Book Review: Sally Hayden tells forgotten tales of refugees at sea

Sally Hayden's book on those travelling the world's deadliest migration route is both heartrending and compelling, writes Noel Baker

Refugees and migrants after leaving Libya, trying to reach Europe aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, north of Libyan coast, in 2018. In total 105 refugees and migrants from Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Marrocos, Gana, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya, Eritrea and Senegal were rescued in the overcrowded rubber boat. Picture: Felipe Dana/AP

"People are bleeding a lot; now, I need emergency assistance. Please share for us to the world. Please, please, please, dear, we are in danger..."

It's hard to imagine how many of us would react to receiving a bulletin like this on Facebook Messenger, sent by a stricken asylum seeker enduring unimaginable treatment, and worse, in a Libyan detention centre, but for Sally Hayden, these messages were all-too-real and all-too-frequent. As Europe is plunged into another refugee crisis due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, her book, My Fourth Time We Drowned, is a timely reminder of an earlier but enduring calamity along the Mediterranean coast, and the extent to which the EU and others botched the job.