Journalist Sally Hayden documents the poignant stories of migrants crossing the Central Mediterranean Route, the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world
Review by Bryony Cottam
One Sunday in the summer of 2018, journalist Sally Hayden received a Facebook message: ‘Hi sister Sally, we need your help.’ It was the first of thousands of messages that would be sent to her by refugees seeking sanctuary on the world’s deadliest migration route.
The Central Mediterranean Route, the stretch of sea between North Africa and Italy, is the path most used by refugees and other migrants trying to reach Europe. In 2021 alone, the EU border and coastguard agency Frontex reported more than 65,000 border crossings on this route, an 89 per cent increase from 2020. That year, more than 1,500 people lost their lives attempting the crossing. Between 2014 and 2019, more than 16,000 drowned. As the number of crossings grows, so do interceptions by the Libyan coastguard, which forces migrants into detention centres, where they’re subjected to violence, slavery and extortion. In My Fourth Time, We Drowned, Hayden documents the stories of these people, many of whom are being held indefinitely in the camps.
That first Facebook message leads Hayden across three continents as she investigates a humanitarian crisis of staggering proportions. She meets with refugees, attends the trial of people traffickers in Addis Ababa and reports from the Alan Kurdi rescue ship as it patrols the waters off the Libyan coast. Her extensive research reveals the inefficiency of several aid organisations and, most shockingly, the culpability of the EU.
Interspersed throughout are the unfiltered words of the refugees. She highlights the influence of technology, both as a lifeline – the SIM card shared among hundreds in a camp – and a way for smugglers to extract more money from migrants’ families, who crowdfund their ransom on Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter. These details will be unfamiliar to many of us, but they aren’t hidden from sight. ‘Citizens in the West can look away, despite windows everywhere,’ Hayden writes.
My Fourth Time, We Drowned casts light on a dark world that would be only too visible if we cared to look. These are stories that should be heard by everyone.
