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Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly series in which NPR's international team shares moments from their lives and work around the world.

It was my fifth day on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, reporting on their attempts to rescue migrants stranded at sea. We'd set off a year ago from the Italian port of Civitavecchia, and in the 10 days I was aboard their ship, the Geo Barents, they saved 258 lives.

These migrants — some whole families, one teenager traveling alone, many young men, a mother with her three young children — had started their journey in Libya, paying smugglers thousands of dollars for this chance to reach Europe. A shot in the dark.

For the rescuers on the Geo Barents, this work was exhausting, traumatizing —

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