1
The island of Lampedusa
has a surface area of 20 square km,
it lies 70 miles from the African
coast and 120 miles from Sicily.
In the past 20 years 400,000
migrants have landed on Lampedusa.
In the attempt to cross
the Strait of Sicily to reach Europe
it is estimated that
15,000 people have died.
What is it, Dick?
How many people?
- How many people?
- 250.
Your position.
We beg you, please.
- Your position!
- In the name of God!
Your position.
Your position.
Please, we beg you.
Your position.
My friend... hello?
And now the news.
Happy Sunday to all, here we are
again with our daily news segment.
Among the bodies recovered yesterday
60 miles off Lampedusa
were the bodies
of women and children.
On the boat that sank
there were 250 people,
so far, 34 bodies
have been recovered,
rescuers have pulled
206 people from the sea.
Poor souls.
To other news:
tomorrow from 10:00 till 12:30
there will be an interruption
in power supply...
Let's see how it turned out.
It's perfect,
only I made it a bit zigzag.
You take aim like this,
you put your other eye like this
and take aim, got it?
You gotta have passion,
if you don't have passion...
You gotta make a slingshot right.
I wasn't holding it right.
Take aim, show me.
Now let go.
See this handle, see how good it is?
I got a dry one,
but it's from a pine tree
and pines trees are resistant.
Olive?
Olive too, and trees
that you find in people's gardens.
Whenever you see a branch
shaped like a handle, you take it.
This was a bit dry when I got it
but pine trees are resistant.
- Sure.
- It's real strong.
To break this handle
it would take the hand of God.
See?
You have to take aim properly.
Let's say that's a bird...
We bring two torches,
if one goes out,
we've got the other one.
Here.
There's no birds here.
Come here.
I saw it, it's over there.
Go!
Awesome, Samuele!
You nearly got it.
Go look for a stone.
No, you go get the stone.
Please fast your position.
- 32.1...
- And then?
- Under.
- Okay, 80.52.
We have small children,
please can you help us?
How many people on board?
I think about 150 people.
What kind of boat?
They say 130, 150.
Most of them
are women and children.
Can you help us?
We are sinking.
We are sinking... the same
coordinates, we will not move.
Madam, please, calm down.
We will send rescue,
but you need to calm down.
Save your battery,
I will call you back.
Is she the mother?
Who was the little girl's mother?
The one who got off before.
There should be 13 women,
eight boys and six girls.
Those we've debarked have
no particular health issues,
some have scabies and that's it.
There's just one with chicken pox,
he'll be the last to board.
Repeat,
there's one case of chicken pox
who will be the last to board.
What's this photo?
That's in a bar, in Las Palmas.
And where's this?
Here in the cabin, with the Koreans.
Is he holding an orange?
He was eating an orange
with the peel.
In your cabin,
were those photos already there?
No, we put them up.
Nice.
We slept in our clothes,
in woollen hose.
- Were you always on the boat?
- Always.
A year without going home?
Six, seven months on board.
- Even a year?
- No, never a year.
- Six, seven months.
- Always at sea?
Always at sea, only sky and sea,
always on board.
And under here were...
Good weather and bad,
we were always on board.
How many in a cabin?
- Three people.
- Maximum three?
Beds underneath and on top?
Bunk beds.
It was a hard life,
it wasn't a nice life.
Why was it hard?
We were always on board, sky and sea.
We never went ashore.
Stop!
Mattias, stop!
Come on, stop!
Stop already!
Look.
The heart.
The first one is a girl, like you.
You understand?
Girl.
How do you say?
Girl, woman...
How do you say it?
Got it?
Very good.
Now let's see the second one.
This is the head of the second one.
Second one... head.
The cultural mediator is on his way
so we can communicate better.
In all this confusion
we need to find...
we need to find the other sex.
How do we do it?
It's a bit of a muddle.
The legs and arms are intertwined.
Lord...
We'll follow the spine,
so we can't go wrong.
Here's the head.
The spine...
They're intertwined,
the legs of one
with the legs of the other.
How can I tell them apart?
Slowly, slowly, we'll get there.
The placenta is anterior.
This is all the placenta.
The amniotic fluid is scarce
because she's suffered, poor soul,
so the pregnancy suffers too.
But it's all right,
all things considered,
after everything she's been through,
rescued off the boat and so on...
Look, see the profile?
The nape of the neck,
forehead and this is the profile.
- We're grinding them down.
