United4Rescue and Sea-Eye present new alliance-ship SEA-EYE 4

New alliance-ship: SEA-EYE 4

The coalition for sea rescue United4Rescue, which now has more than 660 coalition partners, wants to finance the purchase and, to a large extent, the overhaul of the new rescue ship SEA-EYE 4.

The former offshore supply-vessel (built in 1972, 55 m long, 11 m wide) is currently being converted into a rescue ship and is operated by the sea rescue organization Sea-Eye e. V. The SEA-EYE 4 is significantly larger than the ALAN KURDI, Sea-Eye’s current rescue ship. Sea-Eye has saved the lives of around 15,000 people in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2016.

“We are very grateful to United4Rescue. Without the support of the coalition, buying such a large ship would have remained inconceivable to us,” says Gorden Isler, Chairman of Sea-Eye e. V.

“Since our first campaign for Sea-Watch we have received a lot of support, so we decided: We will send another ship!” says Sandra Bils, founding member of United4Rescue. “Almost every day we receive terrible news of unanswered emergency calls and ship accidents in the Mediterranean. It cannot be that there aren’t enough rescue ships available.”

No safe passage

The member states of the European Union ignore their duty to rescue at sea. They refuse to fulfil their state and humanitarian duty in the Mediterranean. Because there are hardly any safe and legal escape routes, many people continue to attempt the life-threatening passage across the Mediterranean. The operational area is very large and there are only a handful of rescue ships – another civilian rescue ship is therefore urgently needed.

In addition, civil sea rescue is repeatedly blocked for political reasons and subjected to bureaucratic harassment. United4Rescue also supports rescue organizations in meeting new technical requirements or in freeing the detained ships by legal means.

Due to its size and equipment, the SEA-EYE 4 will be able to accommodate and supply significantly more people than the previous Sea-Eye ships. But before the fourth ship of the Regensburg Sea Rescue organization is operational, extensive shipyard work is required.

United4Rescue finances the purchase and renovation of the SEA-EYE 4

United4Rescue wants to finance the overhauling of the rescue ship in addition to the purchase price. The coalition plans to contribute a total of € 434,000.00 to the project. In order to be able to send the SEA-EYE 4 on its first mission as quickly as possible, United4Rescue has started a donation campaign on the website www.wesendaship.org.

“Together with partners like United4Rescue we are on the right track. But in order to fully equip the SEA-EYE 4 and send it on a mission, we need further support,” says Isler.

“The necessity for our coalition sending another ship is actually a scandal. It is absurd, no, a testimony to Europe’s failure to fulfil its obligation to save people. We will not stand idly by this political failure,” said Bils.