“Mother, I’m thirsty,” four-year-old Syrian national Loujin Ahmed Nasif pleaded with her mother during their dangerous sea voyage that set off from Lebanon. According to testimonies, not long afterwards, the little girl died of dehydration.
She had formed part of a group of 60 asylum seekers along with her mother and her one-year-old sister. At one point during their perilous journey, their wooden fishing vessel started taking in water and they sent out distress signals.
That happened when the boat was in Malta’s search and rescue zone. According to accounts that have not been denied, the distress calls first reached the Maltese authorities on September 2, but they only instructed a ship nearby to go to the rescue four days later.
Just like shipmasters are duty bound to assist, “states have a complementary obligation to coordinate and cooperate so that persons rescued at sea are disembarked in a place of safety as soon as possible”. This is according to a joint document on sea rescue of refugees and migrants published by the International Maritime Organisation, the UNHCR and the International Chamber of Shipping.
Still, the people from Lebanon were abandoned for days on end as the usual sickening debate on which state should take them in persisted. These states clearly know that natural elements do not wait.
As if taking their time before making sure these people are plucked to safety straightaway is not bad enough, some countries, including Malta, are increasingly making it very difficult for NGOs to lend assistance.
The European Parliament’s research service commented in a briefing note that lack of coordination in search and rescue activities, solitary action by individual countries and criminalisation of NGOs active in search and rescue within the Mediterranean has resulted in migrants “being forced to stay for several days and sometimes weeks on boats”.
This state of affairs is what killed Loujin. So long as this situation prevails, many more like her will continue to become desperately hungry and thirsty on the open seas, in dire need of medical treatment and, above all, thirsting for a safe haven.
“We left her to die because we took our time to do our duty. It was our duty to save the girl both on a human level and also at an international level. So, as a society, we have to shoulder responsibility for her death,” Archbishop Charles Scicluna told a vigil for Loujin and the many others who died at sea.
The death of young Loujin recalls the horrible image of her compatriot, Alan Kurdi, three, lying lifeless on a beach in Turkey seven years ago. Yet, even then, that realisation was only too fleeting, and politicians simply looked away once the story left the headlines. And sadly, the deaths will continue.
It is now manifestly evident that, rather than move fast to save lives, even going beyond international legal obligations, governments prefer to look for loopholes and play a fatal waiting game.
The government must heed the archbishop’s call for an explanation in parliament as to why help was not forthcoming immediately. Of course, we are not holding our breath.
It is time for more people to speak out about this deadly strategy. If the country’s policy is not to help people in need, then they should forcefully and unequivocally declare that this is not happening in our name.
There have already been too many Alan Kurdis and Loujin Ahmed Nasifs.
We continue to fail miserably to quench their thirst when they are in distress.