Save a life, save the world
let's rescue humanity together,
support our missions in the Mediterranean
11 years after 3 October 2013, when 368 people drowned a few dozen metres off the coast of Lampedusa, much has changed in the world, but in the central Mediterranean people continue to be killed (more than 30,000 in the last 10 years, 1,121 since the beginning of 2024 alone) (1) by the securitarian and neo-colonial policies of the West, and in particular the European Union and its member states.
The Lampedusa massacre, however, has contributed to the indignation and anger of Italian and European civil society to cry out "never again". Not an empty and opportunistic slogan, like the one constantly repeated by the representatives of the same institutions that have created and continue to create a Europe based on the rejection of human beings and the abolition of the right to asylum. Racism and xenophobia are rampant, driven by the political choices of governments that have gradually made their attitude towards migrants clear: they only need "weapons" to put to work, and certainly not human beings with rights. That is why, in addition to the policy of rejection that leads to massacres at sea, there is also the policy of 'labour' flows, but without any welcome, without any idea of welfare. The 'government of migration' is finished with the militarisation of the security decrees, with the massacres at sea due to hit-and-runs, with the deportation agreements to Libya, Tunisia and Albania.
But the cry of Lampedusa, that 3 October 11 years ago, was a cry that led thousands of people from all over Europe to take action, at sea and on land, finding themselves in many and varied concrete practices of rescue, support and reception. A civil society that organised itself and did not turn its back on the cries coming from Lampedusa. There, where freedom of movement and human rights are denied from above, a multitude is acting and practising them concretely from below.
This is what led us, five years after that terrible massacre, to put to sea the Mare Jonio, a civil rescue ship that left the port of Augusta for its first mission on the night of 3-4 October 2018. To be part of the crowd that did not turn away.
Over the years, successive governments have tried to stop us and continue to do so with increasing skill and tenacity: inconvenient witnesses must be removed from the scene, those who dare to disobey orders cannot be tolerated if the idea of society is that of a barracks.
But we will not stop. As long as even one person is forced to risk his or her life by taking to the sea instead of being allowed to enter a 'safe country' through legal channels, we will be there.
The ideals that bring us to the central Mediterranean are the same ideals that inspire our missions in Ukraine, Palestine and on the Italian land borders: to be at the side of the civilian population, of women, men and children who suffer the tragedy of war, occupation and refoulement. And the war against people on the move is also a war. By providing aid, support and protection, we have chosen to serve a humanity struggling to survive. And it is only by starting from the right to life of every human being that we can speak of dignity, justice and peace.
Since that 3 October 2018, so many people have come together to do this. No one is saved alone" is the deepest legacy of that tragedy which, unfortunately, has never stopped.
This fight against the only possible world, the world of massacres and the death of oppressed people, is for us an affirmation of life. A way of life for another possible world.
It is in concrete practice, not in bombastic and ideological speeches, that everything we do makes sense.
And that is why, since 3 October, we want to be where we need to be. At sea, on land, in every way.
(1) Data Missing Migrants Project: https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean