11-Year-Old Girl Survives Shipwreck and 3 Days at Sea by Creating a Makeshift Life Ring

Mar. 15, 2025

Compass Collective Dec. 6, 2024 Rescue Mission.Photo:Compass-Collective.org

Compass-Collective.org

One young girl survived a shipwreck off the Italian coast after being stranded at sea for three days, CompassCollective, a German charitable organization that performs sea rescue missions, said in a Dec. 11press release.

The 11-year-old girl was believed to be on a metal boat, which was caught in a storm that lasted several days in the central Mediterranean Sea. The ship departed from Sfax, Tunisia, and was destroyed off the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was caught in a storm with waves 11.5 feet high and sank, per theBBC. It is believed the remaining 45 passengers were all killed.

CompassCollective was already out on the water on itsTrotamar III vesselconducting a different rescue operation when they heard the young girl shouting from the water at 3:20 a.m.

“It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the child’s voice despite the engine running,” skipper Matthias Wiedenlübbert said in the press release.

Compass Collective Dec. 6, 2024 Rescue Mission.Compass-Collective.org

The child, originally from Sierra Leone, said she drifted in the water for three days with two improvised life rings made from air-filled inner tubes and a simple life jacket. She said she was in the water with two other passengers, but lost contact with them, per the BBC.

The team looked for other survivors, but it was difficult due to “the days-long storm with over 23 knots speed and 2.5 meter [8.2 feet] high waves," Wiedenlübbert said.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The young girl’s rescue is another example of migrants making dangerous journeys on boats to reach Europe, CompassCollective’s Katja Tempel said.

“Even in storms, people are forced to use risky escape routes across the Mediterranean. We need safe passages for refugees and an open Europe that welcomes people and gives them easy access to the asylum system. Drowning in the Mediterranean is not an option,” Tempel said.

“In this festive period, in which the majority of us are lucky to be with our loved ones, my thoughts go out to the girl from Sierra Leone,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, head of the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in Italy, Nicola Dell’Arciprete said, perBusiness Insider Africa. “Yet another tragedy that increases the number of dead and missing in the Central Mediterranean.”

“The persisting humanitarian crisis in the central Mediterranean is intolerable,”  International Organization for Migration (IOM)Director General António Vitorinosaid in 2023.

source: people.com