For three days, Mohanad had been lost at sea in an overcrowded wooden boat. Travelling across the Mediterranean from Libya to Europe, he and the other passengers had run out of food and water, were running out of fuel, and had mixed their remaining sugar with sea water to see if they could drink it. “It was madness,” he says.
Weak and exhausted, passengers began drifting in and out of consciousness. Mohanad kept waking up an Ethiopian man – who was nearer the edge of the boat – worried he might fall in. At night, there were large waves, and Mohanad slept for a while himself, but was woken by a loud splash. People began screaming the Ethiopian man’s name. He had slipped over the side into the water. They turned the boat around to look for him, but he had drowned.
