Water shortage and worsening sea conditions increase pressure on board – crew again requests immediate assignment of a closer port of safety.

In the night from Monday to Tuesday, at around 00:00 a.m., the SEA-EYE 5 received an emergency call from Alarm Phone: an unseaworthy inflatable boat was in distress in the Tunisian–Maltese Search and Rescue zone. The crew immediately set course for the location.

When the SEA-EYE 5 reached the vessel, 26 people were on board, including several children as well as five women, two of them pregnant. All rescued individuals were frightened, exhausted, and hypothermic. The crew was able to bring all people safely on board.

Immediately after the rescue, weather conditions deteriorated significantly. The SEA-EYE 5 is currently exposed to strong winds and waves of up to 1.5 meters. Despite the critical situation and the particularly vulnerable people on board, the Italian authorities assigned Taranto as the designated port of safety – a transfer of approximately 48 hours.

“Everyone on board is completely exhausted. Many are suffering from severe seasickness, are hypothermic and have not had a safe place to rest for days. With increasing wind and rough seas, their condition is deteriorating dramatically.

Particularly alarming is the situation of the vulnerable people on board: children and five women, two of whom are pregnant, are suffering severely under the increasingly harsh and ongoing conditions at sea.

From a medical perspective, the situation is highly critical. Every additional hour at sea exposes the rescued people to further danger and unnecessarily exacerbates their suffering,” explains Vanessa Guidi from German Doctors, who leads the medical care on board the SEA-EYE 5.

In addition, the onboard water treatment system has stopped working. The crew is therefore deeply concerned about the remaining passage to Taranto. They have already requested four times that the Italian authorities assign a closer port of safety – so far without success.

Anna di Bari, board member of Sea-Eye, states: “The SEA-EYE 5 is a vessel ideally suited for search and rescue operations – but not for political games by the Italian authorities, in which a distant port is assigned without factual justification. This is about the safety of the crew and the rescued people on board. We therefore reiterate our urgent request to the competent authorities to assign a closer safe port.”

Update: On Thursday morning (21st May), all 26 survivors were able to disembark safely in Taranto.

Around 102,250 people protest – children’s and human rights must be protected!

Despite urgent warnings from children’s rights and human rights organisations, the German Bundestag has adopted the CEAS Amendment Act on Friday, February 27th. The German federal government has thus chosen a course that expands the use of detention, facilitates deportations, and effectively makes access to individual legal protection more difficult.

Around 102,250 people expressed their opposition to the law through a joint petition by Sea-Eye and WeAct. They called for the protection of children’s and human rights and for fair asylum procedures to be ensured. In the run-up to the vote, Sea-Eye directly contacted the members of the Interior Committee, urging them to take the voices of more than one hundred thousand signatories into account during their deliberations.

“This reform cements a course aimed at combating migration instead of organising protection in a humane way. When people – even children – are effectively detained solely for applying for asylum, this constitutes an attack on fundamental human rights and the rule of law,” warns Anna di Bari, board member of Sea-Eye e.V. “We will continue to advocate for humanitarian solutions and will not silently accept this development. Our work at sea and our political voice on land belong together. We will continue to document, to call out abuses, and to resist whenever fundamental rights are being eroded.”

The law can only be prevented from entering into force if the Bundesrat explicitly raises an objection in March.

Background:

After the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was already adopted at EU level, the Member States are now required to transpose the new regulations into national law by June 2026. In Germany, this task was assigned to Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt, who introduced the so-called CEAS Amendment Act for this purpose. However, the act goes significantly beyond the EU requirements.

Although CEAS allows Member States some discretion in national implementation, Alexander Dobrindt is using this leeway for a particularly restrictive interpretation. In numerous individual provisions, the rights of refugees are further curtailed. It is especially critical that the law enables the detention of children.

Sea-Eye had already sharply criticised the reform of the Common European Asylum System at the EU level. In the organisation’s view, it does not aim to improve protection standards, but rather to promote deterrence and externalisation. The consequences of this policy are already visible today at Europe’s external borders.

Rescued people must wait days for disembarkation despite critical health conditions – Sea-Eye criticises Italy’s inhumane port policy

On Friday evening, the crew of the SEA-EYE 5 received an emergency call from the hotline for boatpeople in distress Alarm Phone. At around 3 a.m., after a long search in the dark, they were finally able to locate the wooden boat. By this time, water was already pouring into the overcrowded boat.

Early on Saturday morning, the crew of the rescue ship SEA-EYE 5 was able to rescue all 57 people in acute distress at sea and bring them safely on board. Those seeking protection had already been at sea for several days without food or water. Some of them were in urgent need of medical care and the situation on board was made even more difficult by poor weather conditions. Nevertheless, the Italian authorities assigned the distant Crotone as port of safety to the SEA-EYE 5.

“The medical situation after the night-time rescue was very critical. The 57 people had been travelling for days without food or water. Many were dehydrated, suffering from so-called fuel burns – chemical burns caused by a mixture of petrol and salt water – and extreme seasickness. Despite immediate treatment, their condition remained critical. From a medical point of view, the situation was life-threatening,” emphasises Dr Christin Linderkamp of German Doctors, who is in charge of medical care on the SEA-EYE 5.

