Civilian rescue vessels play an important role in saving lives of refugees in the Mediterranean: NGO vessels have rescued more than 120.000 lives in the Mediterranean since 2014. Lately, political pressure from the EU has increased and led to the detention of rescue vessels in Italy and in Malta in an attempt to restrict immigration to Europe. This decision has led to a nearly complete absence of NGO rescue vessels in the search and rescue area and the death toll in June 2018 has been the highest in 2 years. Rescue vessels are needed urgently to prevent the loss of human lives!
As long as war, conflicts, inequality and poverty persist, people will need to flee to safe places to protect their lives and build a future. When passing through Libya, refugees are exposed to human rights abuses such as torture, kidnapping, forced labour and rape. Therefore, rescue vessels need ports of safety in Europe where the lives and dignity of all will be protected.
We call on the EU and all European national governments to implement policies that protect human lives. We call for solidarity of all European countries to provide search and rescue and to shelter refugees from human rights abuses.