Sea-Watch

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Sea-Watch
legal form registered association
founding 19th May 2015
founder Harald Höppner
Seat Berlin GermanyGermanyGermany 
purpose Rescuing people in distress
Chair Johannes Bayer
sales 1,608,109 euros (2017)
Website sea-watch.org

Sea-Watch is a German association based in Berlin to rescue refugees in distress in the Mediterranean . It was founded in 2015 by Harald Höppner . In addition to its own rescue missions by means of the association's own rescue ship, Sea-Watch finances and supports to a large extent the pilot initiative launched in 2015 , which looks for refugee boats from Malta with airplanes.

founding

The association was formed at the end of 2014 from an initiative by volunteers led by Harald Höppner when the Italian naval operation Mare Nostrum was ended. On May 19, 2015, the association was founded by Frank Dörner, Harald Höppner, Holger Mag, Ingo Werth, Matthias Kuhnt, Peter Breidbach, Ruben Neugebauer and Tilman Holsten to rescue refugees in distress in the Mediterranean. The organization provides humanitarian aid through immediate sea rescue. At the political level, Sea-Watch denounces the absence of state sea rescue services and calls for safe access routes for refugees and other migrants to Europe with political actions.

Sea rescue

Höppner bought an old fishing cutter ( Sea-Watch ), which was converted between February and April 2015 in Hamburg-Harburg in order to use the ship in the Mediterranean from mid-June 2015. From November 2015 to January 2016, the association acted as part of the rescuers help rescuers program of the International Maritime Rescue Federation (parallel to the rescue activities on the central Mediterranean route) with two speedboats off the Greek island of Lesbos in order to reduce the death rate for the numerous translations from Turkey to Greece to contribute. According to its own information, the association saved around 2,000 people in 2015. In December 2015, the association acquired the Sea-Watch 2 . The Sea-Watch 3 is currently in operation .

Ships

Sea-Watch 2 overflowing with rescued people, March 19, 2017

With relatively small and slow boats, which are not intended for the long-term reception of rescued persons and the transfer in ports, Sea-Watch operates with inflatable life rafts on which people find refuge. The association sees the takeover and transport to a safe harbor as the central task of state rescue at sea. So far Sea-Watch has avoided official investigations such as identity checks on board their ships.

Sea-Watch
The Sea-Watch ship of the same name is a former fishing cutter that the association acquired in 2015 and converted into a lifeboat for use in the Mediterranean. The boat has meanwhile been handed over to the Mare Liberum association .
Sea-Watch 2
Sea-Watch 2 is a former fisheries research vessel and took over14-day rescue operationsbetween the Libyan coast and the island of Malta from 2016 to 2017 as thesuccessor to the Sea-Watch . After that, the ship was sold to the Mission Lifeline .
Sea-Watch 3
Sea-Watch 3 was previously operated as Dignity I by the non-governmental organization Doctors Without Borders . The ship is according to its own information 50 m long and was registered as a yacht in the Netherlands until the end of 2019. The ship has been sailing under the German flag since the beginning of December 2019. According to its own information, the Sea-Watch 3 canaccommodatemore people than the Sea-Watch 2 .
Mare Jonio
Since the beginning of October 2018, the association has been operating the tug Mare Jonio together with the Italian sea rescue project Mediterranea Saving Humans , which, however, was not originally used to rescue shipwrecked people itself, but was to be used to locate and secure refugee boats in distress.
Sea-Watch 4
The association has been operating Sea-Watch 4 (previously Poseidon) since the beginning of February 2020 . The ship was acquired with donations from the alliance United4Rescue - Rescue Together and went into service next to the Sea-Watch 3 in mid-August 2020 ,

Planes

To search for refugee boats, sea areas are monitored by small aircraft. For this purpose, Fabio Zgraggen founded the "Humanitarian Pilots Initiative", which is financed from donations from the Sea-Watch Group, but which is also looking for inflatable boats independently of the Sea-Watch ships. Everyone is potentially in distress at sea and one is obliged to report it to the rescue control centers, as these boats are "mostly extremely overloaded and not seaworthy".

