COMMENT 28 December 2018 London.UK. The recent increase in migrant crossings from France to England across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, has prompted calls within the UK to increase sea patrols and prevent crossings. Nonetheless, the issue should not be unexpected for UK Border Force as the inevitability of exploitation of those fleeing war-torn...
COMMENTARY Thursday 6 December 2018 Geneva. Update to 3 December Press Release on flagging of the Aquarius Switzerland. The country of Henry Dunant, father of humanitarian principles, has responded to a popular request and parliamentary motion to allow the Aquarius, Search and Rescue (SAR) vessel of SOS Méditerranée and Médecins sans Frontières, to sail...
PRESS RELEASE Immediate London, UK. Human Rights at Sea is please to publish a legal research and educational article by Luisa Zappalà titled: “Search and rescue: shared responsibilities in international law of Member States, the European Union and Frontex in the Mediterranean.” The article, a LLM dissertation, was first published in 2016 through the University...
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 31 July 2018 London. UK. Human Rights at Sea has joined nine other leading NGOs in an open letter to UNHCR over the ongoing handling of the Mediterranean crisis. To the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr. Filippo Grandi, The signing organizations have been closely monitoring the latest developments...
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 20 June 2018 World Refugee Day London.UK. World Refugee Day 2018 and the news for refugees and others in need of protection are worse than ever before. The European Union considers for yet another time the idea of processing migrants and asylum seekers offshore, in countries of Africa. The idea of extraterritorial processing of...
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...
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...
Human Rights at Sea is very pleased to report that our first Erasmus+ intern, Mélanie Glodkiewicz, has successfully graduated in International Relations from the Université catholique de Louvain with a top-level Distinction based on her human rights and humanitarian work. Reporting from the university highlighted that Mélanie’s internship with the charity was viewed as being...
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...
In an unprecedented step, the Malta based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) search and rescue (SAR) NGO has suspended all rescue operations in the Mediterranean citing, among other reasons, concern about the lawfulness of returns to Libya and alluding to the conditions of those returnees held in detention facilities in Libya. MOAS was one...
PRESS RELEASE Immediate 6 July 2017 Planned EU NGO Code of Conduct threatens life-saving search and rescue operations “Failure to sign this Code of Conduct or failure to comply with its obligations may result in the refusal by the Italian State to authorize the access to national ports, subject to compliance with the existing...
Human Rights at Sea participates in the second Summer School of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence (JMCE) for Migrants’ Rights in the Mediterranean on “Open Doors, Sea Border Controls and Human Rights” in Naples Human Rights at Sea’s former intern and now Advisor, Elizabeth Mavropoulou, participated on behalf of the charity and delivered...
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...