Cutro shipwreck: joint statement by 10 NGOs to prevent further deaths at sea

We must not forget the 94 victims of the Steccato di Cutro shipwreck and the fact that the tragedy that occurred on the night of 25th and 26th February 2023 could have been avoided.

That night, no Search and Rescue (SAR) operation was activated, and Summer Love case was treated as a border police operation. It was an event in line with the Italian immigration policies of the past two years which are aimed to hinder the SAR civil fleet at sea and to criminalize both people on the move and NGOs. This attack on NGOs has been even more intensified by the practice of assigning distant ports and by the stricter sanctions introduced by the Decreto Flussi in 2024.

In the meanwhile, more than 31,000 people have disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea since 2014. For their sake and for the sake of all the people on the move who will try to cross the Mediterranean route in the future, we reaffirm the need for a European SAR operation together with the extension of legal and safe entry channels to Europe. We also call for an end to the agreements with third countries that do not respect human rights, such as Libya and Tunisia.

This is a joint statement by:

Alarm Phone, EMERGENCY, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Mediterranea Saving Humans, Open Arms, Resq, SOS Humanity, Sea-Watch, TOM - Tutti gli occhi sul Mediterraneo and SOS MEDITERRANEE Italy.

These are all organizations that carry out search and rescue operations in the sea and work for the rights of people on the move.