Activity Report 2010 - Sovereign Military Order of Malta in the United ...

Lampedusa
Where north and south meet
IMMIGRANTS
LANDED ON ITALIAN
COASTS IN 2008:
37,000
WOMEN LANDED
ON LAMPEDUSA
IN 2008:
3,500
THOSE WHO WENT
MISSING IN THE
SICILY CHANNEL
IN 2008:
580
The Order’s Italian
Emergency Corps in aid to
immigrant boat people.
Lampedusa port:
Grand Master with Coast Guard
Italian Emergency Corps
The Italian Emergency Corps - CISOM
- has almost 2,800 volunteers
(medical personnel, paramedics and
first-aiders) in North, Center and
South Italy. Founded in 1970, their
focus has always been emergency aid
to those afflicted by natural disasters.
In 2007, the President of the Order’s
Italian Association, Fausto Solaro del
Borgo, being responsible for the
Emergency Corps, signed an
agreement with the Commandant
General of the Coast Guard, Admiral
Luciano Dassatti.
First day of activity: 27 April 2008.
First location: Lampedusa.
W
hat hits you the most
is their young eyes
filled with fear. Eyes
that have looked
death in the face,
before them, in the
sea, at night, in a rubber dinghy. After
five days at sea, unable to move, without
food or water, 25 souls crammed in a
boat no longer than five metres.
It is just midnight when the motor
launch CP 407 Lolini of the Italian Coast
Guard arrives in the port of Lampedusa,
doctors and nurses of the Order of
Malta Italian Emergency Corps abroad.
Four hours earlier they have intercepted
the boat of these clandestine immigrants
attempting to reach Lampedusa,
a tiny island between Sicily and Africa.
A world of frontiers – the place where
north and south meet. The island’s
6,000 inhabitants have witnessed the
arrival, between January and October
2008, of over 23,000 immigrants. They
are Nigerians, Egyptians, Eritreans, and
people from the Ivory Coast, Cameroon,
Ethiopia, Somalia, the Sudan. It is
impossible to be sure how many have
survived this horrific journey – but many
bodies have been found in the sea.
In the port, Fra’ Matthew Festing, Grand
Master of the Order of Malta, awaits the
arrival of this latest boat. He has come
to meet the immigrants, the civic
authorities and the armed forces, men
and women of the Order of Malta Italian
Emergency Corps. He greets them all,
complimenting them on this most
difficult work which they carry out with
such devotion. “These are the real
heroes,” says Vice Admiral Vincenzo
Melone, presenting his men. “I am
honoured to meet you”, replies the
Grand Master, who asks them to stand
easy while he thanks them for their
exceptional service.
Between April and October 2008, the
volunteer doctors, nurses and paramedics
of the Corps embarked on the
Coast Guard’s boats at Lampedusa,
giving medical assistance at sea to more
than 2,500 immigrants in desperate
condition.
Dozens of children, including the
newborn, have been assisted as well as
numerous pregnant women, in many
dramatic cases at serious risk of giving
birth on board. The most frequent
problems have been dehydration and
malnutrition, chemical burns,
sunstroke, injuries from falls and cuts
and grazes of varying seriousness,
as well as many cases of scabies.
The 25 new arrivals are exhausted,
suffering from exposure, hands and feet
saturated with the water, sump oil and
urine swilling around in the bottom of
the boat. Many cannot stand.
Two need to be put immediately into an
ambulance. But they are alive. They
have been lucky: a fishing boat spotted
them and called the Coast Guard.
Dr.Varisano, an Order of Malta
volunteer, attends them at once, putting
up a drip for one, stitching a deep gash
for another, while the boat rocks in a
Force Four gale.
After disembarking they are taken to the
First Aid Centre on the island, where
they are checked, fed, photographed,
their fingerprints taken. Outside, there
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SOVEREIGN MILITARY HOSPITALLER ORDER OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM OF RHODES AND OF MALTA