In brief
The girl was rescued by Compass Collective after enduring a harrowing journey across the Mediterranean filled with peril and loss.
An 11-year-old girl has been rescued in the Mediterranean after surviving for three days adrift on inner tubes amid treacherous weather conditions. Members of the non-governmental organization Compass Collective were responding to another emergency when they noticed the girl’s desperate calls for help. The unnamed child, who hails from Sierra Leone, revealed that she had embarked on the hazardous journey from Sfax, Tunisia, along with 44 others. Tragically, their boat sank quickly when caught in 3.5-meter high waves, and she is believed to be the sole survivor among her fellow migrants.Compass Collective's spokeswoman Katja Tempel highlighted to the BBC that the young girl was discovered at around 03:20 (02:20 GMT) wearing only a basic life jacket and two inner tubes. After being rescued, she was handed over to Italian authorities on Lampedusa Island. Remarkably, she was in good enough condition to walk and talk.The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has reported a grim statistic: since it began tracking data a decade ago, 30,955 migrants are either dead or missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean. Italy has seen the most significant influx, with over 63,000 migrants arriving this year alone, according to the UN refugee agency's data. Although numbers have slightly declined due to stringent policies enforced by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government, the crisis remains dire.
