
Huddled in their hundreds on the lower deck of a warship, these are the desperate migrants who claimed the Royal Navy had 'saved their lives' after being rescued off the North African coast.

Children as young as two and heavily-pregnant women were among the 1,200 migrants rescued by HMS Bulwark at various points along the Libyan coast yesterday.

They were plucked from nine vessels – six of them rubber dinghies – set adrift off the coast as ministers fear half a million more people are waiting to make the trip, all hoping to be rescued by the military.

As those rescued clambered aboard HMS Bulwark in the Mediterranean, many took the opportunity to disclose the harrowing journey they had faced since fleeing the country.

One of those rescued said: ‘It was no problem.’ Others said they felt like they had been in hell.

Yasin, 29, from Islamabad, Pakistan, summed up many of the migrants' feelings. She said: ‘The Royal Navy has saved my life. I want to live in Europe because I feel safe here.

'Libya is very dangerous. I have lost my money I have lost my government. I don’t know what Italy can do for me so I need to see if I will stay there.’

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All aboard: Rescued migrants safely onboard HMS Bulwark in the Mediterranean during the biggest operation of its kind by the Royal Navy

Heaving: More than 700 rescued migrants are onboard the Navy's HMS Bulwark with the figure expected to top 1,000 by the end of yesterday

Safety first: Migrants are watched by Marines who wear masks to stop diseases from spreading on board the Royal Navy's HMS Bulwark

Struggling: A rescued migrant is helped aboard the HMS Bulwark in the biggest rescue operation to date by the Royal Navy

Team work: Royal Marines rescue the migrants who were discovered stranded on nine separate boats, 30 miles off the Libyan coast yesterday

Charles Maynard, the ship’s deputy commander, told crew their efforts recalled the D-Day landings.

‘The 6th of June was known as the longest day, but the 7th of June was the longest day for Bulwark,’ he said.

Migrants clambered up the metal ramp on to the 19,000-ton ship bare-footed or using flip-flops to protect their hands.

On board, they showed their relief after being greeted by Royal Marine Commandos wearing suits and face masks to shield them from disease. Such was the chaos that one woman had to be stretchered on to the ship while in labour. Others vomited on arrival.

Many were penniless, others had 50 euro notes hidden in their underwear. Exhausted and dehydrated, hundreds spilled on to the top deck and fell fast asleep as the sun set.

Yesterday’s Mediterranean mission was the biggest Bulwark has undertaken. Marines and sailors had to be diverted from other duties to cope with the unprecedented number of people boarding the ship.

It is thought that human traffickers launched the boats from the North African coastline knowing that naval ships would intervene and give the migrants safe passage to the European Union.

Their flimsy boats – described as ‘lilos with sides’ – were spotted by radar and two Merlin helicopters. They also had a huge wooden craft.

Not all the refugees came from failed African states. Some are Pakistani, proving that the trip across the Med is an established route for economic migrants.

Safe now: A migrant woman is pointed in the right direction by navy officials on the HMS Bulwark following the rescue mission this morning

Awaiting rescue: Migrants sit on board one of the wooden boats waiting to be rescued by crews sent from HMS Bulwark

Dangerously overcrowded: Royal Marines go to rescue migrants stranded on a boat, 30 miles off the Libyan coast on Sunday

The woman who was in labour was rescued along with around 100 others just 20 miles off Libya.

Favor Richards, 29, from Nigeria, held her husband’s hand as she was stretchered to a medical unit.

She was flown to Malta because of complications. Hundreds of Syrians, Africans and Pakistanis were piled into the lower deck area after the mass rescue operation began at 5.50am. At the end of the day, 1,200 had been rescued from nine overcrowded boats.

Asha Kulubari, 26, had travelled from Bamako, Mali, with her husband, and two-year-old daughter Fatima. She said: ‘I’m so happy to be saved. I’m so happy these men saved us. I have my baby and nothing else.’

Nick Cooke-Priest, Bulwark’s captain, said many more migrants were waiting for a ticket to Europe.

He added: ‘There is no indication of a let-up. The indications are that there are 450,000-500,000 waiting on the border of Libya or being mustered or being moved to the borders. This is not going to stop in the near future.

‘It has been extraordinary. You’ve got two tales here. The sorrowful tale of these people coming out of Libya and telling dreadful stories of what they are leaving behind.

‘And on the other side is the success, we are managing to save very significant numbers. The flipside of that is we don’t know how many we are losing.’

Already this year, over 76,000 migrants have made the 260-mile crossing to Europe – 40,000 of them are now in Italy. Over the weekend at least 4,000 people were rescued by 11 different European vessels.

