Sea-Eye accuses Malta of violating duty to rescue boats in distress

Malta has been accused of violating its international obligation to rescue people at sea, after the rescue boat Sea-Eye 4 arrived in the Maltese search and rescue zone on Thursday, 16 December 16 with 223 people in four rescue operations.

Among them are 29 women, 4 of whom are pregnant, and 8 children. The crew is currently looking for another boat in distress.

The survivors on board the Sea-Eye 4 are currently being cared for and medically treated by the crew. One child has a broken arm and another has a broken finger. Two pregnant women have stomach pains and several people have had to be treated for chemical burns and hypothermia.

“Although further boats carrying numerous people in acute distress have been reported at sea since yesterday, Malta has once again failed to fulfill its obligation to coordinate distress cases at sea and rescue these people,” Sea-Eye spokesperson Sophie Weidenhiller said.

With the weather expected to deteriorate significantly soon, civil sea rescue organisations like Sea-Eye say they are are currently the only European forces looking for people attempting the dangerous Mediterranean sea crossing.

“It is hard to bear that we have to assume that no help at all came for some of the boats in danger. Civil sea rescue capacities are important, but also limited. The cold-blooded ignorance of the EU costs us human lives – the sea grave is growing, even if we constantly fight against it

“ The people who drowned in agony simply wanted a life in safety to which they were entitled - and we deny it to them. But what right do we have to elevate ourselves above these people and their fate?” Weidenhiller said.

Dr Christine Winkelmann, head of German Doctors, the aid organisation supporting Sea-Eye’s rescue operations financially and with medical staff and expertise, said it deeply inhumane that the EU continues to leave the rescue of desperate people to NGOs. “Shortly before the turn of the year, we hope that politics will finally change in 2022 and that the dying at the deadliest sea border will come to an end,” she said.