Background to the Phenomenon and Its Impact on Civil Search and Rescue
Since early 2024, civil rescue vessels (as well as merchant ships) in the central Mediterranean have increasingly encountered boats carrying people on the move that display certain distinctive features and pose additional challenges for crews. These boats are generally in comparatively better condition than those we most commonly encounter and rescue from distress. One or more individuals remain on board after a rescue operation and then leave the scene, presumably towards Libya. These individuals are often masked and, in some cases, armed. In a number of incidents, the boats have deliberately approached our vessels.
What does this mean in practice for civil search and rescue crews?
For our crews, it is not always immediately clear what kind of boat they are dealing with or who is on board. Either way, a closer assessment regularly reveals an acute situation of distress: boats are often heavily overcrowded, and people are frequently confined below deck in cramped, poorly ventilated spaces. In many cases, there is no lifesaving equipment, insufficient fuel or drinking water, and no means of navigation. Children, pregnant women, injured people and people who are unconscious are also frequently among those on board. Under international maritime law, situations of this kind constitute distress at sea and give rise to an immediate duty to render assistance.
The presence of masked and, in some cases, armed actors makes these operations even more dangerous. There have already been incidents in which people were forced into the water under threat or use of (armed) violence. In some cases, rescue vessels have been boarded. This creates highly unpredictable and dangerous situations for crews: transferring people from small boats onto a much larger rescue vessel is already one of the riskiest manoeuvres in search and rescue operations. When individuals on board are armed, people have to be rescued from the water, or actors behave aggressively, the risk increases significantly for everyone involved – both for people in distress and for rescue crews. For civilian search and rescue organisations, it is therefore essential to avoid escalation. The safety of both people on the move and crew members is the highest priority.
Who are the “unknown actors”?
Sea-Watch has no information about this.
Encounters are limited to the immediate rescue situation. During an ongoing operation, it is impossible to determine whether they are boat drivers, members of armed groups, Libyan militias or other individuals. The crews’ responsibility is to save lives.
Establishing the identity of these individuals or investigating what happens to them afterwards is neither possible in an acute and dangerous rescue situation nor the within the remit of civil search and rescue organisations.
This question is also irrelevant to the duty to rescue: under international law, search and rescue organisations are required to rescue everyone in distress at sea, regardless of their identity, the reasons why they are in distress, or who was steering the boat. Even if it later emerged that people among those rescued, or individuals who remained on board, had organised the crossing, this would not alter the duty to render assistance.
Are the authorities informed?
Yes. Sea-Watch operates transparently during every rescue and communicates with the responsible maritime rescue coordination centres and authorities. If individuals stay on board after a rescue, this is also communicated. The entire rescue operation is documented in real time and relevant information is transmitted to the responsible authorities, including through Situation Reports (SITREPs). After arrival in port, all relevant information is once again passed on to the authorities.
The flag state and the relevant coastal states are informed throughout every stage of a rescue operation and are therefore well aware of the changing dynamics in the central Mediterranean — quite apart from the fact that European states maintain extensive aerial surveillance of the Mediterranean using drones and aircraft.
Can people on board these boats know where the Sea-Watch 5 is located?
Under international safety regulations, larger vessels are required to operate an Automatic Identification System (AIS). AIS data is publicly accessible. The position of the Sea-Watch 5 can therefore be viewed at any time through publicly available AIS tracking services, just like the positions of other larger vessels.
How often does this phenomenon occur, and why?
Sea-Watch does not have independently verified information about the backgrounds, identities or motivations of the actors on each individual boat. Such encounters are also extremely rare: according to Sea-Watch data, only around one per cent of all boats in distress documented since 2023 fall into this category.
What is clear, however, is that the fact that such incidents have been observed somewhat more frequently in recent times is not because of cooperation. Rather, these developments can only be understood in the broader context of the increasing externalisation of European border policy and the resulting changes in dynamics along the central Mediterranean route.
Through the extensive expansion of agreements with third countries aimed at preventing migration to the EU before people even reach its borders, as well as through increased aerial and maritime surveillance, the EU is creating and sustaining a system in which people on the move are exposed to extreme violence in so-called “partner countries” such as Libya and Tunisia, while at the same time being intercepted at sea and forcibly returned to precisely those places far more frequently than only a few years ago. People who steer boats face lengthy prison sentences in Italy, including people who are fleeing themselves. Civil search and rescue organisations, as well as fishers and merchant vessels that assist boats in distress, are increasingly subjected to political and legal pressure by Italy and the EU.
Developments at sea cannot be understood separately from this political context. It directly shapes the conditions under which people attempt to flee. Increasingly restrictive border policies do not stop prevent people from fleeing across the Mediterranean; they merely change how crossings take place — usually creating greater dependency, higher risks and increasing violence. Encounters with boats on which individuals remain after a rescue and subsequently return towards Libya can be understood as part of this development.
Contextualising the Defamation Campaign Against Sea-Watch in July 2026
On 11 May, the crew of the Sea-Watch 5 rescued 90 people from a boat in distress. Two people were unconscious, several people were trapped below deck, and no life-saving or navigational equipment was visible. At the same time, the crew was confronted with masked men on board who threatened to throw people into the water. A few hours later, the Sea-Watch 5 was shot at in international waters by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard who threatened to abduct the crew and rescued people to Libya. All relevant information concerning the rescue operation was continuously communicated to the competent authorities.
Based on Frontex footage that had been leaked to right-wing media, those outlets once again spread allegations that Sea-Watch was cooperating with smugglers. This allegation is false. The video shows only a fragment of the operation and omits crucial events – most notably the subsequent attack on the rescue vessel.
The Best Way to Combat Smuggling Is to Create Safe Routes
The recurring outrage manufactured by the political right over encounters between civil search and rescue organisations and these boats — which account for around one per cent of all documented distress cases — is nothing more than a smokescreen. It serves to discredit and criminalise both migration and civil search and rescue, while systematically diverting attention from the more fundamental question and the political responsibility behind it: Why do these structures emerge in the first place?
Wherever legal and safe routes of entry are unavailable, visas remain out of reach for many people, escape routes are closed, and border controls are increasingly outsourced to third countries and enforced through extreme violence, structures that organise border crossings will inevitably emerge, adapt to changing circumstances and become increasingly professionalised. It is therefore hardly surprising that we encounter such actors along the central Mediterranean route — one of the most important and at the same time deadliest routes to Europe — even though such encounters remain extremely rare.
Far from curbing smuggling, current EU migration policy is actually increasing both the incentives for smuggling services and people’s dependence on them.
The most effective response to smuggling is therefore not less rescue or more criminalisation, but the creation of safe routes for people seeking protection and migration, together with the protection of fundamental human rights.
Further Reading
- “How Smuggling Really Works” (2025), Mixed Migration Research Centre
- “Lawless Battleground – Increased Violence at Sea by Multiple Actors” (2026), SOS Humanity
- “Runaway Boats and Risky Rescues: How EU Policy Endangers Rescue” (2025), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
- “The Phenomenon of Runaway Boats and the Demand for Safe(r) Passages” (2024), Civil MRCC
