Left to drown in the Southern European Border: One year of Geo Barents at sea
July 5, 2022One year of operations in the Central Mediterranean have passed by, this time with the Geo Barents - Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) vessel - rescuing 3,138 people and conducting 6,536 medical consultations before disembarking in a place of safety in...
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Mediterranean migration: The father who faced the sea so his sons might go to school
November 26, 2021On 16 November, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières' search and rescue ship, the Geo Barents, responded to a distress call of a small wooden boat floating in the Central Mediterranean Sea. Our teams rescued 99 people; tragically, 10 people died, having been asphyxiated...
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Search and rescue: “They describe Libya as hell”
October 31, 2021“They are playing now, they smile and befriend each other, they seem like any other young people,” says Julie Melichar, humanitarian affairs officer on board MSF’s search and rescue vessel Geo Barents. “But they are no longer just children or teenagers –...
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Mediterranean migration: Stories of survival at sea
October 2, 2021MSF rescued 60 people, including six minors and 24 women, during two operations on board the Geo Barents ship on Monday 20 September. Once safely on board, some of the survivors decided to share the stories of their horrific journeys across the...
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MSF requests the revocation of the Geo Barents’ detention
July 24, 2021On 23 July MSF officially requested the release of its ship the Geo Barents from three weeks of detention after having responded to all requests made by the Italian Maritime Authority, which on 2 July identified 22 deficiencies leading to...
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Mediterranean migration: MSF returns to saving lives at sea in central Mediterranean
May 13, 2021AMSTERDAM – Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announces today the relaunch of its search and rescue activities in the central Mediterranean Sea to save the lives of refugees and migrants attempting the deadly sea crossing from Libya. Since 2015, MSF...
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Mediterranean migration: Carnage in the Mediterranean is the direct result of European state policies
November 13, 2020AMSTERDAM/ PARIS - The last few days have produced one of the most lethal episodes in the central Mediterranean Sea so far this year, with more than 100 people dying at sea in four separate shipwrecks within less than 72 hours. Six NGO rescue...
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Mediterranean migration: Five things to know about the Mediterranean search and rescue crisis
October 17, 2020Five search and rescue boats detained, including MSF's Sea-Watch 4, in five months. Here are five things to know about the current situation with search and rescue in the Mediterranean sea. 1. European governments are preventing rescue ships from saving lives The Sea-Watch...
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Mediterranean migration: Detaining of fifth search and rescue ship in five months condemns people to die at sea
September 20, 2020Amsterdam/Palermo - Misuse of maritime law is providing a smoke-screen for a political decision to prevent rescue ships from saving lives in the Mediterranean, declares Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), as the Sea-Watch 4 becomes the fifth NGO ship...
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Mediterranean migration: “Enough is enough”: Time to stop the cycle of suffering for refugees on Greek islands
September 18, 2020Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling on the Greek and the EU authorities to stop their efforts to rebuild a new system of containment for refugees and asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos, Greece, and to break once and...
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Mediterranean migration: MSF and Sea-Watch announce collaboration to save lives at sea
August 6, 2020BERLIN, GERMANY/ BURRIANA, SPAIN - Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is to join Sea-Watch on board the Sea-Watch 4, a new ship bound for lifesaving operations in the Central Mediterranean Sea. The collaboration has been urgently established as European member states brazenly...
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Mediterranean migration: EU states use COVID-19 to shirk search and rescue obligations as MSF ends Ocean Viking partnership
April 17, 2020AMSTERDAM – European governments must stop using the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity to enforce deadly migration control policies and must immediately lift the obstacles preventing NGOs from saving lives at sea, says Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in an urgent call today....
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