“I never expected to be running a bus company when I came here,” Florence, MSF’s medical coordinator tells me as she stubs out a cigarette. After 16 years of working in the world’s worst crises, she never expected to be working in Europe either.'
In the early afternoon of Wednesday August 5th an overloaded boat capsized in the southern Mediterranean. The Phoenix was about five hours away when we received the news, and instructions to proceed directly to the site. The next day the Phoenix went to urgently assist in the rescue of a 15-meter boat carrying 604 people and in danger of capsizing.
I’m in Pozzallo, a small tourist town on the south coast of Sicily. In the past week, more than 700 people have arrived here – 373 on Tuesday, 300 on Friday and 100 on Sunday.