Moonbird
From Malta, the Moonbird aircraft , a Cirrus SR22 , is operated by the Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative and Sea-Watch. The project is supported by the Evangelical Church in Germany . In 2017, the machine is said to have sighted 119 boats and thus contributed to the rescue of 20,000 people.
After the Maltese government closed the ports to ships operated by non-governmental organizations in June 2018, the authorities also issued a ban on the aircraft for reconnaissance flights off the Libyan coast in early July 2018. In 2019, the Italian aviation authority issued the Moonbird a take-off ban, as the aircraft could only be used for recreational or non-profit purposes.

Incident on May 10, 2017

At the beginning of May 2017, Sea-Watch got into a dispute with the Libyan coast guard . Sea-Watch was called to a rescue operation off the Libyan coast. The Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome transferred the coordination of the operation ( ON-Scene-Coordination ) to the Coast Guard . Sea-Watch accused the Libyan coast guard of having narrowly passed the Sea-Watch ship in a risky maneuver. The Libyan captain was also accused by the helpers of not having responded to their radio messages or those of an Italian naval helicopter, which had instructed him to stop immediately. The Libyan coast guard said they had been shot at by smugglers. and in turn accused Sea-Watch of having disrupted the operation of the Coast Guard. According to the spokesman Ajub Kassem, Sea-Watch wanted to save the castaways itself and cited the reason that Libya was not safe. Five people lost their lives during the rescue operation. The Coast Guard eventually picked up nearly 500 people and brought them back to Libya. In July 2017, the International Criminal Court in The Hague announced that it had initiated investigations into the Libyan Coast Guard over the Sea-Watch complaint.

Incident of November 6, 2017

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On November 6, 2017, more than 50 people died in a rescue operation involving Sea-Watch and the Libyan Coast Guard. The Sea-Watch 3 had been commissioned by the sea rescue control center in Rome with the rescue of the people and at the same time arrived on the spot with a Libyan boat. According to a spokeswoman for the Italian coast guard , the Libyan authorities had taken over the coordination of the operation. A rubber boat was wrecked on which 140 people had driven out to sea. Most of them were non-swimmers. According to Reuters one in its possession video turned out to evaluate the situation as follows: Some of the shipwrecked migrants refused to be rescued by the Libyan coast guard and tried instead to arrive at the Sea Watch boat and on a nearby French warship . According to the Libyan coast guard, Sea-Watch undermined an ongoing rescue operation. The Sea-Watch 3 ignored the coast guard's instructions to move away. According to Sea-Watch, the Libyan coast guard tried to prevent the Sea-Watch boat from reaching. Due to the "brutal action" by the coast guard, there was panic and several migrants fell into the water. According to its spokeswoman, the Italian coast guard was unable to provide any information on the development on site. An Italian Navy helicopter stopped the Libyan Coast Guard ship. In the opinion of Kordula Dörfler , the images presented by Sea-Watch support their presentation. Sea-Watch eventually rescued 58 people and brought them to Europe, the Libyan Coast Guard took 45 on board and brought them back to Libya. The Italian police are investigating the deaths . Sea-Watch 3 was therefore refused to leave the port of Pozzallo for an initially indefinite period. Seventeen Nigerian migrants, including the parents of two dead children, filed complaints against Italy in April 2018 with the support of non-governmental organizations including Sea-Watch. Through its cooperation with the Libyan coast guard, this provoked the shipwreck with over 20 dead, according to the complaint. The plaintiffs were rescued from the incident by the Libyan coast guard and brought back to Libya, where some say they were later tortured. Three of them have since returned to Nigeria to escape the Libyan refugee centers. Italy thus violates the non-refoulement principle .