Unwell: A Royal Marine tends to one woman who was brought aboard HMS Bulwark suffering after spending hours on a migrant boat

Checks: Crew on the HMS Bulwark carry out checks on some of the 1,000 migrants rescued yesterday morning off the coast of Libya

Searched: Royal Navy officials carry out checks on the migrants after they boarded HMS Bulwark on Sunday

Helped: A rescued migrant is received onboard HMS Bulwark in the biggest rescue operation to date by the Royal Navy

Relief: Rescued migrants gather onboard HMS Bulwark and patiently queue as they await assistance

Helping hand: One of the more than 700 migrants already on board the navy ship is helped by crew and a friend

Helped down: Royal Marines help a rescued woman onto the ship with a small carrier bag of possessions

Saving lives: A Royal Marine vessel reaches hundreds of migrants trapped on a wooden boat in the Mediterranean, 30 miles off Libya

Many said smuggling gangs had taken away all their possessions. One woman, who was four months pregnant, said she had made the ‘terrifying’ journey with her husband, Ibrahim, 35, to escape terrorism. Rose, 21 and from Nigeria, said she wanted to go to ‘Germany, Britain, any place – any place which will give me and my husband the papers’.

Rose, who paid more than £800 to traffickers, added: ‘We left our three-year-old daughter back home with my mother-in-law to look after her – we didn’t have the money to bring her. It was truly terrifying. I was very sick on that wooden boat and was vomiting all the time. Back home there was much danger so that is why we made this journey.

‘I was very scared for my baby but now these people have saved us and I feel very safe and very happy. We want our daughter to come too.’

Another migrant asked: ‘How long will it take to get to London?’

A Pakistani man in his 40s told Royal Marines searching him that he had been stabbed and shot in Libya after fleeing his home country.

Iftiek, married with three children still in Pakistan, went to Libya to work. He said: ‘I was threatened and beaten many times in Libya.

On a mission: Royal Marines from HMS Bulwark help rescue migrants stranded on a boat that can be seen here in the background

Life-savers: Migrants stranded on a boat, 30 miles off the Libyan coast, catch life jackets by British armed forces

Man overboard: One person is pulled back onto the wooden boat after falling overboard into the Mediterranean

Crammed in: The migrants were packed onto this wooden boat before being picked up by crew on HMS Bulwark

Royal Marines from HMS Bulwark help rescue migrants stranded on a blue boat off the coast of Libya where thousands more are said to be waiting

Delighted: Migrants celebrate when they know they are being rescued by British crews deployed on HMS Bulwark

Pensive: One man looks pensive as he waits to be rescued from one of four dangerously overcrowded boats on the Mediterranean yesterday

Cause to celebrate: The refugees are happy as the Royal Navy took part in its biggest migrant rescue operation in the Mediterranean to date

Relief: A man buries his head in a book as he sits in cramped conditions on a boat before being rescued by Royal Marines

Handshake: A man is welcomed on board after being rescued by crews on the HMS Bulwark during its biggest operation to date

Nearing rescue: A woman clutches her stomach as the Royal Marines come to her rescue in Sunday's massive operation

Perilous: Royal Marines help people cross from the overcrowded boat to their vessel before heading back to the HMS Bulwark

Ready and waiting: A couple of Royal Marines look on ready to play their part when the migrants reach the HMS Bulwark

A Royal Marine prepares to receive rescued migrants safely onboard an HMS Bulwark Landing Craft in the Mediterranean

Rescued: HMS Bulwark took part in its biggest rescue operation yet, plucking 700 migrants from dangerous boats off the coast of Libya

The lucky ones: These migrants were rescued this morning by HMS Bulwark with little more than the clothes they stand in. They will be taken to Italy where the Maritime Rescue Centre will decide where they should go

Rescues in Sicily: Migrants sit on a boat during a rescue operation off the coast of Sicily in this video grab released by the Italian Coast Guards

Desperate: Migrants are rescued off the coast of Sicily by the Italian coastguard yesterday as officials revealed 3,500 were plucked from the Mediterranean in just one day

‘There are robbers everywhere, I have never seen bad people like that. It is like being in hell but at the moment I am with the best people in the world.

‘On board the boat I was very frightened, it was especially bad for the women. They treated us like sheep, like goats. I brought my own water but when I got on the boat they took it off me.

‘They took my bag and my clothes, I just had some money in my jacket. It was very bad, people were suffocating and there was crying, and one or two fainted.’

