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Oct182022

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…

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Sep262022

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…

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Sep262022

Seven years at sea. No land in sight. Quo vadis, Sea-Watch?

Seven 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…

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Sep232022

Sea-Watch 3 blocked – Italy ignores ECJ ruling

After 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…

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