Sea-Watch 3 no longer expires in Malta

In June 2018 the Sea-Watch 3 was arrested by the Maltese authorities in the port of Valletta because it was not properly registered under the Dutch flag. Although the correct Dutch registration had already been clarified in July, the Sea Watch 3 continued to be refused to leave Valletta until October, according to Sea-Watch for political reasons. With such arbitrary acts, the government would hinder sea rescue and would be responsible for the deaths of other people. According to the report of the newspaper Die Zeit , the expulsion ban was issued without giving any concrete reasons in order to try to obtain an apparently legally irrelevant explanation from the NGO to refrain from carrying out rescue missions in the future. In December 2018, Sea-Watch filed a lawsuit against the Maltese Ministry of Transport because it had arbitrarily prevented the Sea-Watch 3 from being freely available.

Mooring ban and decision of the ECHR in January 2019

After the ship Sea Watch 3 with 47 people rescued from distress, who were picked up on January 19 off the Libyan coast, had waited over a week off Sicily for permission to land the people, the organization reached the European on January 28 Court of Human Rights submitted an urgent motion on behalf of the captain and one of the "rescued migrants", which, according to press reports, was supposed to force the people to land in Italy. The European Court of Human Rights ruled a day later that Italy had to provide the people on board with medical and food supplies, but Italy did not have to let the people ashore. The minors must also be provided with legal assistance on board. A little later it became known from those around the Italian government that representatives of Germany, France, Portugal, Romania and Malta had agreed to accept the people.

Political commitment

According to a report in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung from May 2017, Sea-Watch operates an EU-critical "political marketing". They believe that Fortress Europe is to blame for the crisis . For example, in May 2017 Ruben Neugebauer called the EU a “conflict party” in the refugee crisis, which, for example, incited the Libyan coast guard to break the law.

Like many other NGOs, the association calls for safe and legal entry options to be created so that people do not have to risk their lives in the Mediterranean, and in particular criticizes the closure of the Balkan route, the EU-Turkey deal and the rebuilding of the Libyan coast guard by the EU .

Cooperation with the EKD

The sea rescue ship Sea Watch 4 , financed by the Evangelical Church , has been in use under the direction of Sea-Watch since 2020. For this purpose, the Association Rescuing Together was launched, of which Michael Schwickart from Sea-Watch is Vice Chairman.

financing

For the years 2017 & 2018 the association stated the following expenses:

  • 2017: € 1,954,316.42 expenditure for the entire year; thereof 23.4% for the purchase of the Sea-Watch 3, 41.9% for the operation of the three ships and 18.4% for the Moonbird aerial reconnaissance mission.
  • 2018: € 1,403,409.26 expenditure for January – October; 55.9% for the operation of the Sea-Watch 3 and 14% for Moonbird.

Like many other sea rescue organizations, Sea-Watch, as a non-profit organization, is financed exclusively from donations. The 1,797,388 € collected from January to October 2018 consisted of 87% individual donations and 11.4% sponsoring memberships. The activists also run an online shop for merchandise . According to its own information from 2017, there were around 12,000 donors. At the closing service of the Evangelical Church Congress in 2019 , the collection was partly collected for the reconnaissance aircraft.

reception

In March 2017, Sea-Watch, together with Cadus , Jugend Rettet , Alarmphone , Mission Lifeline and Borderline Europe , rejected the allegation made by Frontex boss Fabrice Leggeri in February 2017 that the sea rescue organizations were supporting tugs through their mission . Leggeri pointed out that 40 percent of all actions were recently carried out by non-governmental organizations. According to Sea-Watch, these figures show above all that the EU is not fulfilling its responsibility here.

In 2017 the organization was awarded the “Frihedsprisen” by the left-liberal Danish daily Politiken for its commitment.

In 2019 Lifeboat , a documentary film about a two-week voyage made by Sea-Watch volunteers off the coast of Libya, was nominated for an Oscar in the category Best Documentary Short .

The documentary Sea Watch 3 by filmmakers Nadia Kailouli and Jonas Schreijäg was released in 2019 . They accompanied the Sea Watch 3 on its rescue trip in June 2019 for 21 days until Carola Rackete was arrested.

