The trial opens tomorrow — Tuesday, October 21 — before the Court of Ragusa, where six of our comrades stand accused of the serious charge of “aggravated facilitation of illegal immigration” (under Article 12 of the Consolidated Immigration Act).

Their crime? Having, in various ways, taken part in the mission of our ship Mare Jonio, which in September 2020 rescued 27 shipwreck survivors who had been abandoned for 38 days by all European authorities (Malta and Denmark first among them) aboard the Danish oil tanker Maersk Etienne, just off the Maltese islands.

The Etienne had rescued these people fleeing Libya—where they had endured unspeakable violence and abuse of every kind—on August 5, as their boat was sinking in international waters. The Maltese authorities, who had coordinated the rescue, refused to assign a safe port for disembarkation. And the Danish government did nothing to resolve the situation.

On September 11, 2020, after more than a month of unanswered appeals from the crew, United Nations agencies, and humanitarian organizations across Europe, our Mare Jonio, which was on a SAR (Search and Rescue) mission, responded to Etienne’s request for assistance and boarded the tanker with its medical team.

During that intervention, we confirmed that the situation had become unbearable and incompatible with the continued presence of the rescued people on board the Etienne, due to their rapidly deteriorating physical and psychological condition.

The 27 people were transferred onto the Mare Jonio, where they received initial medical care. On the evening of September 13, the Italian authorities (the Ministry of the Interior and the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, MRCC Rome) assigned Pozzallo as the safe port for disembarkation.

Three months after the events, the shipping company that owned the vessel, Maersk Tankers, made a transparent donation in support of civilian sea rescue operations. The Ragusa Public Prosecutor’s Office used this as grounds to accuse the Mediterranea activists of “facilitating illegal immigration,” aggravated by the slanderous claim of a “profit motive,” unleashing a full-blown smear campaign against us.

Five years after those events, the public trial is finally opening. For us, this will be an opportunity to reestablish the full truth and legitimacy of what happened — and to turn this absurd accusation against sea rescue and solidarity into a trial against those who, at sea, allow women, men, and children to die in massacres like the one in Cutro, or through deliberate failures to rescue that cause suffering and death.