The Left to Die Boat by Sharon Davis and Geoffrey Parish

JUDGES' COMMENTS

It is February 2011. NATO forces have begun cruise missile strikes on Colonel Gaddafi’s strongholds in Libya. On the ground, rebels have turned on black African workers, accusing them of siding with the Gaddafi forces. They have begun hunting them down and lynching them. Thousands of Africans flee for their lives. This is the story of one boatload of African refugees, men, women and children, who are abandoned and left to die at sea because they are refugees and because they are black.

The Left to Die Boat is a superbly structured piece of writing. Sharon Davis and Geoff Parish have laid out the story in a simple, austere fashion, using the survivors' own words. The story unfolds in such a way as to engage us fully in the horror. We seem to be with these people in their little boat in the choppy seas. We hope with them when the first helicopter arrives. Later, with half the occupants dead, the boat floats close to a huge military vessel with helicopters on board. Men watch from above as the refugees cry for help, and show the bodies of their dead families and friends. The boat sails off. We share their incomprehension. The awful question looms, barely spoken, like the might of the military vessels: would this have happened if these people had been white? Eight of the 68 people survive. It is their voices we hear. This is a shocking, unadorned account of inhumanity. It chills to the bone.