In 2020, the Frankfurt Museum of World Cultures, in cooperation with Sea-Watch, is showing a photo exhibition on five years of civil sea rescue in the Mediterranean. An exhibition that, after Jan Tussing from the Hessenschau, impressively shows how Fortress Europe has been trampling on universal human rights for years.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Sea-Watch  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Flurin Clalüna: “Salam aleikum, Tripolis, we are looking for refugees” , Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 7 May 2017.
  2. ^ Paolo Cuttitta: Repoliticization Through Search and Rescue? Humanitarian NGOs and Migration Management in the Central Mediterranean . Geopolitics, Vol. 23, 2018, p. 7
  3. ^ Statutes of the "Sea-Watch eV" (PDF file; 312 kB).
  4. ↑ “People are forced onto the boats” , TAZ, December 14, 2016.
  5. ^ Paolo Cuttitta: Repoliticization Through Search and Rescue? Humanitarian NGOs and Migration Management in the Central Mediterranean . Geopolitics, Vol. 23, 2018, p. 10
  6. ^ Antje Hildebrandt: Rescue ship "Sea-Watch": Unusual project of refugee aid in the Mediterranean. Welt, August 29, 2015, accessed June 7, 2017 .
  7. ↑ IMRF Members Working Together to Help Save Lives on the Aegean Sea , IMRF March 3, 2017, accessed August 28, 2018
  8. ^ Umbaubericht 1 • Sea-Watch eV In: Sea-Watch eV February 15, 2015 ( sea-watch.org [accessed on August 17, 2018]).
  9. ^ Paolo Cuttitta: Repoliticization Through Search and Rescue? Humanitarian NGOs and Migration Management in the Central Mediterranean . Geopolitics, Vol. 23, 2018, p. 12
  10. ↑ Markus Weinberg: Help for boat refugees in the Mediterranean Sea - Dresdner Seotretter in action for the first time with their own ship ( Memento from June 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), MDR.de, September 2017.
  11. ↑ Sea-Watch 3 under the German flag since today • Sea-Watch eV In: Sea-Watch eV December 5, 2019, accessed on April 24, 2020 (German).
  12. ↑ We don't need more rules, we need more rescue ships. Sea Watch e. V., accessed on November 23, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Mediterranea / Mare Jonio. Sea Watch e. V., accessed October 8, 2018 .
  14. ↑ Sea-Watch resumes rescue operations off the Libyan coast. Zeit-Online, October 5, 2018, accessed October 8, 2018 .
  15. ^ Sea-Watch 4 • Sea-Watch eV In: Sea-Watch eV Retrieved on April 24, 2020 (German).
  16. ↑ Corona slows the rescue ship "Sea-Watch 4". Retrieved April 24, 2020 .
  17. ^ "The flying sea rescuers " DW.de of July 6, 2020
  18. ↑ After the ship, Malta is now also fixing the Sea-Watch aircraft , rbb24.de, July 4, 2018.
  19. ↑ a b Malta hinders refugee rescuers , Süddeutsche Zeitung, 4th July 2018.
  20. ↑ Lorenzo Tondo, Sam Jones: Italy grounds two planes used to search for migrant boats . Guardian, August 27, 2019, accessed August 31, 2019.
  21. ↑ Lizzie Dearden: Aid workers 'lucky to be alive' after Libyan coastguard intercepts refugee boat rescue in Mediterranean , Independent May 11, 2017, accessed April 9, 2018.
  22. ↑ a b Reuters: Libyan coastguard turns back nearly 500 migrants after altercation with NGO ship , May 10, 2017.
  23. ↑ German lifeboat clashes with Libyan coast guard , Welt, May 11, 2017.
  24. ↑ a b Libya accuses German refugee workers of disability , Der Standard, May 11, 2017.
  25. ^ Abdulkadder Assad: ICC probes Libyan Coast Guard over alleged attack on rescue NGOs . Libya Observer July 6, 2017, accessed June 11, 2018
