Malta allows Libyan Coastguard to intercept a migrant boat within its own search and rescue zone

ACTIVISTS accused the Maltese maritime authorities of violating international refugee laws in two separate events in the Mediterranean this weekend. The first incident happened on Friday afternoon after Alarm Phone, a network which provides support for people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, alerted the Maltese Armed Forces of a migrant boat in distress within its

EU border policies have turned the sea into a refugee graveyard, civil migrant rescue fleet charges

THE EU’s border policies have turned the Mediterranean Sea into a refugee graveyard, NGOs charged today after photos emerged of some of the people who died in a recent shipwreck six miles off the coast of Lampedusa. The people pictured on the sea bed by the Italian coastguard drowned after the wooden boat carrying approximately

The civil refugee rescue fleet is no ‘pull factor’

Speaking to Ben Cowles, Italian researcher MATTEO VILLA debunks the idea that search and rescue operations are encouraging people to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean to Europe THE European Union recently agreed to extend its anti-human trafficking naval mission, known as Operation Sophia, for a further six months. Though ostensibly a military mission, Operation

‘It will not be easy to reconcile how Europe is allowing this to happen’

HANNAH WALLACE BOWMAN speaks about her time on board the Ocean Viking, an NGO migrant rescue ship that has saved hundreds of lives despite Fortress Europe’s dogged efforts to stop them “I CAN’T even begin to describe how overwhelming the situation in Libya and the Mediterranean is,” says Hannah Wallace Bowman, communications manager on board