Rescue group saves 11-year-old girl floating alone in the Mediterranean for days after shipwreck

The girl was saved by a German-flagged sailboat named Trotamar III, which brought her to Lampedusa on Wednesday morning, according to the German charity Compass Collective that has been operating in the Mediterranean Sea since August 2023.

She had neither food nor water with her, and was suffering from hypothermia.

“It was an incredible coincidence that we heard the voice of a girl even though the motors were running,’’ the sailboat’s captain, Matthias Weidenluebbert, said in a press statement.

The crew immediately cut the engines and searched for the source of the voice, Compass Collective's KatjaTempel, told The Associated Press.

“She was exhausted and tired and cold, but in general, she was fine when we fetched her out of the water,'' Tempel said of the child.

According to the girl’s account, she had floated in the sea for three days using innertubes inflated with air and a lifejacket. She told rescuers that she had set out in a metal boat with about 45 others, and that she had been in contact with two other people until two days before the rescue, when the contact was broken.

“We don’t know what happened to the people,'' Tempel said. ”We assume that they all drowned, but we don’t know what.”