For more than 40 hours he floated in the Mediterranean, buoyed only by an inflatable ring and flippers. Gripped by fear and disheartened by the handful of vessels that had passed by him, Rafie Nadi, 23, was kept from slipping under by a jumble of hopes. Five years earlier, he had set off from Egypt to help provide for his family; now he desperately prayed he would finally make it to Europe and live to see his mother again.
His rescue in July made headlines around the world. Dehydrated, exhausted and his skin burning from overexposure to sun and seawater, he could be seen in video clips collapsed on a ship’s deck, barely able to move or talk, after he was pulled from the water by a family sailing to the Balearic Islands. Their boat was met at sea by a maritime rescue service vessel, which took him to port in Málaga and handed him over to police and the Red Cross.
