Image: Hokyoung Kim for NPR
Stuck on a stalled motorized inflatable raft in the open sea, 15-year-old Tsedal began to panic.
She and the other passengers, more than 60 migrants from the African countries of Eritrea and Sudan, had set off from neighboring Libya, where their lives had become unbearable. They were trying to cross more than 100 miles of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.
Repeated distress calls brought no help. The passengers were suffering from dehydration and sunstroke. Two babies on board cried with such anguish that Tsedal could feel their wails deep in her chest. Everyone kept screaming, We are all going to die! says Tsedal, an Eritrean whose last name NPR is withholding because she s a minor whose life is often in danger. The raft seemed to be sinking. We believed we would disappear with it under the water.