Dr. Simon Bryant’s biggest fear, mid-way through his six-month posting with Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sana Frontieres (MSF) on a search and rescue ship posted in the Mediterranean is to encounter a sinking boat too late to rescue all its passengers.
Fortunately, all the desperate migrants Bryant, a physician whose home is in Canmore, has encountered have arrived safely on European shores. In 2014, however, 3,500 people drowned trying to reach Europe. This year’s number of migrants is 80 per cent higher than last year.
Over the course of treating more than 3,000 people thus far aboard the Phoenix, a ship jointly run by MSF and MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station) Search and Rescue, Bryant and his colleagues have faced some dicey scenarios.
“Once water gets inside these boats, they become unstable,” he said. “There’s people up on deck, people are below deck also, so they get trapped. A lot of these people can’t swim. There’s a point where you get a life jacket on everybody, and everybody out from below deck, and there’s a tremendous tension if the boat has a lot of water on board. It’s important to avoid panic, not to have everyone all of a sudden go to one side of the boat and tip it over.”
One small wooden boat carried 571 passengers – too many to safely allow on the much larger 40-metre Phoenix. Fortunately, unlike earlier in the season, other search and rescue ships were nearby.
The Phoenix is stationed in international waters about 40 kilometres from the Libyan coast, and generously fitted with stores of medical supplies. All rescues are carried out at the direction of the marine rescue coordination centre in Rome. But the rescuers’ intensions are not always immediately understood.
“When we first show up on scene, in some cases they’re not sure whether we are there for good or bad, because there are those who continue to prey on these people even as they’re leaving Libya,” Byrant said. “At first, they’re very apprehensive. They do not want to be returned to Libya. Once they understand that they are safe, that we are European-based and there to look after them and help them, then it’s a great relief. You can see it on their faces.”
On one rescue mission alone, the Phoenix rescued migrants from Bangladesh, Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Syria, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Ghana, Togo, Palestine, South Sudan, Libya and Burkina Faso. Some are fleeing conflicts, other tyrannical governments.
“It’s quite shocking,” Bryant said. “They have a whole range of backgrounds and experience. Some qualify as economic migrants aiming to better themselves, as anybody would in their shoes. Others absolutely have to leave Libya. They can’t go back where they came from. They are desperate to leave the situation they’re in. One young fellow told me it was 100 per cent bad in Libya, some place you would never want to be. One man told me for the rest of his life, he wouldn’t even want to fly over (Libya) in an airplane.”
Aboard the Phoenix, many are treated for dehydration and diarrhea, while others suffer from pre-existing conditions such as diabetes, hypertension or skin infections. One young man had an injured face, was blind in one eye and couldn’t straighten his leg or walk. At first he said his injuries happened playing soccer, but later while Bryant examined him he described how the giant truck he was riding across the Sahara rolled, killing 23 people.
“People must have been helping him along on this long journey,” Bryant said. “Of all things, the guy seemed happy. He was smiling … blows me away.”
Most of the migrants haven’t had access to medical care for extended periods of time, while others bear signs of violence. In addition to attending to their medical needs, the MSF staff “delicately” collect the migrants’ stories.
“I’ve seen scars from torture, burns and cuts, some are fresher than others,” he said. “It’s quite unbelievable. We’re very protected and quite fortunate in Canada. Talking about their experiences can be quite traumatic. We collect testimonies, get a sense of what’s happening in these countries. It also helps MSF plan future projects.”
Despite treating one man who was clearly psychotic, Bryant said he never worries for his own safety, as MSF has taken ample precautions for its staff. And for all the challenges, Bryant said he’d experienced some beautiful moments too.
“The really beautiful moments are the children, and when people settle down for the night,” he said. Other beautiful moments happen as the ship approaches Sicily, particularly with the Eritreans.
“They start singing, this wonderful singing when they sight Europe,” Bryant said. “They’re holding up their hands and singing. Very very happy, simple people.”
While this is his first mission with MSF, Bryant, who speaks French and has experience mountaineering, heli-ski guiding, working in Nunavut, on Arctic and Antarctic passenger ships and on the Thai-Burma border, said he’d enthusiastically sign on with MSF again.
A personal highlight came with meeting 70-something and still active Rupert Neudeck, who organized medical assistance and saved 11,300 refugees’ lives in the South China Sea in the 1970s.
“At one point, about 10,000 people lined the harbour in Hamburg to welcome a boatload of those (1970s) refugees,” Bryant said. “Can you imagine such a scene in New York or Halifax today?”
For today’s refugees, whose journey begins long before leaving Libya by boat, acceptance in Europe is not assured. Overall, Bryant said the experience has changed his view of the concept of one’s nationality, adding one of 120 people on Earth is currently displaced.
“It’s been much more exposure to the significance of different nationalities and what I call the birth lottery,” he said. “People just ending up in these situations by the accident of birth.
“But I feel mostly hopeful. There’s always been human migration around the world; North America was populated by migration. I don’t see it as a European problem, I see it as a global issue. I look at the fact that Canada took in some 200,000 migrants last year.
“I hope that these people will move around the world more and there will be more of an openness to the reality of the stuff they have to get out of.”
To read Bryant’s blog, visit blogs.msf.org/en/staff/authors/simon-bryant.
