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Mediterranean Sea – In the pitch-black hours of early Thursday morning, the Humanity 1 rescue ship approached a sky-blue wooden boat in distress in the central Mediterranean Sea.
On board were at least 126 people who were suffering from hypothermia, dehydration and exhaustion from clinging to the boat for hours as it struggled to stay upright amid waves as high as 2 metres (6 feet).
Cries for help in Arabic echoed off the waves in the hours before sunrise.
“‘We were ready for death, we were dying,’” a 30-year-old Syrian survivor told Al Jazeera as he clung to the orange rescue…
