Australian nurse Jai Defranciscis shares her experience of working in Misrata, Libya, where MSF is providing care for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers facing arbitrary detention and extreme suffering
It’s hard to believe that I’ve developed such a negative visceral reaction to the name of a food that I actually like to eat: the word “macaroni” now fills me with a sense of hopelessness and dread.
For the past two months I have been working as the MSF doctor on the MV Aquarius, a search and rescue boat operated by MSF in partnership with SOS Mediterranee. Virtually every person we have plucked from dangerously overcrowded rubber and wooden boats off the coast of Libya has told me that they were held in “detention” in Libya.
Sarah is a doctor on board MV Aquarius, a search and rescue vessel in the Mediterranean Sea. Here, she blogs about the people who make the journey, and the patients who never reach the safety of her clinic on board...
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.
Our team is tired out after working day and night. The reception centre in Pozzallo was designed for just 180 people. Some of those arriving crossed the sea in rubber dinghies, others in wooden boats, but not one of the vessels were safe to travel in.
