Two children dead and one person remains missing after a boat in distress with over 90 people on board capsized in the Mediterranean Sea on 29 of July 2025. The monitoring aircraft Seabird 2 of the search and rescue organization Sea-Watch first spotted the boat in distress on Monday, 28 July, and alerted all responsible European…
The Airborne Annual Report 2024 provides an overview of the findings of Sea-Watch’s airborne monitoring of human rights violations in the central Mediterranean Sea during 2024. Together with the Swiss organization Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI), Sea-Watch operates the two monitoring aircraft Seabird 1 and Seabird 2. Starting from Lampedusa, the aircraft patrol the central Mediterranean…
Italian authorities have detained the Sea-Watch ship Aurora for 20 days. The decision issued today by the Prefecture of Agrigento orders the blockade of the vessel, despite close cooperation with Italian authorities. Sea-Watch is seeking legal action against the detention. Including the Aurora, three civil rescue vessels are currently blocked in the port of Lampedusa. In total, Italian…
Brussels, July 17 – In a bold protest against Frontex’s attempt to intimidate the search and rescue organization Sea-Watch, the NGO has unloaded around 700 life vests outside the EU border agency’s Brussels office. The striking visual protest follows Frontex’s recent demand that Sea-Watch pay legal costs after their 2024 court case at the EU General Court…
Dear Mr. Leijtens, Frontex is once again obstructing democratic scrutiny. Your agency is demanding that we — a civil society organisation — pay €11,093.32 in court costs, for a legal case that arose because Frontex refused to release documents related to a clear human rights violation. This demand is an act of institutional intimidation designed…
