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Life and death on the Mediterranean Sea
BEN COWLES talks with the co-ordinator for the reconnaissance aircraft, Seabird, about dramatic events at sea last Friday, after a flimsy boat carrying 40 people was spotted near the island of Lampedusa
A Libyan coastguard ship blasts past one of the Open Arms Rhibs last Friday [David Lohmüller / Sea Watch]

LAST weekend saw an eventful couple of days in the Mediterranean waters off Malta’s southern coast.

Over 140 people in two overcrowded rubber boats were saved by a coalition of civilian refugee rescue organisations within the island nation’s search-and-rescue (SAR) zone.

I initially set out to write up a short report on the weekend’s rescues. But after speaking on Sunday with Eike, an activist who witnessed the events from the skies, I realised that the situation was much more complicated.

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