Five people, including two children, were rescued off Fanning Island in Kiribati after three months adrift in a 20-foot skiff, a rare survival case that left four others still unaccounted for. Villagers brought the group ashore Sunday, ending a search that had stretched across the Pacific and into a second country’s waters.
The rescue is drawing attention now because the boat had drifted an estimated 3,350 miles east from the Federated States of Micronesia before it was found. The U.S. Coast Guard in Guam said the skiff had nine people aboard when it failed to return to Ruo Island on July 30, and a 10-day search across 33,000 square miles turned up nothing.
Those rescued were in bad shape. Kaotitaake Rakoroa said the survivors were being cared for by a pastor on the island, and Paukin Tororo said Monday that all five were severely dehydrated and malnourished. They were placed on intravenous drips and were beginning to recover, with Tororo adding that they could smile and were showing signs they wanted to eat.
The route they took helps explain how the skiff could disappear for so long. The nine people had been making a one-hour crossing between Murilo and Ruo when a storm hit, turning a routine trip into a long drift across open water. By the time villagers found the boat in Kiribati, the survivors had spent about three months at sea, far longer than anyone on board could likely have expected when they set out.
The unresolved part is the hardest one to ignore. Five people made it to shore alive, but the fate of the other four people aboard remains unconfirmed, and the U.S. Coast Guard said it was still gathering and confirming information about them. Alexander Narruhn said he had begun talks with the Kiribati government to bring the survivors home, while also asking for prayers for the four companions still missing.
For now, the story is both a rescue and a waiting game. The five survivors are receiving care in Kiribati, but the question of what happened to the other four is still open, and that is where the news now turns next.
