Status: 08/19/2021 3:45 p.m.
The sea rescue ship “Sea-Eye 4” lay in Palermo for two and a half months and was not allowed to leave the port – the authorities criticized the sewage and disposal system. Now the ship is allowed to continue.
The Italian authorities in Sicily have released the sea rescue ship “Sea-Eye 4” after around two and a half months. The ship had rescued a little more than 400 people from distress at sea during its previous mission in May and was then arrested in Palermo at the beginning of June, said the private aid organization Sea-Eye from Regensburg.
According to the organization, the authorities had complained about the certification and the wastewater and garbage disposal capacities on board. The crew wanted to leave for another mission in the Mediterranean in August, it said. You are now preparing the ship for this mission.
Most recently, the Italian organization ResQ brought 166 rescued boat migrants to the port of the Sicilian city of Augusta with the “ResQ People”.
UN: More than 1000 migrants die in the Mediterranean
The ship used to belong to Sea-Eye and went under the name “Alan Kurdi”. Organizations from different countries set out again and again for the central Mediterranean to rescue migrants in distress at sea. On their flight, people often leave the coasts of Libya or Tunisia in overcrowded boats to get to the EU by sea. Mostly the migrants are brought to Italy, where the rescue operations of the private organizations are politically controversial. Italy has recently repeatedly called for the distribution of refugees in the EU to be revised.
Again and again people die on their dangerous crossing, for example when the boats capsize. According to the UN, 1,010 migrants have lost their lives in the central Mediterranean this year.
Sea-Eye 4 rescue ship no longer detained
Lisa Weiß, ARD Rome, August 19, 2021 4:39 p.m.