Web Clip - Shaun testimony from Aquarius - INT

Interview with MSF Logistician Shaun Cornelius (most recently Logistician on Ocean Viking) about his previous experience on Aquarius managing the deceased on board the ship.

MSF284002

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Web Clip - Shaun testimony from Aquarius - ENG

Subt. English

Ocean Viking - Search and Rescue Activities New Ship - Videos

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Unique Identifier Code / URN MSF284002

Date taken / Date Recorded 29/07/2019 12:00 AM

Country Mediterranean Sea

Commissioning section MSF-NETHERLANDS

Photographer / videographer / producer Hannah Wallace Bowman

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available yes

Editor's rating ★★★★ (E)

Video format h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 3m24s

Maximum Size 1920px × 1080px 435.03 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist Transcript

WEBCLIP: Interview with MSF Logistician Shaun Cornelius (most recently Logistician on Ocean Viking) about his previous experience on Aquarius managing the deceased on board the ship.

00:00-00-07: Text slide on black background:
MSF Logistician Shaun shares his experience working with the deceased on board Aquarius.

00:08-00:18
“The objective of what we do is to try and maximise the chance of identifying anyone who dies.”

00:19-00:32
“Because this is very important to try and get some communication back to the family if possible so they know what happened to their sons and daughters or whoever and that they don’t just disappear.”

00:33-00:41
“For that same reason we always recover bodies, we never leave bodies floating in the sea. We always do everything that we can to recover bodies from any shipwreck situation.”

00:42-00:57
“We measure them to get the height, we try to assess their weight and try to assess their age and look for any identifying marks on their bodies.”

00:58-01:04
“We have to roll them to one side to another carefully and move them around a little bit to do that.“

01:05-01:21
“We would take some photographs of their faces and then we carefully move them into body bags and seal them up and then we carry them to a location on the ship which we have prepared for storage of the bodies.”

01:24-01:38
“It felt almost like a kind of a privilege to be entrusted kind of caring for these people right in the end of their lives.”

01:40-01:59
“And the one thing that really stands out for me was before we went there to start this, the medic that I was working with she has been through this before, she was pretty experienced with this situation.”

02:00-02:25
“She said to me if you’re finding this difficult the thing to do is just to speak to them, just say something to them, as if they were still with us, because that is what they want you to do it they were still there. You’re just treating them with some respect and dignity.”

02:26:02:39
“So that’s what I did. I just said, to myself I just had a little dialogue going on with each one of those people as we handled them, or dealt with them.”

02:40-02:43
“It really brought things home.”

02:44-03:01
“These were three young people, they were all around 18-25 [years old]. They looked pretty fit and healthy, and they have gone on this journey and they didn’t make it. They were gone.”

03:06-03:10
Text slide on black background:
"Since 2014 an estimated 15,702 have died while attempting to cross the Central Mediterranean Sea."
“These are just the ones we know about.”