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…
DetailsSeven years at sea. No land in sight. Quo vadisLateinisch: “Where are we going”, Sea‑Watch? When we set out on our first rescue mission in the central Mediterranean in June 2015, no one would have guessed what kind of odyssey we would face. From political blockades in Germany, Italy, Malta and the Netherlands, to numerous…
DetailsAfter rescuing 428 persons from distress at sea, the Sea-Watch 3 was blocked by Italian authorities on Wednesday evening, 21. September 2022, in Reggio Calabria. However, only at the beginning of August 2022 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) declared arbitrary port state controls (PSC) unlawful. By ignoring the ECJ ruling, the Italian authorities focus…
DetailsOn Tuesday, 6 September 2022, while families of the disappeared and deceased at EU borders came together for a protest action in Zarzis, Tunisia, Vincent Cochetel, the UNHCR’s special envoy for the Western and Central Mediterranean sent out a tweet: “Grieving for the loss. But the same mothers had no problem encouraging or funding their…
DetailsThis factsheet presents a summary of the distress cases witnessed in July 2022 by Sea-Watch’s Airborne Operations with the aircraft Seabird 1.(1) In July 2022 we flew in the Maltese Search-and-Rescue (SAR) zone only, conducting 17 operations over a total flight time of 88 hours and 50 minutes. We spotted 42 boats, carrying around 1,698 persons in distress.…
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