Doro

Doro's story

When the weather starts to spoil, the waves in the water knock our boat. Inside the rubber boat, there is wood in the bottom. When the water knocks the boat, the wood in the middle starts to crack and spoil. The wooden boards in the bottom of the boat start to split. People in the middle start to go front. Some people start to go back. And people start to push each other. But me and Ibrahim, where we are, we are still there sitting. When the wood splits, in that area we start to have problems with holes in the rubber tubes and the boat starts to reduce. The air starts to come out of the rubber and the water is coming in the centre of the boat. And the boat starts to come together. It is like if you take a carton of juice and you fold it in the middle and the front touch the back.

After the wood in the middle of the boat cracks, we don’t have any hope. The compass man, he has the telephone and I see him call. He calls the Libyan people. The man he speaks to speaks in Arab and we tell him we are not in international water. It is Tripoli people we call. Before the marines come some people they are fighting. They are pushing each other. Some people push forwards and some people push back and before we know, the boat has more problem and plenty people are lost in the water.

Some people they are unconscious. Some people they are hurt. Some people are praying to God. Some people have calmed down. But some people are talking with the captain and insulting him. They are pushing each other. It is from there plenty people are lost in the water, not only because of the boat scatter that people lost in the water. It is because plenty people are scared. Plenty people are feared. They are fighting each other. When people come to one side, others, they would push them back and tell them to go that side and before they can go, the boat spoil. All the front of the boat come down of air and into the water.

The people all come to the front, the captain say we all come to the front, and only the fuel and the machine are in the other side, where the water are. Plenty people fall in the water. Plenty people. Some people say that they know how to swim and we are not far because we are still in Libyan water. So they go to swim, but all those people they die. Because that time nobody can swim in that water. The water is bad and the weather is not good. You cannot swim up to 50km when the weather is that bad.

The people left in the boat is less than 70 people and the man pushed 100-and-something people from Tripoli. Maybe 50 people they died. They just lost. Women and young men. Nigerian women there are plenty. It is them I remember too much. They were praying to Jesus. 'Oh Jesus Christ, oh Jesus Christ, oh Jesus Christ. Help us Jesus. That we not die here. Help us and our family. Oh Jesus Christ.' I remember them praying. And Muslims too. They are praying. Help us, help us! Everybody was praying and you cannot hear no one, and then in a small time, you will see somebody fall inside the water. And the boat, where the boat have problems, where the water enter into the boat, those people that are sitting there, I think plenty people are lost.