While authoritarian regimes, far-right governments, and dictatorial rulers terrorize people day after day, there is a group of individuals who tirelessly do what should be a matter of course: save human lives. The sea rescuers - the NGOs, the crews of rescue ships like the Geo Barents (Doctors Without Borders), the Ocean Viking (SOS Méditerranée), or the Sea-Watch 4 (Sea-Watch e.V.) - risk their own lives to pull refugees from the deadliest waters in the world. They rescue people fleeing from war, persecution, and hunger - whether from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan, or Libya. People who, in their desperation, crowd onto unseaworthy boats because they see no other way out in their homeland. People who were often held for years in internment camps, torture prisons, or under slave-like conditions before they dared to flee across the Mediterranean Sea.
Europe: Isolation Instead of Humanity. But what are the European states doing? While these men and women desperately search the high seas for shipwrecked people to save them from certain death, their work is criminalized by governments. Instead of support, there are indictments. Instead of gratitude, there are blockades. Time and again, rescue ships are held in ports for weeks because Italy, Malta, or Greece refuse to let them dock. In 2023, the Italian government under Giorgia Meloni attempted to render civilian sea rescue virtually impossible with new legislation. At the same time, Germany, France, and other EU states are financing the so-called “Libyan Coast Guard” - a force that is nothing more than a band of militias and human traffickers who intercept refugees, drag them back to Libya, and lock them in camps where rape, torture, and enslavement are daily occurrences. The European Union - which otherwise likes to present itself as a defender of human rights - becomes complicit in the mass dying in the Mediterranean through its isolationist policies. Thousands die on this escape route every year because there are no safe and legal pathways to entry. In 2023 alone, over 2,500 people died on the central Mediterranean route - not counting the unreported cases.
A Fight Against Windmills - But an Indispensable One. And yet, the sea rescuers do not give up. Organizations like Sea-Watch, SOS Méditerranée, Doctors Without Borders, Mission Lifeline, or Open Arms refuse to be discouraged. They stand against Europe’s coldness, against the hatred of far-right and authoritarian governments, against the border policies that let people drown. Every day, they prove that humanity is not dead - even if governments would prefer it that way. These people deserve the respect of all of us. They risk their lives to do what should actually be the responsibility of states: to save people from drowning. They are the last bastion against a world that is increasingly becoming numb to death. Their courage, their determination, and their humanity are a light in dark times.
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