  26. ↑ Die Welt, EU wants to expand training of the Libyan coast guard , November 12, 2017.
  27. ↑ a b Focus Online: Libya's Coast Guard charges: German helpers are to blame for the death of refugees , November 7, 2017.
  28. ↑ a b Ulf Laessing: Five migrants die when boat sinks, Libyan coast guard and German NGO blame each other . Reuters November 6, 2017, accessed April 10, 2018.
  29. ↑ a b c Kordula Doerfler: "Sea Watch 3" dead after rescue operation at sea - captain attacks coast guard , Kölner Stadtanzeiger, November 9, 2017, accessed April 19, 2018.
  30. ↑ Refugees are suing Italy . Deutsche Welle, May 8, 2018, accessed May 17, 2018.
  31. ↑ Christian Jakob: 17 survivors against Italy . TAZ May 8, 2018, accessed May 17, 2018.
  32. ^ Matthew Vella: Malta still preventing Sea-Watch vessel from departing, despite positive inspection . Maltatoday, September 11, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  33. ↑ Christian Jakob: Return of the sea rescuers . TAZ, November 6, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  34. ↑ Raphael Thelen and Andreas Evelt: "Sea-Watch 3" has all approvals - but may not expire . Spiegel, August 1, 2018, accessed November 23, 2018.
  35. ↑ Vanessa Vu: Malta demands that NGOs end their rescue missions . Zeit, September 26, 2018, accessed January 5, 2019.
  36. ↑ Denise Grech: Transport Ministry taken to court over 'abuse of power' . Malta Times, December 11, 2018, accessed December 11, 2018.
  37. ↑ Kristy Siegfried: "The Refugee Brief - 29 January 2019" UNHCR of 29 January 2019
  38. ^ European Court of Human Rights : ECHR grants an interim measure in case concerning the SeaWatch 3 vessel . In: Human Rights Documentation , January 29, 2019, accessed July 4, 2019.
  39. ↑ Colleen Barry and Menelaos Hadjicostis / AP: "Italy: 5 EU nations will take in migrants stranded at sea" yahoo.com from January 29, 2019
  40. ↑ Michael Braun: Helpers before the Italian authorities , TAZ May 11, 2017.
  41. ↑ Europe's civil rescue organizations reject FRONTEX allegations , Sea-Watch.
  42. ↑ a b “It's about badmouthing the work of Sea-Watch” , Deutschlandfunk, May 13, 2017.
  43. ^ "Sea rescue: Alliance wants to send an additional ship" idea.de of December 3, 2019
  44. ^ Sea-Watch eV: Annual report 2017-2018; P. 6f. Retrieved August 6, 2019 .
  45. ↑ Sea-Watch Shop. Retrieved on August 6, 2019 (German).
  46. ↑ Kirchentag ends with political appeals . In: dw.com , June 23, 2019, accessed June 26, 2019.
  47. ↑ Europe's civil rescue organizations reject FRONTEX allegations , Sea-Watch.
  48. ↑ Sofie Clausen: Frihedsprisen går til Sea Watch, the redder Flygtninge fra druknedøden . Politiken October 31, 2017, accessed April 15, 2018.
  49. ^ The Academy Awards 2019. In: oscars.org. Retrieved January 22, 2019 .
  50. ↑ Rupert Sommer: 21 days on board the "Sea-Watch 3": TV documentary traces Carola Rackete's wandering . Weserkurier October 8, 2019, accessed October 22, 2019.
  51. ^ Jan Tussing: Weltkulturenmuseum Frankfurt - Exhibition focuses on refugees and rescuers . Hessenschau, June 5, 2020, accessed June 5, 2020.
  52. ^ Sina Weinhold: Insight into five years of civil sea rescue in the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt . SWR2, June 4, 2020, accessed June 5, 2020.
  53. ↑ Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o receives the Erich Maria Remarque Peace Prize 2019 - The award takes place despite the absence of the sick writer. Accessed December 4, 2019 (German).