By: Iris Mostegel

STOCKHOLM—One day in 2010, the woman with the red fingernails received the first call. She was standing in her kitchen when her white cellphone rang. The display showed “00888” — the first five digits of an unknown number.

When the woman answered, she was assaulted by shrieks. Four hundred and twenty-five Eritreans were drifting in the Mediterranean. The ship was leaking; water was creeping up the walls.

One of the passengers had the telephone number of Meron Estefanos and entered the 13 digits into a satellite cellphone, the one that people smugglers give refugees for emergencies. Estefanos’ telephone began to ring.

It was a nightmare, she recalls. “This panic, the people screaming into the receiver: ‘We’re dying, our life is in your hands. Do something!’”

Today, the 40-year old woman with the red fingernails is sitting on a plastic chair in her kitchen, the same place she received the call five years ago.

“At that time I hardly knew how to handle the situation. First I called the Italian authorities. They told me: ‘Call Malta!’ I called up Malta. They told me: ‘Call Italy!’” Seven hours passed until the 425 people knew they would survive, she recounts. The Italian Coast Guard rescued them.

For Estefanos, it was the beginning of a long acquaintance with the ominous numerical sequence 00888, which indicates a call from a satellite mobile on the Mediterranean.

Since the incident in 2010, which was well-publicized in the Eritrean community, many of those who flee Eritrea make sure to carry with them one thing in particular: the 13-digit telephone number of Meron Estefanos.

Estefanos left Eritrea as a child, not as a refugee, but on a comfortable plane ride to Stockholm, where her father had found work. That was 28 years ago.

However, torture, repression and poverty in her homeland produce an endless stream of refugees. The shrill echo of it resounds daily through her mobile phone in faraway Stockholm.

This year alone, she says, she has already received more than 50 calls from boats in the Mediterranean. In so doing, she has likely saved the lives of more than 16,000 Eritreans — a fact Estefanos doesn’t mention in the conversation. She is not interested in such calculations, she says.

“Meron, is it you? Help us, we’re drifting on the sea, the ship’s engine broke down!”

“Go to the compass right away and pass on the co-ordinates.”

“I can’t read the compass!”

“Describe to me which numbers you see on it.”

Meron Estefanos presses the stop button. It is one of many recordings of calls from the Mediterranean stored on her white cellphone.

Read more: How one woman saved 16,000 refugees with her phone

Source: thestar.com