Sole survivor of doomed boat says ships 'ran away' as migrants starved to death
The Ethiopian man says his last companion, a pregnant woman, died the day before he was rescued.
Sunday 18 August 2019 18:26, UK
The sole survivor of a doomed attempt by 15 migrants to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe has told how other boats sailed past him.
Mohammed Adam Oga said their pleas for rescue were ignored and everyone else on his small inflatable died in the blazing sun.
"We ran out of fuel and the battery ran out on the GPS device. We were on the sea for 11 days and we ran out of food," he said from his hospital bed in Malta.
"All the others died. If people don't eat or drink they die.
"The first person died on the fifth day and then they continued to die on the sixth, seventh and so on."
The Ethiopian added: "The pregnant woman survived until the tenth day, but she died the day before they saved me."
Still distressed, he said: "[Passing boats] were very very close to us, they could see us from the windows, but when they saw us they ran away."
Mr Oga was forced to push the decomposing bodies of his fellow migrants into the sea.
He was finally spotted by a Maltese military helicopter, slumped over the body of another man.
At one point in the brief interview with a Reuters journalist, his eyes glazed over and he curled his head over his arms as if about to curl into a ball.
"We were on the sea for 11 days and we ran out of food," he said.
His story emerged as footage of migrants stranded on a charity rescue ship off Italy chose to leap into the sea and try to swim to shore.
The ship, run by the Open Arms charity, has been held off the island of Lampedusa while an international row continues over the fate of those on board.