SEA-EYE 5’s largest rescue operation to date: 144 people taken aboard
Ten years after Alan Kurdi’s death, the lack of safe passage for refugees still forces people to flee across the Mediterranean
On Sunday morning at around 9 a.m., the crew of the SEA-EYE 5 reached a distress case reported by the organisation Alarm Phone. Within a few hours, the crew was able to rescue 144 people who had been at sea for days on an unseaworthy wooden boat.
Dr Giovanni Cappa, on-board doctor on the SEA-EYE 5 for German Doctors e.V. , reports:
“Several of the people on board were dehydrated and malnourished. Among those who were rescued was a pregnant woman. Several people were in critical condition and required immediate medical attention. This was a challenge for the entire crew, who had to provide care while also looking after such a large number of people in distress.”
Two people in critical condition required medical evacuation. The two medical emergencies were taken over by an Italian coast guard vessel south of Lampedusa, along with 51 other people.
After the rescue operation, the Italian authorities instructed the SEA-EYE 5 to take the remaining approximately 100 people to the port of Taranto, some 40 hours away. As the all-weather lifeboat is not designed to transfer such a large number of people over a long distance, the crew repeatedly asked the Italian authorities to allow them to disembark the people at a closer port – in vain.
“Despite our ongoing support, the people on board are forced to endure extreme temperatures on deck, with very limited space, and for a prolonged period of time due to the distant port of disembarkation assigned to us. Under these conditions, their health can only worsen”, Dr Giovanni Cappa warns.
Late on Monday afternoon, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre sent a navy ship to escort the SEA-EYE 5 to Taranto.
“Tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of the deaths of Alan Kurdi, his brother Ghalib and his mother Rehanna. It is shameful that ten years later, we still have not created safe passage for refugees, but that even in 2025, people are still forced to undertake life-threatening escapes across the central Mediterranean. European governments have not only failed to establish a state run sea rescue programme, but are also actively hindering the work of civil aid organisations. The fact that they are thinking up particularly creative ways of harassing people who have been rescued, exposing them to further stress and health-threatening hardships after everything they have been through, is simply perfidious,” says Gorden Isler, chairman of Sea-Eye e.V.
