SOS MEDITERRANEE 347d ago

On March 13, 2024, our team rescued 25 people from a rubber boat that had been drifting for a week without rescue and without food or water. The extremely weakened survivors told us that at least 60 people died in front of their eyes during that week. One of the rescued persons passed away after being evacuated from the Ocean Viking. Rescue Team Member Thérèse remembers the pain and anger of hearing how helicopters, boats, drones and planes passed the boat throughout the week but help never came. “When you come across a small boat with people dying on board, it is a tragedy. But above all, it is a crime, because abandoning people at sea is forbidden by law. What seems crazy about this story is that sea rescue has become an act of resistance – a legal act of resistance,” says Thérèse. Today we call for an end to the obstruction of humanitarian Search and Rescue in the central Mediterranean and for a transparent investigation to establish what actions was taken to rescue the 85 people traveling on this boat. But above all, we remember and mourn the casualties of this horrific and avoidable tragedy.