Exactly ten years ago, the “Phoenix” set out to rescue refugees on their way to Europe by sea, followed a year later by the “Sea-Watch”. The approaches behind them could not be more different.
“Heroes at sea” was the title of a German newspaper’s portrait of the millionaire couple Christopher and Regina Catrambone, who on 25 August 2014 sent the first civilian rescue ship to the central Mediterranean. The couple had discovered a life jacket in the water during a cruise, which they said had made them think about the increasing number of drowning refugees. So the Catrambones founded the non-profit aid organisation “Migrant Offshore Aid Station” (MOAS), bought the 40-metre-long “Phoenix” for $8 million and set sail. The crew stationed two large helicopter drones with night vision and thermal imaging cameras on the converted trawler. For some time, Mr and Mrs Catrambone have been able to recruit Stephan Staats for the galley, who, as the “chef to the super-rich”, makes a lot of money travelling the world with millionaires on their yachts.
MOAS describes its founding on its website as a reaction to the shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa, in which at least 368 people died in October 2013. Italy then launched the “Mare Nostrum” naval mission, which took 150,000 people on board from boats and ships in almost a year. Under pressure from the European Union, the government in Rome discontinued “Mare Nostrum” and on 1 November 2014 Frontex took over with the much less well-equipped “Triton” mission. Its aim was no longer to rescue people, and its operational area only included Italian coastal areas. The EU border agency waited there to see who had made the crossing alive and took the asylum seekers’ fingerprints for the application in Italy. Frontex continues this policy to this day.
Because the focus of “Triton” was not on human lives but on preventing migration, four families from the German state of Brandenburg also founded the “Sea-Watch” association in 2014 and raised money for the first ship of the same name, which was deployed for the first time on 20 June 2015. Then as now, the association criticised the fact that the EU does not want to provide adequate civilian sea rescue in the Mediterranean – which is why activists have to take over. However, organisations such as Sea-Watch are also concerned with wider politics: even back then, entrepreneur Harald Höppner, who initiated the association, emphasised the “multiple crises” that drive people into dangerous flight: Wars, climate change, poverty, hunger.
This year, “Sea-Watch” commissioned a much larger vessel, the 70-metre-long “Sea-Watch 5”, also operates the 14-metre rescue boat “Aurora” and has been able to recruit two pilot associations to search for boats carrying refugees using small aircraft since 2017. The whole civilian rescue fleet deployed to the central Mediterranean by various European organisations has now grown to around 20 ships – although they are not always on the move at the same time due to shipyard times, repairs or crew rotations. These unprecedented missions are largely financed by donations. In the case of Germany, the associations were able to use political pressure to secure a Bundestag resolution in 2022, according to which the federal government will spend €2 million on sea rescue every year for four years; the funds are administered by the “United 4 Rescue” association, which also receives donations from church organisations.
The activists at sea were also subjected to repression early on. Initially, this mainly came from Libyan militias, who act as a “Coast Guard” and occupied the bridge of the “Sea-Watch” with armed force already in 2016. Such threats continue to this day. Since 2023, a new Italian law has been causing particular problems for the organisations, according to which ships can be arrested if they rescue too many people and foresees that the captains can be fined.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: Brandenburg entrepreneur Harald Höppner, who co-founded the “Sea-Watch” organisation, on board of their first ship (Ruben Neugebauer/Jib collective/Seawatch).
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