The “Left-To-Die Boat”

<p>In March 2011, 72 passengers left the Libyan coast heading in the direction of Italy on board a small rubber boat at the time of NATO’s military intervention in Libya. Despite several distress signals relaying their location, as well as repeated interactions with at least one military helicopter and a military ship, they were left to drift for 14 days. As a result of the inaction of all state actors involved, only nine of the passengers survived. By combining their testimonies with wind and sea-current data as well as satellite imagery, Forensic Oceanography reconstructed the liquid traces of this event, producing a report that served as the basis of several legal complaints.</p> <p>In our interview with Dan Haile Gebre, one of the survivors, we tried to depart from formats of witnessing normally associated with humanitarian organizations.</p> <p>Rather than placing the emphasis on the subjective dimension of his experience, we used various memory aids—such as photographs of naval and aerial assets that were present in the area at the time of the events—to assist him in remembering details that could support the reconstruction of the event, and the identification of the various vessels and aircraft encountered by the vessel while at sea.</p>