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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

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.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
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