ABC: The Left To Die Boat

Zodiac boat believed to be the same as the boat the survivors were travelling on.
Photo taken by French aircraft on 27 March 2011 and sent to Rome Maritime Rescue Centre

An epic saga of life and death on the Mediterranean.  Producer Sharon Davis investigates how the combined military power of NATO failed to prevent more than 60 people dying on board a small boat as it drifted for 15 days through the most heavily monitored ocean on earth.

When Libyan soldiers forced 72 people at gunpoint onto a Zodiac inflatable boat in Tripoli in March last year, the asylum seekers thought that in 18 hours they would be free - and ready to begin a new life in Europe. Fifteen days later, the small boat washed up back on Libya's coast and only eleven people were still alive. Two more would die soon after. This is an account by the survivors, three of whom are now living in Tasmania, of their epic tale of life and death at sea... but there's also a very disturbing twist.

A NATO naval blockade of Libya had begun, meaning the Mediterranean was full of military ships and aircraft scouring the waters where the ill fated boat was drifting. Two military helicopters and a military vessel came in contact with the boat. So why weren’t the asylum seekers rescued and taken to safety? The case of the so called “Left To Die Boat” has become the focus of a deepening scandal in Europe involving NATO and some of the world's most powerful nations.

more http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/360/the-left-to-die-boat-2/4210254