This exchange between Meloni and Sea-Watch highlights the continuously hostile attitude of European officials towards civilian sea rescuers. Clearly, their presence in the Mediterranean Sea remains a conflictual political issue despite a whole decade of successful rescues.
Next month will mark 10 years since the first nongovernmental rescue organisation entered the central Mediterranean in search of migrant boats in distress. In this decade, a large network of solidarity actors has evolved in the central Mediterranean, made up of about two dozen organisations and groups.
Besides the many rescue NGOs, there is Alarm Phone, an activist emergency hotline launched in 2014 that has assisted more than 7,000 boats in distress so far. In 2017, civil aircraft joined the civil fleet to monitor the sea from above and guide rescue ships to boats in distress.
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