Boat-people

The Bayeux-Calvados Award of War Correspondents is displayed at 61
Presentation & Opening Wednesday, May 31st at 7 pm
Normandy pays tribute to freedom and democracy

Édouard Elias “The Boat-People of the Big Blue”
Exhibition from 31st May to 17th June 2017
Free admission every day from 4 pm to 2 am

Since February 25th, a private ship ply the waters off Libya: the Aquarius, a civilian rescue boat. He carries on his flank large black letters, visible from afar on the water: SOS Méditerranée. It is the name of the NGO that charters it. A young European NGO created in May 2015 by a German merchant naval captain. One goal: to save lives. One principle: independence from any government and the European Union. The refugees helped by the Aquarius are Boat-People. Whether they have left their country, south of the Sahara, to flee war or misery, they seek only one thing by embarking on these inflatable canoes made in China good enough to draw rings in a swimming pool: to save their life. To have black skin in Libya equals living in hell: life on a wire, kidnappings, racketeering, imprisonment in inhuman conditions, rapes, hunger, fear, shootings. Rescuing the Boat-People, listening to them, photographing them, giving an account of their ordeal, showing them ways to have their voices heard beyond the walls that Europe is building. ”