Tragic shipwreck off the Italian coast: Flash quote from Marco Bertotto, Head of Operations MSF Italy
June 19, 2024Faced with yet another heartbreaking count, 21 bodies and over 60 missing in just 10 days in the Mediterranean Sea, the institutional silence is shameful. It is a silence that disregards the pain of survivors, a dehumanizing void that is...
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41 people died in shipwreck off Lampedusa
August 10, 2023By Juan Matías Gil, MSF Search and Rescue Representative“These kinds of tragedies are happening daily in the Mediterranean and at the European borders, right in front of everyone’s eyes. More and more people have been taking the sea to find refuge over...
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MSF: “We call upon the European Commission and EU States to urgently invest in life-saving rescue capacities”
July 14, 2023Today, the European Parliament, representing the citizens of the EU, adopted a Resolution on the need for the European Union to step up its efforts in saving lives at sea and to invest in proactive state-led search and rescue activities....
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Non-Governmental Organisations urge European Commission to put under scrutiny Italian law restricting search and rescue activities at sea
July 13, 2023Brussels, 13 July, 2023 – Five leading Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have submitted a complaint to the European Commission (EC) about Italian Law 15/2023 and the practice by Italian authorities of assigning ports distant from the area where the rescue took...
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MSF: EU policies are killing people as they search for safety
July 8, 202330 June, 2023 – Following the shipwreck of 14 June which left up to 500 people dead or missing off the coast of Greece, international humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) denounces EU migration policies and calls for...
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New decree obstructs lifesaving rescue efforts at sea and will cause more deaths
January 5, 2023We, civil organisations engaged in search and rescue (SAR) activities in the central Mediterranean Sea, express our gravest concerns regarding the latest attempt by a European government to obstruct assistance to people in distress at sea.A new law decree, signed...
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Libya: “I’m terrified that something bad will happen to my son”
November 2, 2022Libyans desperate to flee violence risk the dangerous crossing to Europe Today, November 2, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on migration between the Italian and Libyan governments will automatically renew for three years. The European Union (EU)-sponsored agreement has seen...
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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: 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: 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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