- Yeah, we're destroying them.
Destroyed!
A fizzer.
Watch.
It's all broken.
It won't stick.
It won't stick, wait.
Let's wind it round.
- Here, wind it.
- I'll go this way.
Now over here.
- All good.
- Let's go.
Slowly, there's no rush.
This lot's from the Ivory Coast.
Another one!
Look at his scarf!
Another one.
What a smell of diesel fuel.
- They're drenched in diesel.
- Soaked.
If I flick my lighter
I'll go up in flames.
Is he soaked in diesel fuel?
If I flick my lighter
I'll catch fire.
You can still smell it
with the mask on.
Just a little hair.
Just a tiny bit.
That's fine.
Okay.
Thank you.
There...
English homework all done.
I read this, this one and that one.
Listen to the thunder.
You can't go outside,
the weather's bad.
When Grandpa went out to fish
and the weather was good,
I took bread to him.
I was your age, Samuele.
And they went to sea.
You took bread to him.
Grandpa would get off the boat
and I would hand him the bread.
They stayed out all day,
in the evening
they came back in,
they were scared to go out at night
they only went during the day.
Why?
Because navy ships
would pass by at night,
it was wartime.
More thunder.
Listen to the thunder!
The ships fired rockets
and at sea, it was like...
It was like there was fire at sea.
Fire at sea?
The sea turned red.
Wartime.
Enough, you killed 'em all.
Look!
I got him, stone-cold dead.
Got the slingshot?
It's Auntie Maria.
I want to dedicate a song
to my son Nello,
"Fire at Sea",
if you can put it to air
because it's still bad weather
and they can't go out fishing,
no one's earning anything
with this awful weather.
Here's hoping the weather improves.
Thanks, Pippo, bye.
"My Little Donkey",
another Sicilian song.
And on with the show.
We have another request:
Maria dedicates to her son Nello,
in the hope the weather improves
so he can go out in the boat to work,
the song "Fire at Sea".
I'd like to join her
and dedicate it to all the fishermen.
So, by request, "Fire at Sea".
D, C, E, Z, K.
The last one?
R, E, V, O, Z.
- The second line too?
- No.
Let's see the other one.
Now read the first line.
Can't you see it?
Not like this,
if I go like this, maybe,
but like that I can't see it.
All right.
Look here.
Is that better or worse?
- Still looking at the lines?
- Yes, the first letter.
I can't see it, it's worse.
- This one?
- D.
When you hunt with your slingshot...
- Do you close an eye?
- This one.
- That is, you close the lazy one.
- Yes.
That's why you didn't notice.
I close this one like this.
You've never noticed
because you close your left eye.
- Do you ever close the right one?
- No.
Because you're used to it.
My boy,
we have a problem with this eye:
it's a lazy eye.
You know what a lazy eye is?
It's an eye
that doesn't work, it's lazy.
So, your brain doesn't receive
images from the left eye,
so we have to force it
to use the left eye,
therefore,
for a more or less brief period
we'll wear a patch on the good eye.
- What kind of patch?
- An adhesive eye patch.
- Over the pupil?
- Over the eye.
On the sick one or on this one?
On the good one,
that way we'll force your brain
to use the lazy eye and make it work.
It's a bit hard,
I don't know how to use it.
We have to slowly get used to it.
This is my testimony.
We could no longer stay in Nigeria.
Many were dying, most were bombed.
We were bombed,
and we flee from Nigeria,
we ran to the desert,
we went Sahara Desert and many died.
In Sahara Desert many were dying.
Raping and killing many people
and we could not stay.
We flee to Libya.
And Libya was a city of ISIS
and Libya was a place not to stay.
We cried on our knees,
"What shall we do?"
The mountains could not hide us,
the people could not hide us
and we ran to the sea.
On the journey on the sea,
too many passengers died.
They got lost in the sea.
A boat was carrying 90 passengers.
Only 30 were rescued
and the rest died.
Today we are alive.
The sea is not a place to pass by.
The sea is not a road.
Oh, but today we are alive.
It is risky in life
not to take a risk,
because life itself is a risk.
We stayed for many weeks
in Sahara Desert.
Many were dying with hunger,
many were drinking their piss.
All, to survive,
we drank our piss to survive
because that was the journey of life.
We stayed in the desert,
the water finished.
We began to drink our piss.
We said, "God,
don't let us die in the desert."
And we got to Libya
and Libyans would not pity us.
