After the Shipwreck: EmmANUEL

We stay long in the sea. We stay many weeks. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know where we are going to. The people that died there, they are no less than sixty. We are many, understand? Nobody knows where each other is coming from but everyone is running for survival.

I had a small bag, the water carried it away. I lost my junior brother. Some guy has a wife but he can’t remember he has a wife. Some men are with families but they can’t remember they have a family.

We see only a stone in the middle of the sea. We are a few. We get closer to the stone. We stay there for hours. Many died, many injured.

So, then they take us from the water. We stayed one and a half days, I don’t know the place. Then, they take us from that place to a place where we stay three days. After two days, they take us to another place. They give us a paper, which is supposed to expire in three months time. Mine is supposed to expire on the 14th of December.

Based on the testimony of Emmanuel, recorded in Siracusa, 31 November 2002 (lightly adapted).

Unpublished notes, Laura Waddington, 2002.

Footnotes

• The shipwreck occurred during the night of 14–15 September, off the coast of Agrigento, Sicily. The boat was carrying Liberian refugees fleeing the war.

Source