Yasmine’s strength and all those forgotten dead. How much longer will we watch?

Yasmine in Arabic means jasmine. The first thing that comes to mind when rereading the history of little girl, aged 11, who was saved for the strength and determination with which she clung to life, in the middle of the stormy Mediterranean, is that Yasmine already had that power in her name. The jasmine that doesn’t break in the wind, that resists the hot summer sun and that when it seems to be asleep, is about to bloom again.

Yasmine was born in Sierra Leone and left from there together with her brother. He was also on the boat where Yasmine she got on in Sfax, Tunisiaheading to Europe, together with 44 other people. No one survived, only Yasmine. She remained in the midst of three meter high waves, clinging to two inner tubes and a life jacket.

How is this possible, the investigators ask themselves today. What we know is that Yasmine screamed so loudly that her voice reached the crew of the German NGO Compass Collectivethe Trotamar III. They saved her, wrapped her in a thermal blanket and took her to Lampedusa. As happens every time an NGO rescues migrants in the middle of the sea, despite this action being increasingly opposed and criminalized by current politics.

Here you are if that NGO had not been at sea this little girl would also have died and we would not have known. Yasmine’s story presents us with many questions: how much longer will we stand by and watch? Men, women and children die every day in the Mediterranean but we do not see them. Not seeing them, however, forces us to remember that they exist. And they are victims. We almost never know their names, we never know their stories. Every day many Yasmines do not survive the sea. They can no longer open their eyes as wide as she did in front of the rescuers.