Far out in the Mediterranean Sea, far from land, a 21-year-old named Linda from Daraa, Syria, sat on a fragile blue wooden boat with a sense of hopelessness. Along with 125 other refugees, they had embarked on a risky journey from the Libyan city of Sabratha in the dead of night. Linda’s only motivation was to ensure her sick mother’s safety, far from the war-torn homeland and the icy waters they had been adrift in for nearly two days without food or water.
Their desperate voyage was intercepted by a German search-and-rescue vessel called Humanity 1, saving Linda, her mother, and the rest of the refugees from a tragic fate. In the whirlwind moments following the rescue, Linda wandered the deck, tears streaming down her face. Dressed in a black tracksuit with white stripes, she navigated through the crowd of survivors awaiting medical attention and a change of clothes.
Seeing fellow survivors wrapped in shiny emergency blankets, the crinkle of the material brought back childhood memories of opening candy bags. Approaching a crew member with her cracked iPhone coated with dried salt, Linda pleaded in Arabic for a chance to charge her phone to send a message. She had been out of touch for 22 hours, leaving her fiancé in a Libyan shelter unaware of her fate.
Unable to immediately fulfill her request, Linda’s tears flowed freely as she anxiously awaited a chance to reach out to her loved one.