The 16-year old boy from Eritrea was the first to step off the Ocean Viking vessel onto Italian soil - at precisely 11:31 on Friday (9 July), in the port of Augusta, Sicily.
He had earlier in the week told EUobserver that he spent four years in Libya, including over two months in a detention centre in Zuwarah, a known smuggling hub.
At enormous risk, his father had collected $2,000 to set him free and onto a boat towards Europe, he said.
As he stepped onto the gangway from t...
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Nikolaj Nielsen, an EUobserver journalist, is embedded on the Ocean Viking for the coming weeks, reporting exclusively from the boat on the Mediterranean migration route.