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On the Iuventa ship they’re getting ready to set sail

A video-interview to Katherine, head of the mission, and first multimedia report on board the humanitarian vessel involved in SAR operations in the Mediterranean Sea

Malta, 23 luglio 2017

The ship’s medical room is just a few square meters, clean and ready for use. When you look at it, you perceive like an echo voicing cries and blood, but also a sense of relief for the so many lives snatched from death. The bed I will be sleeping in for the next two weeks is just a couple of meters away, with no barrier hiding the small operating room from the view.

Apart from the medical room, under the ship’s bridge almost everything is destined to the crew.
There is a kitchen with a dining room which is used for both dining and meeting. There is a washing machine, a shower, a pantry and even a small library. The remaining area is filled with small bed cabins and machine rooms. It is on the top floor that the action takes place.

The deck of the ship is divided into three parts: the bow, the waist and the stern.
The first part is where diesel fuel supplies are but it is also where the lookouts with their binoculars spend hours sifting through the horizon.

On the ship’s waist is where most of the rescue operations take place: here migrants are brought on board and a preliminary medical triage is performed. The most serious cases are moved to the infirmary, while those who can at least stand up on their own are moved at the back.

Photo credit: Tommaso Gandini, #overthefortress sulla Iuventa

“Guests” is the word used to refer to those who are rescued. The official maximum capacity of the ship is around 150 people, but a peak of 400 at once has also been reached. "We have never been able to count them precisely when they get on board, we can have a fairly accurate estimate only at the moment they disembark," says Sasha, the head of the previous mission who is now training the new crew. He’s the one explaining to everyone which parts the ship is divided into, where the safety equipment is located but also how to act throughout rescue operations.

I get to know our head of mission while she’s cooking dinner for us all. An African vegetable dish, combined with fruit, peanut butter and coconut milk. Her name is Katherine and she has just returned few days ago from her previous mission.

She’s one of the few people who’ll do two missions in a row. The journey that brought her here began in Idomeni, on November 2015. A time when there was still no media attention on what has been considered one of the largest informal camps along the Greek-Macedonian border and a time when already thousands of people were being blocked at the border and being chased after by the grip of winter.

From Idomeni, she moved to the Island of Lesvos where she began to search and rescue operations in the Aegean Sea. Then she joined the Jugend Rettet since the very first missions of the Iuventa. It’s been Katherine and Sasha who have defined the Standard Operation Procedures, that is the standard rescue manoeuvres still used by the members of the crew.

Her workstation is the deck, the control room, where she’s flanked by Pia, the captain, the second most important position on the ship. Pia, a young tattooed girl, steers the Iuventa both in open water and during the difficult coming alongside operations in order to allow the guests to get on board. Among the crew, you don’t feel a rigid hierarchy, everyone is free to share opinions or routine work, such as cleaning and cooking, which are equally split among all.

But everything changes once you get to the rescue area. Katherine is the one keeping contacts with the Coast Guard and the other NGOs, and it’s her again that has to decide where to head to, which boat to rescue first, in case there’s more than one, whether the rescue operation is too dangerous to continue, and so on.

That’s why the role of the RIB crew is paramount. It’s a motor-powered lifeboat that precedes the main ship, the vanguard of the vanguard.

The three crew members of the RIB are the first to have a direct contact with the boats and the responsibilities are many. The first of these three crew members is the driver, who cannot be distracted by anything. The second is the communicator, the one who talks to the migrants and explains them what to do. This is a very critical position: a wrong word and people could panic or try to jump on the small RIB risking not only to sink it but also to capsize it.

Lastly, there’s the team leader, “the eyes and the ears of the ship”.

The team leader is constantly communicating with the deck informing them about the situation at sea and it’s thanks to these data that Katherine decides how to carry out the rescue operation and who to assist first.

The other members of the crew are divided into engineers, those responsible for the ship’s engines, doctors and those responsible in charge of the ship’s deck who deal with the situation on board after the rescue of the guests.

Fifteen people in total, sixteen including me, who are getting ready to face the open sea and to save from danger, in all probability, thousands of people, even at the same time.

Photo credit: Tommaso Gandini, #overthefortress sulla Iuventa

Many are already experienced, and everyone has been given precise instructions on how to behave. But many times the instructor’s sentences ended with “Well, in this case you improvise” or “On this occasion you have to be creative”. That’s also what he said when explaining the manoeuvres to carry out when you bump into a big wooden boat carrying more than 500 people.

In that case creativity seems to become a key element, especially when getting on board the wooden boats seems to be necessary.

They told us how once, when more than ten small wooden boats were moving at the same time towards the Iuventa, preventing several maneuvers, they had to take control of one of these small boats after emptying it in order to better control the others.

The crew is made up of people with great experience and a huge perseverance, people accustomed to 10 or 20 hours work shifts at sea without sleeping.

But above all, we must remember that there’s no alternative: these guys battle against death since Europe has decided to dissolve Mare Nostrum and to abandon those who set out to sea.

The Iuventa is often the only chance separating thousands of people from certain death. On Monday, July 24, we’ll set sail with the certainty that there will be people at sea who need help. We’ll set sail showing once again that when EU governments turn to the other side and lock themselves in their Fortress, another Europe moves in an obstinate and opposite direction.

[ 30 July 2017 ]