Humanitarianism at the Border: Criminalisation of migrant search and rescue operations in Southern Europe

On August 2nd, approximately 45 persons had been in distress at sea for 6 days, drifting between the Maltese and Greek search and rescue (SAR) zones. Maritime authorities from both countries were alerted by the Alarmphone hotline, but both refused to assist (Alarmphone, 2022). This is business as usual. European authorities consistently refuse to uphold their duty to rescue persons in distress at sea by omitting assistance or delaying rescues. The European Union (EU) has invested in an expensive plan to avoid rescuing migrants at sea with the goal of preventing arrivals to the continent. Strategies include agreements with third countries to prevent crossings and switching their assets in the Mediterranean from ships to drones with no SAR obligations (Human Rights Watch, 2022). Even in Spain, the only EU country with a civil and public sea rescue agency, Spain's government has been implementing changes to the coordination of the agency that have led to delays in assistance, resulting in higher death rates (Luna Vives, 2021). Meanwhile, the EU's anti-fraud office revealed that the EU's Border and Coastguard Agency (Frontex) 'covered up and helped to finance illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers in Greece' (Spiegel, 2022).

Historically, 80% of the deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean Sea have been recorded in the Central Mediterranean route (IOM, 2022). The death toll for 2022 in the same route has reached 907 victims, and it stands at over 20,000 known victims since 2014 (IOM, 2022). However, 'the reality is most likely to be worse, due to potential shipwrecks without witness' (SOS Mediterranée, Sea Watch and MSF, 2022). In this context, the role of SAR NGOs has switched from purely humanitarian to acting as witnesses of the consequences of European policies at sea, by 'bring[ing] evidence that it is not the sea that is killing people, but the EU border regime and its necropolitics' (Dadusc and Denaro, 2021). While it is clear that migrants are the ones facing the worst consequences of criminalisation, by being left to drown and disappear at sea or forcibly returned to Libya, SAR volunteers and workers are increasingly facing criminal persecution for their solidarity work.

Five years ago, the first ship from the civil fleet was detained. The crew onboard the Iuventa was accused of 'aiding and abetting unauthorized entry into Italy' for rescuing 14,000 people from distress at sea between 2016-2017. Today, those charges haven't been dropped and, if convicted, they could face up to 20 years in prison. Besides detaining ships and opening criminal and administrative proceedings against SAR crew and NGOs, Southern European Member States are also finding other ways to hinder SAR capacity in the Mediterranean, for example, through Port State Control inspections. For the latter, however, an August 2022 ruling of the European Court of Justice has made clear that, while ship inspections are necessary, the detention of SAR NGO vessels cannot be subjected to arbitrary reasons, including for having 'too many' rescued people on board or for lacking certificates that do not exist under the ship's flag state (Sea Watch, 2022). These criminalisation attempts against activists and non-governmental organisations within the context of migration have long been identified by legal scholarship as part of crimmigration: a clear trend in the last 30 years describing the proliferation of criminal sanctions for migration offences imposed by states. Within this theoretical framework, the project investigates the criminalisation of voluntary search and rescue operations examining: 1) Regulations, practices and laws deriving from the EU Facilitators' package and states' interpretation of it, used to curtail and/or criminalise voluntary sea rescue; 2) How maritime volunteers conceptualise their roles and involvement in sea rescue; and, 3) Voluntary organisations operating sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean amid increasing restrictions.