Number of missing people in the Mediterranean has risen to more than 30,000 since 2014

According to statistics, almost 80 percent of those missing have disappeared in the central Mediterranean. Many of those who have died are children. In 2024 alone, more than 1,000 people will have disappeared on the deadliest escape route, the German aid organization Sea-Eye complained in a press release on Wednesday.

Criticism from aid organizations

“Instead of taking action against aid organisations, the European Union and its member states must finally live up to their responsibilities in the Mediterranean. At present, they are neither tackling the causes of migration nor providing safe escape routes, but are only making our humanitarian work more difficult: through detentions, the allocation of distant ports or stricter requirements for civilian rescue ships,” explained Gorden Isler, Chairman of Sea-Eye.

Between June 2023 and June 2024, the “Sea-Eye 4” was detained in Italy for a total of 120 days. The Regensburg-based association has filed several lawsuits against the detentions by the Italian authorities. On June 5, a court in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy upheld a lawsuit filed by Sea-Eye and declared the 60-day administrative detention of the rescue ship “Sea-Eye 4” in March 2024 to be unlawful.

More than 17,000 people rescued

Sea-Eye is now sending a former sea rescue cruiser to the Mediterranean. Oscar-nominated German actress Sandra Hüller christened the rescue ship on Monday in the port of the Adriatic city of Ancona with its new name “Sea-Eye 5”. In autumn 2020, the association bought the “Sea-Eye 4” and sent it on its first rescue mission in May 2021. The aid organisation says it has been involved in rescuing more than 17,000 people in the Mediterranean.