in the Central Mediterranean – prompted an outpouring of public support in Germany. On 12 June 2019, the Sea-Watch 3 , a fifty-metre long former platform supply vessel belonging to the German non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sea-Watch, rescued fifty-three migrants from an unseaworthy rubber boat in international waters off the Libyan coast. The ship’s subsequent attempt to disembark the migrants at a European port developed into a contentious international incident and generated an extraordinary response, particularly in Italy and Germany. After briefly
Introduction This is the story of a meeting between a humanitarian operation and a conspiracy theory, and what happened next. The operation was a search and rescue mission run on the Mediterranean by many different non-governmental organisations (NGOs), including Médecins Sans Frontières, 1 aiming to save the lives of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers lost at sea. The conspiracy theory 2 was that this operation was the opposite of what it
The Mediterranean Sea has recently become the deadliest of borders for illegalised travellers. The victims of the European Union’s liquid border are also found near North African shores. The question of how and where to bury these unknown persons has recently come to the fore in Zarzis, a coastal town in south-east Tunisia. Everyone involved in these burials – the coastguards, doctors, Red Crescent volunteers, municipality employees – agree that what they are doing is ‘wrong’. It is neither dignified nor respectful to the dead, as the land used as a cemetery is an old waste dump, and customary attitudes towards the dead are difficult to realise. This article will first trace how this situation developed, despite the psychological discomfort of all those affected. It will then explore how the work of care and dignity emerges within this institutional chain, and what this may tell us about what constitutes the concept of the human.
Introduction London, 10 September 2018 Since 2015, more than one and a half million people have traversed the Mediterranean, seeking asylum in Europe. The EU has been negotiating their screening and resettlement outside of Europe. European governments have closed some ports and borders to them. And neofascist groups from across Europe have rallied on the ground and online to prevent their entry. Thousands have died at sea. Multinational NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières and Save the Children have carried out search
. If humanitarian certainties have been upended, it is not in Sri Lanka, or even Syria or Afghanistan, but in the NGO response to the migration crisis in Greece and in the Mediterranean. For here, whether they like it or not, when they rescue people at sea who are trying to get to Europe, relief NGOs are involved not just in caritative work, whose deontology is relatively straightforward ethically; here, they are important actors in a profound political struggle, whose outcome, along with the response or non-response to climate change, is likely to
some non-governmental organisations in ‘The Appeal of Civil Disobedience in the Central Mediterranean: German Responses to the June 2019 Mission of the Sea-Watch 3 ’ is an important reminder that human dignity does not make sense if it’s circumscribed by geographical borders. Neumann also reminds us that many citizen and grass roots organisations were ready to disobey their government’s narrow interpretation of who is entitled to what rights – which suggests that the motivations of organisations like Sea-Watch should not be seen as mere gestures of hospitality
humanitarian communications and ‘fake news’; Celso Amorim, on transformations in global governance and the influence of Southern states; Caroline Abu Sa’Da, on search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean; and Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, on coloniality and liberal humanitarianism. Notes 1 In his State of the Union address of 1941, Roosevelt suggested that all the people of the world should enjoy four fundamental freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship
clear detail, and needs to be engaged with as such. The theme of information – or rather, disinformation – is at the centre of the first field report of the issue by Healy and Russell. It traces in minute detail the dis-information campaigns around search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean, focusing on the concrete example of the MV Aquarius and the accusation the rescue mission was in fact aiding people smuggling. The report presents the linkages between conspiracy theories
-centred services are available and accessible, many men/boy survivors disclose victimisation and seek care. On the Aquarius search and rescue vessel in the Mediterranean, for example, health providers significantly increased sexual violence service uptake among men and women refugees and migrants by convening private, gender-specific groups and informing people about the forms of sexual violence, its prevalence on the migration route and the medical and mental health consequences of
Mediterranean, for example, have been targeted in fake-news attacks ( Magee, 2018 ). Sean Ryan, Director of Media at Save the Children, describes his organisation’s experience: In the Mediterranean our search and rescue operations have been falsely accused of colluding with traffickers. It started as a report in the Italian media and then Defend Europe, the far-right group, hired their own boat to try and stop what we were doing. Breitbart released a video which purported to prove our collusion with traffickers but showed nothing of the kind