Alliance ship SEA-EYE 4 starts third rescue mission in 2022
Number of distress calls to AlarmPhone increases throughout Mediterranean region
The SEA-EYE 4 departed Burriana on Saturday (04.06.2022) for its third rescue mission in 2022. The alliance ship is expected to reach the operational area in the central Mediterranean Sea on Thursday evening. Since the ship became operational in May 2021, crews have saved more than 1,600 people from drowning.
From January to the end of May 2022, the organization AlarmPhone has already received 339 distress calls from people in acute danger of life at sea. In the same period in 2021, there were 286 distress calls. In 2020, there were 225. (Source: AlarmPhone)
More than 700 people have died in the Mediterranean this year, according to the IOM. In the summer months, particularly many people tried to escape the civil war in Libya in recent years. This is because there are significantly fewer periods of bad weather during these months.
“We have to realize again that this is not a normal state. That every day people are calling for help, that people are drowning regularly and that there is no European state sea rescue program that brings the necessary equipment to end the dying in the Mediterranean. The EU states allow another deadly year just like that and also the new federal government remained so far inactive and lets the drowning continue. Actually, after so many months, everyone in Berlin should now have found their place and know what needs to be done,” says Gorden Isler, chairman of Sea-Eye e. V.
