MSF ends operation of Geo Barents search and rescue vessel with commitment to return to Central Mediterranean Sea
December 13, 2024Rome, 13 December 2024 – The international medical and humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced today that it has ceased operations on board its rescue vessel, Geo Barents, which had been operational since June 2021. Italian laws and policies...
Read moreDetention on MSF rescue ship is suspended by Italian court
September 16, 2024Rome, Italy – On 11 September, the Italian Civil Court of Salerno ordered the suspension of the 60-day administrative detention of the Geo Barents, the search and rescue ship operated by Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The Italian authorities had...
Read moreTragic 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...
Read moreDeath, despair and destitution: The human costs of the EU’s migration policies
February 20, 2024In the last years, a policy-made crisis has been unfolding across Europe, at its borders, and beyond, which has resulted in a surge in deaths, despair and destitution among people attempting to seek safety and protection within the European Union...
Read more41 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...
Read moreMSF: “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....
Read moreMSF: 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...
Read moreLeft 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...
Read moreMSF 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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