Sea Watch still searching for port of safety with 278 rescued in five missions

The migrant rescue ship Sea-Watch 3 has rescued 278 people in five rescue missions, but have yet to be granted a port of safety.

In two cases, individuals had to be evacuated from the Sea-Watch 3 for medical reasons.

In a first rescue operation last Thursday, 33 people were rescued, and the following Friday, another 64 were brought safely onboard the rescue ship.

Sea Watch said that last Saturday, both the Maltese and Italian rescue coordination centres failed to initiate a rescue operation for migrants in distress.

Repeated requests for the allocation of a port of safety have so far not received a positive response from Malta and Italy.

“Not only have we been left alone by the authorities during several rescues, waiting for hours for them to respond to our urgent calls for assistance, but even after seven requests we have still not received an allocation of a port of safety. Our guests on board have the right to disembark in a safe place and with the situation on board deteriorating by the minute, this must happen now without further delay,” said Anne Dekker, Head of Mission on Sea-Watch 3.

Instead it was the Sea-Watch 3’s speedboats that reached an unseaworthy, double-decker, wooden boat with about 400 people on board.

Several people were in the water when the crew arrived, and reports from survivors indicate that other people on the move had previously lost their lives during the crossing.

In a rescue operation lasting more than five hours, the situation was stabilised with the support of civil sea rescue organizations RESQSHIP and SOS Mediterranee. 142 survivors were brought onboard Sea-Watch 3 and 253 onboard SOS Mediterranee’s Ocean Viking.

Then on 1 and 2 August, more people were rescued from distress at sea in two additional rescue operations. Another 90 people in a wooden boat were distributed life jackets until the Italian Coast Guard finally intervened.

In two medical evacuations already, a total of seven medical emergencies had to be taken off the ship by Italian and Maltese authorities, together with their relatives.

“The health situation of those rescued continues to deteriorate. Many of the people are dehydrated and suffer from seasickness. Some of them had to receive infusions after they collapsed. The situation of those who have infectious wounds or skin infections also continues to worsen. The medical team is working at full speed to stabilise the patients,” Dekker said.

Dekker accused European states of having almost completely withdrawn from sea rescue, estimating over 1,100 people having drowned trying to flee across the Mediterranean in 2021, more than twice as many as in the same period in 2020.

Some 18,000 people have been intercepted and pulled back by the Libyan Coast Guard this year, which Sea Watch said was in violation of international law.

During the current operation, the crew of the Sea-Watch 3 was repeatedly pressured over the radio by the so-called Libyan Coast Guard to leave the rescue area in international waters and threatened with the arrest of the crew.

“European politicians are happily toasting 70 years of the Geneva Refugee Convention while allowing people to drown as a deterrent or to be dragged back to torture camps in Libya by their handlers. Civil rescue organizations that try to fill the politically intended rescue gap are harassed and their ships blocked. Anyone who cares about human rights beyond Sunday speeches must not allow this to happen, must watch, must speak out, must take action,” Sea Watch chairman Johannes Bayer said.