They would not save us
because we are Africans.
And they locked us in their prisons.
Many went to prison for one year.
Many went to prison for six years,
many died in the prison.
Libya prison was very terrible.
No food in the prison.
Every day beating, no water
and many of us escape.
And today we are here, God rescue us.
Without risk we enter the sea.
If we cannot die in Libyan prison,
we cannot die in the sea.
And we went to sea and did not die.
With this swell...
I threw up everything.
Have you ever thrown up
when you're out at sea?
Did you ever throw up out at sea,
when you were a kid?
I didn't throw up,
but I've been sick.
- Never threw up?
- No.
I get sick and I throw up too.
You're still young, Samuele.
You're still young.
You need to start going
on the pontoon.
When there's a swell.
Instead of playing
with your slingshot,
go to the pontoon
to build up your stomach.
All right.
So you can go to sea
with no problems.
With your stomach used to it.
Being on land or at sea
will be the same.
There were 840 on this boat.
These were the ones in first class,
they were outside,
they paid $1,500.
Then there were those
in second class,
here in the middle,
they paid 1,000,
then, I didn't know this,
down in the hold
there were so many,
they paid $800,
they were the third class.
When I got them ashore
there was no end to them.
No end.
Hundreds of women and children
were in bad shape,
especially in the hold,
they'd been at sea for seven days.
They were dehydrated,
malnourished,
exhausted.
I brought 68 to the emergency room,
they were in bad shape.
This is a young boy
all covered in burns,
he's very young, 14, 15 at the most.
We see so many of these,
they're chemical burns,
from the fuel.
They put them on unsound rubber boats
and during the journey they have
to fill jerry cans with fuel.
The fuel spills onto the floor
and mixes with the sea water,
then their clothes get soaked
and this mixture is harmful,
it causes these very serious burns
that give us a hard time
and give us a lot of work to do
and that unfortunately leave marks,
that can be fatal.
There.
It's the duty of every human being,
if you're human,
to help these people.
When we succeed we're happy.
We're glad
we could help them out.
At times, unfortunately,
it's not possible.
So, I have to witness awful things:
dead bodies, children...
On these occasions,
I am forced to do
the thing I hate most:
examining cadavers.
I've done so many,
maybe too many.
Many of my colleagues say,
"You've seen so many...
You're used to it."
It's not true.
How can you get used to seeing
dead children, pregnant women,
women who've given birth
on sinking boats,
umbilical cords still attached.
You put them in the bags, coffins,
you have to take samples,
you have to cut off
a finger or a rib,
you have to cut the ear off a child.
Even after death, another affront.
But it has to be done, so I do it.
All this leaves you so angry,
it leaves you with emptiness
in your gut, a hole.
It makes you think,
dream about them,
these are the nightmares I relive
often...
Often.
After Somalia.
Libya, after Libya, Sudan.
After Sudan other countries.
We cancel the game, nobody play.
- Libya.
- Libya!
No Somalia, no Sudan.
Somalia, out. Sudan, out.
Go, Syria!
Go, Eritrea!
Syria! Syria!
Hello?
Auntie Maria!
All good.
Yes.
Wife Maria
for her husband Giacomino
with lots and lots...
of love.
"The Cart Driver's Loves", yes.
Yes.
Now I'll play it.
My best to Uncle Giacomino.
Bye, Auntie Maria.
We have another song dedication.
Wife Maria for her husband Giacomino
dedicates with lots and lots of love
"The Cart Driver's Loves".
Come on, you can do it.
I couldn't find D.
D? It has to be there, Samuele.
Here.
- I can't see, my glasses.
- Take them off.
Because it's written small.
"Delighted".
It begins with D and E...
- It's here, don't turn.
- Wait!
- Have you found D?
- Yes.
Do you think this is a D?
No, of course not.
Look, it's on page 213.
Found it?
- Happy.
- Happy, perfect.
Glad, not exactly happy, but...
Glad.
"Depressed"?
Depressed, unhappy.
But you have to read it, come on.
"Impatient".
- Impatient.
- Good.
Then?
"Jealous".
Jealous.
"Shocked".
- What could it mean?
- Shocked?
Frightened.
Shocked.
I am shocked by your preparation,
we are all shocked
by the class' preparation, right?
"Stressed".
Stressed.
Come on, row.
Don't hit my boat.
I'll move now, come on.
Keep rowing forward.
Or else you'll never be
a sailor, row!