Abdel Ahmad said: ‘I want to go to Europe because it is good for me.’ Sailors recorded the migrants’ names and ages and asked them to point on a map where they had come from.

Once they are picked up, the UK hands them over to the Italians and from there they can register as asylum seekers. The UK Government has so far rejected suggestions that each country should share the burden and take in a quota of migrants.

HMS Bulwark, which has rescued around 5,000 since being deployed in late April, will dock in Catania, Sicily, later today.

A child waves as migrants wait to disembark from the German Navy ship Hessen at the Palermo harbor, Italy, one of 350,000 rescued from the Mediterranean yesterday

A handful of the thousands of migrants picked up yesterday, disembark from the German Navy ship Hessen at the Palermo harbor, Italy

Thumbs up: The refugees wait to get off the German Navy ship having landed in Italy

Exhausted: A woman carries a sleeping baby as she disembarks from the German vessel onto the shores of Italy

Waiting: Migrants wait onboard a German Navy ship before getting off and hoping to live in Italy

Using the facilities: One woman washes her hair while on the German Navy ship which arrived at an Italian port on Sunday

Rejoicing: A migrant opens his arms and looks to the skies as he waits to disembark from the German Navy ship Hessen at the Palermo harbor in Italy

Saved: Rescued migrants sitting on deck of the German Navy frigate Hessen at an unspecified location in the Mediterranean Sea yesterday

Reaching out: Migrants are brought abroad the Hessen. About 2,500 migrants were plucked from Mediterranean waters in 15 rescue operations off the Libyan coast yesterday

Half a million refugees are massing in Libya to try and flee to Europe on the migrant boats that have killed thousands already

It is due home for maintenance next month and it has not yet been decided which vessel might take its place. On a visit to Bulwark, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Britain and Italy alone could not stop the crisis and called for other EU countries to get involved.

He added: ‘You have to distinguish search and rescue from settlement. That is the most important thing. In the end we have to have a more comprehensive solution.

‘Any policy of return obviously would have to be negotiated with the Libya authorities. That is the difficulty. That is why we are working hard to establish a Libyan government with which Europe can negotiate.’

FOREIGN AID CASH COULD BE USED TO STOP TRAFFICKERS: CAMERON WANTS TO HELP PREVENT MIGRANTS IN MED Millions of pounds of British aid money could be redirected to help deter those attempting to flee Africa for a better life in Europe, Downing Street said last night. David Cameron has ordered the Department for International Development to see if Britain can use its £12billion aid budget to do more to prevent migrants ending up on boats in the Mediterranean. Mr Cameron praised HMS Bulwark’s dramatic rescue of 1,200 migrants off Libya. But he said there was a ‘need to do more to stop these people leaving their countries in the first place’. The move came as the Prime Minister defended the UK’s ring-fenced aid budget, saying: ‘Britain is a country with a moral conscience – we do not walk on by.’ But Mr Cameron believes that directing DFID’s budget towards tackling issues such as immigration and terrorism could help ease public scepticism about his controversial decision to ramp up foreign aid spending. He said it could be used in a way that ‘actually protects and defends the interests of British people’. At the G7 summit in Germany, he said: ‘HMS Bulwark is in the Mediterranean because we want to save lives. But we also need to do more to stop these people leaving their countries in the first place. ‘We need to deal with the causes of this migration, not simply with its consequences. ‘We have an asylum system which is now working better than it did in the past. Britain offers asylum to people who are fleeing persecution. But of course people should apply for asylum in the first country in which they land, rather than travelling across continents to get to Britain.’ Ministers and officials will examine whether aid could be used to strengthen border security and disrupt people trafficking in countries such as Eritrea, Somalia and Niger. Government sources said a final decision will depend on whether international rules on aid will allow it. Advertisement

Rescue efforts: HMS Bulwark is involved in a rescue mission to save 500 migrants in dangerously overcrowded boats off the coast of Libya

Strong words: On a visit to HMS Bulwark off the coast of Libya, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon slammed EU countries for not doing enough to help with flood of migrants crossing Mediterranean

Concern: Mr Fallon speaking with personnel on board HMS Bulwark. The ship is speeding across the Mediterranean to help rescue up to 3,000 stranded migrants

Discussion: Mr Fallon on board HMS Bulwark, whose Commanding Officer Nick Cooke-Priest warned up to half a million migrants are waiting to make the perilous journey by overcrowded boats from Libya to Europe

Safe landing: HMS Bulwark prepares for survivors to come on board after their migrant vessel was rescued in the Mediterranean during an operation on May 13