“threw it into the water, desperate, fleeing a patrol libya. We could not leave them there, it was our duty to rescue them. I did not leave anyone to drown in front of me,” he explains to THE COUNTRY Easter Durá, patron of Our Mother Loreto, via satellite phone from the boat. It was eight in the evening of 22 November when the sailor, aged 29, was faced with the dramatic scene and called his boss, Joseph, who is also their father, and 12 years ago he faced the same situation on board another fishing vessel called the Francis and Catherine. Pascual and José decided that it was best not to move the fishing boat to rescue the shipwrecked “because the propeller could devour them”. Durá son went up to 12 migrants aboard, many of them as members of their crew. In 2006, they were 51. And in 2007 they made another rescue, with 26 more. Almost a hundred immigrants had the luck to stumble on the high seas with this family of Santa Pola (Alicante). All the times it would have been easier to look the other way, but all the times Durá decided to welcome them in the smallest territory: your boat.
The immigrants that Joseph, the father of Pascual, rescued in 2006, among them a pregnant woman and a girl of two years, told the crew that at least two boats had passed by in front of your boat to drift. Joseph still keeps the letters she wrote to the board. “Thanks to the Spanish that I have saved of the death. We have Spain in our blood forever,” says an eritrean in a convoluted English. “They have shown great humanity,” reads another note, in French. The Francis and Catherine had to wait a week to fish while five countries negotiated the division of the castaways. Our Mother Loreto waited for nine days until this Saturday, decided to head to Spain with the immigrants on board. The president of the Government, Pedro Sanchez, I’d just suggest that the surrender to Libya. “In cases like this, they should go to the nearest safe port and safe. I ask the pattern that respects the law,” he said in the press conference after the G-20 in Buenos Aires.
Pascual does not want to deliver Libya to the 12 immigrants that he picked up on the 22nd of November and the UN agency for Refugees, UNHCR, it is not recommended. “They are fleeing from these outrages. Took to the water fleeing precisely from the libyans. And in addition it would be dangerous for us because if the approach, and realize they can mount a mutiny,” says the pattern. “If you so sure, seems to them to Libya, who go there on vacation”, pointing to his father from Santa Pola. Betlike
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Fisherman of shrimp, savior of men “Would be happy to do it,” “I’m in the middle of the sea, I don’t know yet what will be my destiny”
Pascual is a member of the PP and was on the lists of the party for the town of alicante. From the boat, many miles away, have not heard of that immigration has been a protagonist in the debate of the campaign in andalusia. But it does not share the theory of the “pull effect” that the popular attributed to bailouts like that of the Aquarius. “The governments of any nation must take care of its own inhabitants, but also of human rights. Here or has looked at one thing, nor the other”, explains Pascual.
In Santa Pola, his father also shared the warnings of the right. “It is not that we should come every day loaded with boats. Will have to agree countries in a protocol, but, imagine that you have a car accident, are bleeding, passed a lot of cars ahead of you, watch them and follow. Putting yourself in the skin of these people.”
The pattern of Our Mother Loreto was grateful, however, calls the boat a number of politicians of different colors. “The vice-president of valencia, Monica Oltra, has offered the port and I appreciate it very much. He also called the mayor of Santa Pola, Yolanda Seva, of the PSOE, and Isabel Bonig, PP. But the Government, which are the ones that can fix this, no one. I thought that the PSOE was a party to most humanitarian law”, explained Friday night.
Pascual belongs to a long saga of sailors. His father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather and great-grandfather were. “I carry it in the blood”, he says, full of reason. Jose, 52 years old, still goes to sea, “in a while”. “Santa Pola is a fishing village, but is lost. I remember when there were more than 100 ships that went everywhere. Now we were four boats of pots”.
All that makes Pepi Do in a wife and mother of men of the sea, with the scares and absences that that entails. “Before, you used to work three months in a row and expend all 15 days of vacation,” recalls Joseph. “Now it will be organized a little better, three months at sea and 40 in the house,” he explains. “We have already lived through this more times, but this I am suffering more because then it was my husband and now my son,” adds Pepi. “Takes you from 17 years in the sea, he taught his father and is given very well, but tells me that does not want to take them to Libya and I will understand”.
Have problems to communicate with the castaways for the language, but Easter account that you know of their lives enough not to want to hand them over to Libya. “I was very impressed to a boy. As we climbed into the boat, raised his arms, celebrating that he had escaped, and fell slumped to the ground. Came traps”. The man was evacuated on Saturday in a helicopter with seizures.
“The castaways come from many countries, but have in common the desire to live. Like us. In my crew I have senegalese, to indonesians and to people of the village. We are people, nor white, nor black,” explains Joseph, who laments that all of this “invite others to look the other way when you see a boat”.
Are dedicated to finding prawns, but to take them, you should also know of people. Spend three months away from home, in a very small surface area, and the selection of the crew is a fake demanding that takes years. The majority takes as many with this family, Antonio Baeza, the mechanic, who lived in the rescue of 2006 in the Francis and Catherine and now in Our Mother Loreto. “You have to take care of them and earn their respect. In that, my father has been a great example,” explains Pascual.
— did you come back to do?
— Well, of course.
