Safira concludes #Mission 21. Seventy-eight helped at sea as hundreds fleeing Libya and Tunisia landed in Lampedusa

With the return of the sailing vessel SAFIRA - on Saturday, April 19, 2025 - to her home port of Trapani, from where she had set sail on the morning of April 2, the #Mission21 of MEDITERRANEA Saving Humans came to an end. During these three weeks, the SAFIRA sailed from the port of Lampedusa in the waters south of the island, carrying out observation and surveillance operations to protect people's fundamental rights, ready to help people in distress at sea and rescue them if necessary.

In particular, she had to intervene in two cases and directly help 78 people during the mission. In the first case, around 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 6, SAFIRA rescued 28 people (including 12 unaccompanied minors) who were aboard a fiberglass boat and had set off from the coast of Sabratha fleeing Libya. They were adrift after one of the boat's two outboard engines caught fire.

The 28 survivors, originally from Egypt, Sudan, Bangladesh and Morocco, were exhausted at the time of the rescue and badly scarred by the 52 hours they had spent at sea. After the rescue operation by our rescue team, they were given initial treatment by the doctors on board, particularly for several cases of severe dehydration. All the people were then brought safely ashore in Lampedusa, a port designated by the Italian authorities as a safe place for disembarkation, at 1:15 a.m. on Monday, May 7.

The rescue took place in the SAR zone under Maltese and Tunisian jurisdiction 36 nautical miles southwest of Lampedusa. The Tunisian authorities did not respond to our communications and the Maltese authorities we contacted explicitly refused to help us. The endangered boat had not been reported by anyone and was spotted by us directly. If we had not intercepted the boat, this incident would have become another "ghost shipwreck"

The sighting occurred during search operations that we had initiated at 8:45 a.m. in the same area, after our Crew had spotted in the sea first the traces of a wooden boat wreck (yellow-colored planks floating, as if they were the remains of a wreck) and then the lifeless body of a black young man wearing a brown jacket. When SAFIRA approached to retrieve him and give him an identity and a dignified burial, the body disappeared in the waves, swallowed by the sea. The Coast Guard and the IT MRCC (Maritime Rescue Coordination Center) in Rome were immediately notified of this discovery so that the necessary search and verification could be initiated.

After landing the 28 rescued people and the necessary cleaning and preparation of the boat, which took 24 hours and was characterized by considerable weather instability, the SAFIRA left Lampedusa on Tuesday, April 8.

The second case occurred on Saturday afternoon, April 12, when SAFIRA responded to a “May-Day-Relay",” i.e. an SOS, triggered by the Frontex aircraft Eagle 1, after tracking several "distress situations" reported by Alarm Phone and the Sea-Watch aircraft Seabird 3. Our sailboat reached the reported position between the Tunisian and Maltese SAR zones, more than 40 miles south of Lampedusa, and our rescue team intervened to provide immediate assistance to the distressed vessel. The 50 people in distress were rescued and subsequently taken on board by the Italian Coast Guard patrol boat CP319 (which disembarked safely in Lampedusa the same evening), while our crew remained on site until the operation was completed.

Civil Fleet's Commitment

The entire #Mission21 was characterized by two elements. The first, as already mentioned, was the extremely unstable weather and sea situation with the passage of three different disturbances in the central Mediterranean, one of which was cyclonic in nature, with strong alternating sirocco and libeccio winds and waves of up to four meters.

The second was the extensive engagement in recent weeks of the Civil Fleet, with several assets with whom we directly cooperated at sea and with whom we met in the port of Lampedusa. 

In addition to the aforementioned crucial role of Alarm Phone and Sea-Watch Airborne in reporting cases and observing vessels in distress from the air, we have had the opportunity to cooperate in recent days in operations with the vessel Aita Mari of Salvamento Maritimo Humanitario, the other sailboats Nadir of Resqship, Trotamar III of Compass Collective, Daikini and Nihayet Garganey, and the fast-rigged Aurora Sar of Sea-Watch. And, while larger vessels such as Humanity 1, Life Support and Solidaire were sent to disembark people rescued in the Libyan SAR zone in the distant ports of Genoa, Ravenna and Ancona, respectively, the fast unit Sea-Eye 5 of the German organization of the same name, also began operating south of the island.

The Civil Fleet's role has been of paramount importance at a time when, despite difficult weather conditions, dozens of precarious boats have departed from Libya and Tunisia and more than two thousand people have managed to arrive in recent weeks, either independently or thanks to rescues from institutional or nongovernmental assets, in Lampedusa.

Libya and Tunisia are not safe countries

As we wrote on April 5 sailing from Lampedusa, “In Libya and Tunisia, every day, it is hunting for the migrant person. Especially if black, Christian and/or belonging to the LGBTQAI+ community. Street rakes, deportations and abandonments in the desert, interceptions at sea, arbitrary detentions in prison camps, torture and extortion are the daily chronicle at the hands of regimes and militias that are the privileged partners of the Italian government and European institutions.” Laura Marmorale, president of Mediterranea Saving Humans added, “In recent days, the forced closure of the activities of a dozen non-governmental organizations in Tripoli and the interventions to repress humanitarian work in Tunis have shown that Libya and Tunisia are anything but safe countries from which hundreds of people are rightly trying to flee to seek protection in Europe.”

Not to mention the more than 600 people who have lost their lives in the central Mediterranean since January 1 of this year - according to the IOM, which is certainly an underestimate.

“Our ship Mare Jonio is in the shipyard in Naples for maintenance, but our response can only be: we're going back to sea,” explained Denny Castiglione, mission leader on board.

“We are witnessing: Libyan criminals and traffickers, wanted by international justice, unpunished and protected; espionage against victims and witnesses, humanitarian activistə and independent journalists; plans to deport migrant people to third countries,” concluded President Marmorale. ”We also return to the sea to testify that in our country humanity and solidarity are widely spread values. And that, at sea as on land, no one can be left behind.”

Trapani, April 22, 2025