. It was with his help and the Maltese army’s intervention that we are safe now.”