Current mission
Seabird 1 & 2
Civilian aerial reconnaissance mission at the world’s deadliest border
Sea-Watch is not only operative at sea, but also in the air. With our two monitoring aircraft we can cover a large sea area, where we document human rights violations and report distress cases. On the one hand, we monitor and document human rights abuses, mostly illegal pull backs by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard and – increasingly – of cases of non-assistance at sea. This is because state ships are not patrolling the area and civilian rescue ships are repeatedly blocked and prevented from doing their work. On the other hand, if on one of our flights we get notice of a maritime or aviational distress, we report it to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centres (MRCCs) and rescue ships.