In a café in Paris, we meet Fofana. This young Ivorian came to France nine years ago. He occasionally checks on his relatives: “I call back home when I feel like talking to someone. To unwind a bit, to have a laugh.”
Fofana is a survivor of the treacherous migration journey to Europe. In 2017, he was rescued from the waters by the SOS Mediterranee ship. His boat had departed from Libya.
He recounts: “You’re so eager to leave down there. Any solution that presents itself, you will seek it. Without realizing, at that moment of risk you’re taking. But when you think about the difficult desert crossing, you dare not even think about turning back. I get seasick. So, the whole journey, I vomited. I vomited, I vomited until I fell asleep. After a few hours – I don’t even remember the hours, I can’t estimate either – the passengers’ cries woke me up. ‘There’s the big boat, it’s here! So I had a feeling of ‘whew, it’s over’! Truly, the ‘thank you’ can never end!”
Rescued by SOS Mediterranee, Fofana witnesses two other interventions: “The image that struck me a lot is seeing a corpse being brought up. They asked if anyone knew him. Unfortunately, no one did.”
Since 2014, over 34,000 people have disappeared in the Mediterranean, as reported by the International Organization for Migration. These figures are certainly underestimated, and they are added to the deaths in the Sahara.
Francois Thomas asked himself these questions in 2018. He then joined SOS Mediterranee and became its president in 2019: “The association was congratulated, celebrated at the beginning. It received awards. And then, bit by bit, with the rise of populism in Europe, particularly in Italy first, the obstacles only increased. There were very stringent inspections in Italian ports, with detentions of the ship, with fines. There were new decrees that prevent us from continuing rescues and that send us, to disembark the rescued people, to very distant ports. There are multiple very inconsistent political statements on migration. Last year, for example, SOS Mediterranee represented only 2% of landings in Italy. And above all, sea rescue is a legal obligation. It’s our common humanity!”
How does such a daily catastrophe often go under the radar? Why such rejection of migrant people?
Passing through Paris in February, Francois Thomas attends a monthly meeting of volunteers. The opportunity to review actions and donations. Maxime, head of volunteers in Paris, explains that “A day at sea costs 24,000 euros, it’s very high costs.” He mentions that the NGO is funded 91% by donations. But its members remain cautious, sometimes targeted by “identity groups,” as in 2018.
But this doesn’t stop the volunteers, who regularly hold stands to raise awareness and collect donations. We meet Laure, who already donates to the association: “It gives me a bit of solace when I see how these people die in general indifference, how we don’t talk about it, how they are just numbers.”
However heavy the numbers may be. Since the beginning of 2026, over 750 people have died. The worst toll since 2014.
