News

Stoppt die Schiffsunglücke vor Tunesien!

Die Schiffsunglücke und das Verschwinden von Booten mit Menschen auf der Flucht Richtung Italien, nahe der tunesischen Küste, häufen sich seit zwei Jahren. Nach Angaben des FTDES (Tunesisches Forum für wirtschaftliche und soziale Rechte) sind zwischen Anfang des Jahres und Ende November 2022 mehr als 575 Menschen bei dieser Überfahrt ums Leben gekommen. Dabei werden…

Details

Airborne Monthly Factsheet August 2022

This factsheet presents a summary of the distress cases witnessed in August 2022 by Sea-Watch’s Airborne Operations with the aircraft Seabird 2. (1) In August 2022 we flew in the Maltese Search-and-Rescue (SAR) zone only, conducting 14 operations over a total flight time of 74 hours and 49 minutes. We spotted 38 boats, carrying around 1,243 persons in…

Details

Malta instructs merchant ship SHIMANAMI QUEEN to take 23 people to Egypt rather than to closer ports in Europe

(1) In April 2020, the Maltese authorities ordered the merchant vessel IVAN first to only stay on stand-by and then to leave the scene of a distress case. The people have been pushed back to Libya by a fishing vessel afterwards: https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/04/16/twelve-deaths-and-a-secret-push-back-to-libya/?post_type_release_type=post. (2) In July 2020, the Maltese authorities ordered the merchant vessel COSMO to only…

Details

New rescue ship Sea-Watch 5 challenges far-right elections in Italy

Recent events in Italy paint a dystopian picture for civil sea rescue: a few days after the political blockade of the rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, Italy votes for a hard right-wing parliamentary shift. The alliance around right-wing radical Giorgia Meloni and her party Fratelli d’Italia, whose election campaign also focused on restricting migration, became the…

Details