Eight-year-old African boy who travelled 3,500 miles to Italy just so he could ‘go to school’ is doing well and has an ‘incredible smile’ on his face, aid workers reveals as plans are made from him to start education

An eight-year-old boy who traveled 3,500 miles from Africa to Europe to “go to school” is doing well and has “an incredible smile,” his new temporary caregivers say.

Little Oumar was picked up a week ago by a humanitarian ship called Ocean Viking in the Mediterranean Sea as he crossed from Libya to Italy in a rubber boat with almost 100 others.

The ship then sailed to the Italian port of Ancona on the Adriatic Sea, where he was picked up by volunteers and placed in temporary accommodation with other children.

A care worker who cares for him said: ‘He has an incredible smile and adapts well to the other children.

‘He plays football, draws and paints and enjoys going to school.

Little Oumar was picked up a week ago by a humanitarian ship called Ocean Viking in the Mediterranean Sea as he crossed from Libya to Italy in a rubber boat with almost 100 others

‘Intellectually he is very smart for his age and when he goes to school he will quickly learn Italian.

“He has spoken to his parents and they know he is in good hands.”

Oumar’s harrowing story came to light earlier this week after the Ocean Viking arrived in Ancona after a three-day voyage just off the coast of Libya.

He told surprised rescuers that he left Mali in November and traveled with a friend across Africa to Libya and made a first attempt but was caught by the Libyan coast guard.

The pair were thrown into a Libyan prison in Ain Zara before managing to escape, hiding in a garbage truck before boarding a rubber boat bound for Europe.

Oumar told his rescuers that he had earned money by working as a painter and welder so that he had enough money to live on.

He added that it was “difficult” to be in Libya because he was “black.”

Home was a village called Tambaga, in western Mali, where he lived with his parents, but he fled after a jihadist group attacked the area and they were separated.

He continued walking and eventually ended up in Libya, where he worked for several weeks before making his first failed attempt to cross the sea.

Photos drawn by Oumar of the house where he is staying and the ship on which he arrived

Oumar left his small village near Tambaga in western Mali, then traveled on foot across the Sahara before sailing to Italy

Migrants were helped to evacuate a partially deflated rubber boat earlier this month. File image

The Libyan coast guard picked him up and threw him in prison before he managed to escape in the garbage truck.

While in prison, he was beaten and suffered a broken foot, which was diagnosed by doctors in Italy.

Since his arrival, he has settled in a temporary home run by a charity called CEIS, where he will remain until a permanent foster home can be found.

Photos shared with MailOnline show him making drawings with other children, including a stick drawing of a little boy with a broken heart.

Others include photos of the house where he is staying and the ship on which he arrived in Ancona.