More than 3 months, the reconnaissance aircraft Moonbird, operated by Sea-Watch in cooperation with the Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative, was prevented from operation by the Maltese government without providing any legal ground. With the crackdown on civil sea rescue, meanwhile, the death rate at Europe’s sea border reached its record high of one out of…
Yesterday, Sunday, the crew of the surveillance aircraft Colibri witnessed once again a dramatic case of failure to render assistance by the Italian authorities. A rubber boat with over 80 refugees was in distress at sea for over 9 hours and was finally towed back to war-torn Libya by the country’s so-called Coast Guard. At…
Berlin, 04.07.2018 The political offensive against monitoring and rescue missions in the Mediterranean continues: Now the civil reconnaissance aircraft Moonbird was blocked from operations as well. The aircraft is operated by Sea-Watch and the Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI) and is supported by the Protestant Church of Germany (EKD). The Maltese authorities do not allow…
In the last year alone, more than 3,000 people have drowned in the Central Mediterranean Sea; in 2018, more than 500 have lost their lives already. Without the reconnaissance aircraft “Moonbird”, deployed by Sea-Watch and the Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative (HPI), there would have been 1000 more deaths in 2017 alone. Time and again the…
One Day with the Mission Moonbird written by Anja Franke On the evening before take-off, pilot Manos hands me an orange full-body suit. “So that one can find us if we crash over the sea”, he said and I tried to forget my fear of heights. Now the four of us are sitting in the…