In Lampedusa, we're all sailors.
Row, row.
Forward.
- Come on, Samuele, row.
- Like this?
Row. The prow facing the boats.
This way?
- The prow towards me.
- Like this?
No, not that way!
Turn the boat around!
Turn with this one.
- Keep turning with this one.
- This one?
Bring the prow this way,
row forward.
Row forward, row.
Where did you stick the oar?
Keep going, Samuele.
I'm going to get stuck
in the patrol boats.
You'll get stuck in the middle,
grab hold of the line!
Hold on to the line.
Hold on!
Wait.
I'll throw you a line
and pull you out.
Keep holding on,
or you'll be crushed by the boats.
Can you see good?
Yeah, good, but a tiny bit bad too,
just a weeny bit bad.
A teeny-weeny bit bad.
Now I'm much better,
at first I could hardly see at all,
but now I can see
a little less bad.
You should wear them at school.
But I do wear them at school.
Look at this wind!
Yes, there's a storm coming.
30 knots.
How much, 30 knots?
Wow.
You thought it was less?
A weeny bit less.
- So, what's wrong?
- I feel like...
I have trouble breathing,
I'm also allergic to dust mites
and sometimes I can't breathe.
But not always.
- A little bit.
- Sometimes.
- How long have you had this problem?
- For quite a while.
A month, two months,
a year, two years?
Maybe a year.
Does it happen in summer or winter?
Whenever, a couple of times.
Whenever.
Why is your face all scribbled on?
At school.
- With a pen?
- Yes.
- And your eye?
- I've got a lazy eye.
When I had my eyes examined
I had a tenth,
now I have five tenths.
- How long have you been wearing this?
- A month.
- You've recovered quite a bit.
- From one tenth to five tenths.
- It works.
But it's still not fixed,
I have to get to nine tenths.
- You'll get there.
- If I always wear it.
Did you have
this problem this morning?
No, not this morning.
Now I'll examine you.
- Now, a little bit.
- A little bit.
Just a bit.
Do you feel like you can't breathe
or does it feel heavy,
do you feel you can't get the air in?
I can't get the air in.
That's it.
Can I examine you now and we'll see?
So we'll see what's what,
lift your shirt...
- And you'll figure it out?
- Of course.
That's what we're here for.
Take it off so I can hear better.
Take your glasses off.
You're white,
haven't been to the beach?
- Not yet.
- It's cold.
Now, then...
take a deep breath.
When I tell you,
when I touch you with it.
Easy does it.
Let's see, breathe.
Breathe.
Lighter than that, go on.
Again.
Stop, now we'll listen to your heart.
No, breathe normally.
Breathe normally.
Do you get tired when you walk a lot?
When I walk a lot and I sweat, yes,
I get tired because I sweat.
All right, so we could...
Is it anxiety, can you tell?
Yes, you're a little anxious,
not too bad.
And allergies,
I suffer from allergies too.
Yes, let's say that at the moment
the problem isn't allergies,
the problem is
you're a little anxious,
you're a bit tense.
What do you mean?
You're worried you've got something,
but actually there's nothing wrong.
But I can't breathe.
That's because...
Can't you do anything?
I'll order a cardiac examination,
I'll get them to do
an electrocardiogram,
to get a complete picture.
- Are you tired?
- No, just a bit of...
He's completely dehydrated.
He might not make it,
put him on a drip.
He has to be hydrated immediately.
Undress him,
put dry clothes on him.
I need dry white jumpsuits,
we have to undress them all.
See, they've all got wet stuff on.
Fuck.
Come here, they beat him up.
Where are you from?
Syria? Cte d'Ivoire?
Syria? Cte d'Ivoire?
Where are you from?
Mali, Syria?
All right, take his picture.
The photo's already done.
Take him inside.
Give him a chair, let him sit down.
All right here?
Eritrea?
Nigeria.
Libya.
Chad.
Niger.
40 dead bodies.
I'll get them
to help me pull them up.
In the boat there is two levels:
one is the upper side, and the under.
In the under there is very hot.
There is no air.
There is very hot.
Because of that, more people...
To all sections, I confirm:
there are 15 more dead bodies.
Masks, guys, masks, eh!
That bag there,
in the support boat.
The black one, yeah.
Can you do it?
One, two, three.
Are all the black men on board?
Let me have a nice day
and give me a little health.
FIRE AT SEA
translation: Susan Adler