On board the tiny fleet saving terrified migrants from an angry Mediterranean

[Sally]

Imagine how desperate people must be to go on a journey like this.

On board the tiny fleet saving terrified migrants from an angry Mediterranean
The EU has massively reduced its effort to rescue refugees fleeing to Europe. A new, scaled-down mission is under way amid fears of looming disaster. Emma Graham-Harrison joined one ship off the storm-battered coast of Lampedusa






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A Portuguese naval captain describes patroling the seas around southern Italy to stem the flow of migrants from north Africa
Emma Graham-Harrison on board the Viana do Castelo

Saturday 15 November 2014 19.04 EST

Even the captain was worried, he admitted, about waves nearly 10 metres high crashing over the stern of his Portuguese navy ship as it sailed through a hurricane in the Mediterranean. The migrants he had been sent to rescue would not have stood a chance.

Miguel Morais Chumbo commands the Viana do Castelo, part of a new European Union mission to aid some of the thousands of people who cram on to tiny, leaky boats each month in Libya, dreaming of a safer life in Europe but painfully aware they risk drowning on the way there.



Continue reading at:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/16/lampedusa-migrants