We are 14 hours from the rescue zone off the Libyan coast, where we understand that some 8,000 refugees have been plucked from their little boats in the last 2 days. How appalling is that. It is said that this huge increase corresponds with the end of Ramadan – refugees now being able to eat at sea during the day.
It is a lovely calm evening and everyone is trying to sleep. The crew tell me there won’t be much of that after tomorrow morning. I hear that one of my colleagues this week had to deal with an outbreak of varicella and a pre-eclamptic woman and a term delivery, the latter two of whom required lelicopter evacuation. So it goes!.