Due to the critical situation on board, the crew twice requested the Italian authorities to assign a closer port of safety – both requests were rejected, however, and the people on board had to endure another 50 hours of crossing, during which they were unnecessarily exposed to further physical and mental strain. 

Yesterday morning, all 57 rescued persons were finally able to disembark safely in Crotone. However, this is not a happy ending, as Kai Echemeyer, deck manager of the current mission on the SEA-EYE 5 and member of the Sea-Eye board, emphasises:

“After an unnecessarily long and risky journey to a distant port, we were met with open aversion by Frontex and the coastguard upon our arrival. It is unbearable for us to see people who have just been rescued from drowning being met with mistrust and coldness in Europe. Even though we are grateful to have brought them to safety, we are left with the feeling of having to hand them over to a hostile environment. This treatment of people seeking protection is deeply inhumane.”

Sea-Eye once again criticises the practice of European authorities assigning civilian rescue ships to distant ports. These delays endanger the lives of those rescued and place an additional burden on crews and medical personnel.

When Human Lives Become a Matter of Negotiation: Europe’s Approach to Sea Rescue

This week, a court in Trapani confirmed it once again: the detention of the rescue vessel MEDITERRANEA, operated by the Italian organization Mediterranea Saving Humans, was illegal. In August, the rescue ship entered the port of safety in Trapani with ten rescued people on board – despite the fact that Italian authorities had previously assigned them the port of Genoa. The reason: the people on board were in urgent need of medical attention.

As a consequence, Italian authorities detained the ship based on the so-called Piantedosi Decree – an instrument that has already been overturned in court in at least ten cases. In more than twice as many proceedings, verdicts are still pending.

Anna di Bari, board member of Sea-Eye, explains: “Systematic attempts to put pressure on civil sea rescue are nothing new. But the court decisions make it clear: Italy is abusing the law to deter. Those who save people are criminalised – those who let them die are courted.”

Data from Matteo Villa also show that the former SEA-EYE 4 – now operating as MEDITERRANEA – is particularly frequently affected by criminalization. Its excellent suitability for saving lives has become a disadvantage: by assigning ports that are far away, its missions are deliberately restricted and rescue capacities reduced.

Although MEDITERRANEA has been detained especially often, many other civil rescue ships are also affected. For instance, the Geo Barents, operated by Doctors Without Borders, has already been detained four times – in two of those cases, legal proceedings to clarify the legitimacy are still ongoing. Organizations such as Sea-Watch and Sea-Eye have also repeatedly faced detentions. This demonstrates how systematic these detentions are – and how deliberately rescue efforts in the Mediterranean are being hindered or prevented. The current court ruling once again makes it clear how often these measures are unlawful.

About the Piantedosi Decree

2022: The Beginning of a Restrictive Policy Shift via the Piantedosi Decree:
During a mission in June 2022, the crew of the SEA-EYE 4 rescued around 500 people. During this mission, the first signs of a political shift in Italy became apparent: in December of the same year, for the first time, Italian authorities directly assigned a port during an ongoing rescue operation – a foreshadowing of what the Piantedosi Decree would bring.

The decree obliges rescue ships to head to an assigned – often distant – port immediately after a single rescue, instead of continuing with further rescues. Non-compliance is punished with heavy fines and vessel seizures. A turning point that has severely hampered civilian sea rescue operations.

Despite massive criticism from civil society and politicians, the Bundestag’s Budget Committee decided yesterday to completely cut funding for civil sea rescue. This means that the previous support of two million euros per year, which had been supporting humanitarian rescue operations in the Mediterranean since 2022, will no longer be available. Between October 2023 and February 2025, state-supported missions by Sea-Eye saved an additional 747 people from drowning. The complete elimination of these funds will have a concrete impact on rescue operations and the chances of survival for people in distress at sea.

“This decision is a political declaration of bankruptcy – and a slap in the face for all those who have been involved in civil sea rescue for the past 10 years. People seeking protection will pay for this decision with their lives with fewer rescue missions being planned and financed by organisations such as Sea-Eye. This will only make the passage across the Mediterranean even more dangerous,” says Gorden Isler, chairman of Sea-Eye e.V. “We will not give up. While this government is content to count the dead, we will continue to save lives.”

Sea-Eye and Campact had protested against the planned cuts on the morning before the decision and handed over a petition with 93,724 signatures to Britta Haßelmann and Ricarda Lang (Alliance 90/The Greens). But the protest remained unheard.

“It is no coincidence that the federal government is cutting funding at precisely the moment when sea rescue organisations are being massively criminalised and blocked – it is a political decision with deadly consequences,” criticises Gorden Isler.

Despite the funding cuts, Sea-Eye has pledged to continue its rescue operations – with the support of civil society:

 “We would like to thank the tens of thousands of people who stand with us against this policy of isolation. It is their support that keeps us going. And as long as we have the opportunity, we will continue to rescue people – because every life saved counts,”  Gorden Isler emphasises.