Central Mediterranean. On Sunday evening, the Ocean Viking, a humanitarian rescue ship chartered by SOS MEDITERRANEE and operated in partnership with Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), received instructions from the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) of Rome to proceed to Messina, Italy, to disembark 182 people rescued at sea....
Press Release 15th September 2019 London, UK. The Ocean Viking receives instruction to disembark the 82 rescued people in Lampedusa, Italy. First humanitarian search and rescue ship authorized to proceed to an Italian Place of Safety in 14 months. Paris, Marseille, September 14, 2019. On Saturday, September 14, the Ocean Viking was informed...
Press Release 22 July 2019 London, UK. The Norwegian Flag and Norwegian owners have stepped up to provide a new civil society humanitarian rescue vessel the Viking Ocean to be operated in the central Mediterranean reflecting a renewed joint partnership between SOS MEDITERRANEE and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) for the rescue of persons in distress at...
Press Release Friday 10 May 2019 London.UK. As a statement against the criminalisation of those helping people on the move, the Swiss Paul Grüninger Foundation is awarding this year’s prize to the Iuventa 10 humanitarian search and rescue NGO vessel, whilst the crew is under criminal investigations in Italy. The prize money of 50,000...
Press Release 26th February 2019 London. UK. Human Rights at Sea has published a new Briefing Note on the ‘Legal and Policy Matters Arising from the Increased Criminalisation of the Civil Society Search and Rescue Activities in the Mediterranean’. This is the second publication on the issue of the increasing levels of criminalisation of civil...
PRESS RELEASE Immediate London UK. The short award-winning film ‘LIFEBOAT’ is to be shown at the second International Maritime Human Rights (IMHR) conference on 29 October 2018 to be held at the historic and newly furbished Fishmongers’ Hall, London. LIFEBOAT showcases refugees desperate enough to risk their lives in rubber boats leaving Libya 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...
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...
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...
24 July 2017 UK P&I Club: Search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Amanda Hastings, Claims Executive at UK P&I Club, comments on the effect of Operation Triton on search and rescue operations: “Summer is once again upon us and the media coverage surrounding the refugee and migrant crisis in the Mediterranean continues, as...
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...
Human Rights at Sea first Erasmus Intern, Melanie Glodkiewicz, is currently offshore Libya undertaking her internship secondment to the German NGO, Sea-Watch. Melanie will be regularly posting her experiences and commentary of her experiences – www.hras-seawatch.org My secondment to Sea-Watch has now started. I have joined the new crew for the next SAR operation...
Source: SeaWatch From the frontline SeaWatch teams working to save life in the Mediterranean. After witnessing a series of boats accidents including capsized boats with many dead in the Central Mediterranean Sea last week, Sea-Watch is now striking a balance and publishing tragic pictures that have to be acknowledged by the European society as...
Human Rights at Sea is pleased to announce that the NGO ProActiva Open Arms has joined with the charity as a Supporting Entity enabling overt and mutual support to respective work areas. Proactiva Open Arms, an NGO based in Barcelona (Spain), was founded in September 2015 in order to carry out safety and rescue...
A film debuted at the 2016 Berlin film festival shows the bodies of migrants so tightly packed in the hold of a boat that they died of asphyxiation within hours of starting their voyage across the Mediterranean. Director Gianfranco Rosi’s says his two-hour documentary film “Fuocoammare” (Fire at Sea) “bears witness to a...