The Sandy is a coaster flying the Togo flag that made headlines after drifting off the Italian coast with several hundred mostly Syrian refugees in early December 2014. The ship was towed to Crotone on December 9, 2014 .
The use of the Sandy and the refugee ships Baris , Blue Sky M and Ezadeen , which were brought in under comparable circumstances, led to an extensive debate about new smuggling methods and refugee policy in the Mediterranean.
The coaster of Sietas Type 95 in 1977 as hull number 823 at the Sietas group belonging Norderwerft in Hamburg built. The client of the ship launched on September 2, 1977 was Helmut Rolf from Hamburg. After the handover on October 1, 1977, the Kümo was put into operation under the name Nordlicht II . On December 9, 1982, the ship was renamed Pico Ruivo for a charter that lasted until April 1987 to the shipping company Empresa de Navegação Madeirense from Madeira , although the ship retained its charter name after it was returned. On April 28, 1995, the freighter was sold to the Baltic Champ Marine in Panama, renamed Baltic Champ and re-measured, after which the ship was given a gross tonnage of 1660 and a deadweight of 2036 tons. Glahr & Co. in Bremen took over the management. On December 12, 1995, the Baltic Champ collided with the
Sabine D (IMO 7633399) in the Kiel Canal near Nübbel , which capsized and lost 90 containers. Glahr & Co. continued to manage the shipments after it was transferred to North Transit Marine in Panama in 1999. In 2002 the ship was passed on to the shipping company Rakel Laiva in Rotterdam under the management of Sillanpää Trading in Mynamäki, Finland, and renamed Rakel . In 2011 Nargys Shipping in Lowestoft acquired the Kümo and used it as Rania under the Sierra Leone flag and managed by the Bia Shipping Company in Constantza. A year later, the Alkhalil Shipping Company in Belize City took over the freighter and placed it as Ahmad-M under the management of the Unimarine Management Company in Tartous. In June 2014, the ship was finally sold on to Latakia-based Enamar Management, who named the ship Sandy .
As a refugee ship
The Sandy entered the port of Mersin in November 2014 and was officially on a voyage to Oran at the beginning of December . On December 9, 2014, the ship drifted off the Italian coast without a pilot. The ship was later occupied by Italian forces and brought into the port of Crotone , where the refugees were taken care of.
