A Reporter’s Path to Uncovering Human Trafficking

Last September, I boarded a rescue boat run by the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières. My intention was to write about the two deadliest stretches of the mass-migration route from Africa into Europe—the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea. We left Malta at dawn, and, after several days of searching for boats in distress near the coast of Libya, the crew rescued three hundred and fifty-five migrants out of disposable inflatable dinghies. The boats had left from beaches near Tripoli with only enough fuel to reach international waters; without N.G.O.s carrying out search-and-rescue operations in the area, many of the migrants would have drowned.

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