They laugh, sing, and light a smoke bomb in celebration. Eleven migrants from Algeria were intercepted as they were about to reach the coast of southern Sardinia. After about twenty-four hours at sea, their boat broke down a few miles from the island.
It happened a few days ago. Mirko Serra, a sport fishing guide, encountered them while aboard his dinghy: "We found a boat with eleven Algerian migrants in distress, two miles off the southwest coast of Sardinia."
This isn't the first time, on the contrary. As a seafarer, he's used to it: "Over the years, I've encountered at least twenty of these small boats with people fleeing their homeland for one reason or another. The procedure is always the same: a phone call to the Guardia di Finanza, which usually arrives promptly ."
A video filmed by Serra himself shows a brief exchange with the migrants. They say they're between twenty and twenty-five years old, say it took them a day to arrive, and show off the scarves of the USM Annaba , a football team from the Algerian port city of the same name, from where so many people have set sail over the years in search of fortune. "I don't judge these kids," Serra comments. " If I'd been born there, I'd probably be the first to get on a boat to make a life for myself . So while we wait for the police, we exchange a few words and celebrate them for five minutes."