THE sole survivor of a group of migrants who attempted to reach Europe on a dinghy across the Mediterranean from Libya says passing ships ignored their cries for help.

Mohammed Adam Oga was one of 15 migrants — including a pregnant woman — who paid traffickers $700 (£575) to board the small boat near Zawia on August 1. 

Eleven days later, Malta’s Armed Forces spotted the dinghy in waters near the island nation with Mr Oga slumped over the body of his Somalian friend Ismail.

Speaking to the Times of Malta today from his bed at the Mater Dei hospital where he is receiving treatment for severe dehydration, Mr Oga said: “We had no food. No water. No fuel.”

The 38-year-old Mr Oga told the paper he would be arrested if he returned home to Ethiopia due to his former membership of the Oromo Liberation Front, which the government views as a terrorist organisation. 

Mr Oga had spent the past 15 years in Eritrea and Sudan but decided to flee to Europe during the military crackdown of the Sudanese uprising. 

“We stayed 11 days in the sea,” Mr Oga said. 

“We started drinking the sea water. After five days two people died. Then every day two people died.

“We saw many boats. We shouted: ‘Help, help!’ We were waving and they were just passing. A helicopter came and left.”

The collection of NGO migrant-rescue ships carrying out search and rescue operations in the central Mediterranean since the EU stopped its own patrols in March reacted to Mr Oga’s ordeal with a mixture of sadness and anger. 

“Europe’s criminalisation and crackdown on non-state rescue is emboldening vessels in their non-assistance,” Haidi Sadik, spokeswoman for the German NGO Sea Watch, told the Star today. 

“EU policies of externalisation are also making it far easier for vessels to be complicit in Europe’s refoulement of people rescued at sea, with absolute impunity. 

“If Adam had not been rescued by Malta’s armed forces but by another vessel, or if his dinghy had been found further south, chances are he would have been pushed back to Libya. 

“The fact that Adam ended up alive in Europe was lucky, even though technically it should be the bare minimum under European coastal states’ legal obligations towards him and his comrades, who sadly have paid the price of Europe’s withdrawal from the Mediterranean.”

The same concerns were echoed by Carlotta Weibl, spokeswoman for Sea Eye, a migrant rescue charity also from Germany. 

“Commercial ships don't want to rescue because they risk a stand-off of several days or even weeks and it can cost them millions,” Ms Weibl told the Star. 

“And then of course there is the risk of legal persecution.

“Once they have the rescuees on board, it is very uncertain when they will be able to hand them over and continue their work.”

Migrant Offshore Aid Station (Moas) director Regina Catrambone said: “We cannot know if any of the commercial or private ships sailing in the surrounding waters were able to see the small dinghy on which Mohamed Adam Oga was travelling, or whether it showed up on their vessel radars.

“If anyone had been aware of the distress of Mohamed and the others on board, and they did nothing to intervene, then the consequences are on their conscience. In addition to this, ignoring another vessel in need is also a breach of the law of the sea, which mandates vessels to intervene in such cases.

“However, it is undeniable that recent migration policies can only act as a disincentive to the willingness to give help, as they criminalise rescue at sea and create many challenges for the rescuers in the aftermath of the intervention.

“The best solution to prevent tragic and inhuman events like this is to protect the SAR space while focusing on the creation of safe and legal routes and humanitarian flights directly from Libya to areas of safety."

Meanwhile the Open Arms ship, operated by the Spanish NGO of the same name, is still waiting to be assigned a port to disembark over 100 shipwrecked migrants and put an end to their two-week ordeal.

“The situation worsens every minute,” wrote the charity’s founder Oscar Camps on Twitter today. 

“We are witnessing the deterioration of the physical and mental health of the people on board and, given the extreme situation, we urgently request a humanitarian landing in the port of Lampedusa.”

Six European governments have said they are willing to take in the migrants on board the ship. However, Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is continuing to block the Open Arms from coming ashore.