Domingo Trujillo has been saving lives on the Canary Islands route for 23 years. Sitting on the bridge of the sea guard Taliathe captain of this ship recognizes that, even as time passes, he never leaves the Atlantic peacefully. Every time you receive an alert, your body gets tense. “For me every time is like the first. I’m not confident because each boat is different. You don’t know if they have water, if there are dead people…” he confesses. On January 6, he experienced a “satisfactory” rescue twice. He and the seven companions who are part of the crew not only managed to transport 64 people alive to the Lanzarote dock. They also saved a baby who was born on the journey and her mother.
When they left the port of Arrecife they already knew that there was a heavily pregnant woman on the boat. During the five hours of navigation to the zodiac, the crew of the Talia I imagined all the possible scenarios, including that the mother could give birth on the sea wall. “We got there, we looked out to explain how we were going to proceed, and we saw that little thing. The baby was naked, so I’m sure he was born when we arrived,” he says. It was the third time that Domingo Trujillo found a newborn in a boat. On another occasion, he even had to cut the umbilical cord himself.
“There are very gratifying moments, but they are at the end, when you have everyone on board and you are breathing. You see that the wave has already passed, that the risk of being lost is no longer there,” he says. Trujillo started working in Maritime Rescue in 2002. That same year he settled in Fuerteventura, his native island, the fixed base of Gran Tarajal. Eight years after two Sahrawis opened the route, the increase in people crossing the ocean in precarious boats to reach Europe through the islands led the organization to create this position. At that time, arrivals to Gran Canaria and Tenerife were few, and immigration was still perceived as something exceptional about Fuerteventura.
More than two decades later, the captain still sees the same thing: “Pure business.” One of the changes that he has noticed is in the type of boats used, especially on the route that connects Morocco and the Sahara with Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. “Immigration began with well-made patera-type boats. Fishing boats were used. Later, they began to build boats for immigration,” he says. The quality worsened and the consequences can be seen every day on the Canary coasts. “The boats are cracking and accidents at sea are increasing,” he says.
“That is happening today with pneumatics. We are increasingly seeing more and more inflatables made for migration. It is pure marketing of people,” he asserts. “They put an engine, a couple of gasoline bottles and a telephone so they can call. You realize that they don’t consider them human,” he says.
When you go out to sea you go out to rescue, to be successful, because we all want to do our job well.
Domingo Trujillo and his companions encounter the fragility of these boats in each rescue. Even more so at night. “With the lack of light everything is complicated. If you add to that the waves, the wind and the nervousness of the immigrants, who with the weather conditions do not know if the operation will go well… If there is no control and an organized way to get them out, the risk of capsizing increases,” he says. .
A Russian roulette
When the night and the sea are not on your side, helping a boat “is Russian roulette.” In the five or six minutes that a rescue lasts in these conditions, “what it comes down to is getting them out.” “Sometimes, even if we do everything we can as rescue professionals and as people, it is not enough, because it does not depend on us,” he adds. The captain of the seakeeper Talia can’t help but break. “I will never forget the ones I lost in the band,” he says.
Trujillo remembers a 2006 rescue in which several migrants sank to the bottom of the sea before being able to board the Rescue ship. He also shares a recent episode in El Hierro. It was in December, when they rescued 197 people from a canoe 80 miles from La Restinga. With the survivors already on board they realized that not all of them were there. “There was a body at the bottom of the canoe,” he explains. On this occasion, they were able to recover the body.
Rescues in El Hierro are also complicated by the volume of people traveling in the canoes. “This year we rescued 240 people from a single canoe,” he remembers. The large colorful boats that usually leave Senegal are more stable than the Mauritanian fiber barges. “They are smaller and very unstable,” he explains.
When the survivors approach El Hierro, they may have been traveling for weeks. Upon reaching them, Maritime Rescue must make the decision to accompany the canoe to the dock or carry out the rescue on the high seas. “We must avoid risk. If the canoe is within a reasonable distance, it is preferable to accompany it. If we do the rescue, there is a risk of capsizing,” he points out.
For him, the work that freighters do in transit is fundamental. Trujillo points his finger at a screen where all the ships sailing between Lanzarote and the African coast can be seen. “When they see a boat they call and are able to wait until we arrive. It is very important,” he insists. “Days before, a merchant stopped and spent two hours there. Then, he positioned the boat so that we could practically do the rescue in a pool,” he exemplifies.
We got there, we looked out to explain how we were going to proceed, and we saw that little thing. The baby was naked, so I’m sure he was born when we arrived.
He also remembers that although he is the captain of the ship, there are eight people who make it work. In addition to Domingo, a chief engineer, two officers, three sailors and a cook live in the Talia. ”We sleep on board, we eat on board, and we move around the ship. When we receive an alert, it can’t be more than 20 minutes until we leave,” he explains. Although they have guard and navigation shifts, when there is an emergency the entire team participates.
In response to the voices that criminalize Salvamento Marítimo for rescuing migrants on the deadliest route in the world, Trujillo responds: “When you go out to sea you go out to rescue, to be successful, because we all want to do our job well.”
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