EMERGENCY’S search and rescue vessel Life Support disembarks 71 people
At 11:00 on Thursday, 21 March, EMERGENCY’s search and rescue vessel Life Support concluded the disembarkation of 71 people that were rescued on Saturday, 16 March, in international waters of the Maltese SAR zone.
“To arrive at the POS [place of safety] in Ravenna, it took us four days of navigation. The assignment of distant ports leaves the search and rescue area uncovered, while there continue to be new distress cases. This policy takes valuable time away from search and rescue activities and creates a vacuum precisely where the civil fleet is most urgently needed, given the absence of a coordinated mission at European level,” commented Domenico Pugliese, captain of Life Support. “The distant port assignment also affects the rescued people, who are in vulnerable conditions. It forces them to spend additional days at sea and experience further instability, when they should disembark as soon as possible in a safe place.”
They had left the Libyan town of Tajura, a dozen kilometres from Tripoli. Life Support located them after receiving a report from Alarm Phone of a boat in distress. The 71 people had navigated for 24 hours at sea on a dangerously unbalanced and unseaworthy wooden boat.
“The people were sailing on a white wooden boat with a non-functioning engine, and which was dangerously unbalanced on one side,” says Jonathan Naní La Terra, SAR Team Leader. “As soon as we spotted the boat, we immediately deployed our rescue team on a dinghy, stabilised the boat with life jackets, and secured the people on board.”
The rescued people, including three women and three unaccompanied 17-year-old minors, come from Bangladesh, Egypt and Eritrea – all countries affected by poverty and political and economic instability.
After the rescue, Life Support received a report of another boat from the Italian MRCC (Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre). Although the boat was reported a few miles away, a search was unsuccessful. Life Support asked to extend its search, but received a negative response and an indication to proceed to Ravenna as Place of Safety for disembarkation, at least four days’ navigation away.
“My family is very poor and had to sell everything they had for me to afford the journey,” says a Bangladeshi man rescued by Life Support. “Over many years I have spent a lot of money, I have applied for visas to go to other countries: Croatia, Saudi Arabia, Romania, Algeria, Singapore, even South Africa. After years of waiting and bureaucratic difficulties, I realised that I would not be able to leave through legal channels. I was forced to go to Libya and travel. It was the only way to seek a better life for me and my family, who remained in Bangladesh. I hope they will be able to join me soon. In this world, there is a lot of discrimination for poor people; in my country, politicians and businessmen get visas without problems and do not have to wait years for a response that never comes. It is not just a problem in my country. In Libya, I met many people who were trying to make the same journey as me because they could not get visas to reach Europe legally. We had one thing in common: poverty.”
To reach the port of Ravenna, Life Support had to navigate for more than four days after the rescue was completed. In its first year of operation (1 December 2022 to 31 December 2023), Life Support was assigned ports in Brindisi (2), Civitavecchia (1), Livorno (3), Marina di Carrara (3), Naples (1), Ortona (2), Ravenna (1) and Taranto (1). To reach these distant ports, the vessel travelled an average of 630 nautical miles, taking 3.5 sailing days per mission. To cover these days of unnecessary navigation, EMERGENCY incurred an expense of 938,248 euros.
EMERGENCY believes that it is urgent and necessary to guarantee the assignment of the nearest available port of disembarkation to reduce unnecessary and further suffering for the survivors and ensure their rapid access to basic services, and also to prevent search and rescue ships from facing unjustified delays and financial burdens.
Life Support has been conducting missions in the central Mediterranean, the world’s deadliest migration route, since December 2022. In seventeen missions, it has rescued 1,342 people.