London. UK. HRAS Commentary. Early last week, the Office of Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, published 'A distress call for human rights', a comprehensive follow-up to the 2019 recommendations drafted in 'Lives saved. Rights protected. Bridging the protection gap for refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean'. Human Rights at Sea has reviewed and today, highlights its recommendations in support.
People move. Migration has always been a feature of the human condition and it will always be so. We cannot stop it and efforts to stem it will, in the long run, prove futile. Global population has ballooned in recent years and travel from region to region has increased. More and more people are on the move. Their motives for leaving their homes and seeking lives elsewhere are numerous, but two in particular are relevant to the ‘crisis’ that has developed in recent weeks in the English Channel.
Press Release 18th July 2019 Reproduced Article. GENEVA (18 July 2019) – UN human rights experts* have expressed grave concern over the detention and criminal proceedings in Italy against the German captain of the migrant rescue vessel Sea-Watch 3, and stated that the threats to the judge who ruled her release were unlawful. “Rescuing migrants...
Press Release 20 June 2019 London.UK. Against a historic high record of forced displacement that shows that over 70 million people have been forced to flee their home, today on World Refugee Day, Human Rights at Sea stands in solidarity with refugees, with those in refugee-like situations as well as with all individuals seeking international protection. In...
Press Release Thursday 20 July 2018 London.UK. Six days ago, a boat carrying 40 people in distress, including two pregnant women, who sought asylum and protection in Europe had entered the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone. The migrant boat was denied entry into Malta. The fact that the migrant boat had reached Malta SAR zone...
HRAS Commentary Monday 9 July 2018 “We could have done something,” – Taking the conscious political decision of leaving persons to drown or suffer from abuse London.UK. Corpses are discovered on Northern African shores, over 600 persons are now missing and feared dead because they embarked on the journey of the deadliest crossing in the...
Press Release 8 May 2018 London. Italy’s collaboration with Libya to stop migrants and asylum seekers reaching Europe is facing a legal challenge over allegations that it has led to grave human rights violations against those crossing the Mediterranean, including torture and slavery. Seventeen survivors of a fatal incident in which a boat carrying migrants found...
Press Release 27 APRIL 2018 London. Human Rights at Sea is closely watching the ongoing situation in the central Mediterranean route, and is deeply concerned with the restrictive asylum policies of the European Union and the general securitisation and criminalisation of search and rescue at sea. What we are witnessing is push backs operations of asylum...
Press Release 21st of March 2018 London. Human Rights at Sea is closely watching the ongoing situation in the central Mediterranean route following the seizure of the NGO Proactiva Open Arms vessel and crew by the Italian authorities in Sicilia during a search and rescue operation. During the operation, the NGO vessel refused to hand the...
Human Rights at Sea comments in the recent article by The Christian Science Monitor about the increasing concern about the actions of the Italian State and European Union in trampling on customary humanitarian principles and international human rights law relating to migrants and refugees returned to Libya, and the well-documented human rights abuses suffered by...
Melanie Glodkiewicz selected as an Erasmus+ Ambassador “My internship has been a life-changing period” Wednesday 14 June 2016 Human Rights at Sea is delighted to announce that a former intern, Miss Melanie Glodkiewicz, has been selected to become a European Erasmus+ Programme ambassador following her work on Mediterranean migrant projects for the charity and while seconded to the...
PRESS RELEASE 31 March 2017 Human Rights at Sea outlines the first voluntary Code of Conduct for Search and Rescue NGOs in the European Parliament On Wednesday 29 March, CEO David Hammond spoke in the European Parliament to outline the new voluntary ‘Code of Conduct for Search and Rescue Operations undertaken by civil society...
Migrants are the tip of the iceberg Hundreds of thousands of people have put their life at risk at sea to reach European shores. Their bravery and despair has drawn wide media attention. In reality, though, they are the tip of the iceberg. There were 40.8 million people displaced within national borders worldwide as a...
Human Rights at Sea CEO David Hammond speaks to the BBC about the current migrant issues in the Mediterranean. CEO David Hammond speaks to BBC News
Mediterranean Migrants: Becoming Part of the System At sea, rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean, 25-year-old Giorgia Linardi met a woman that reminder of her mother. Like her mother, the woman was a doctor, a specialist; their ages were similar. But, unlike her mother, this woman had lost her family, her home, had no phone to...
