Rome – On 26 August, the Italian authorities issued a 60-day detention order on the Geo Barents, a search and rescue ship operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), for alleged violations of maritime safety regulations.

The detention order was issued following several rescue operations that took place very early in the morning of 23 August in the Central Mediterranean Sea, where the Geo Barents is alleged to have failed to provide timely information to the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) and to have endangered people's lives. MSF refutes these allegations, which are based on information provided by the Libyan Coast Guard.  

“The EU-supported Libyan Coast Guard, who the Italian authorities consider as a reliable organisation, has been documented and accused by the United Nations of complicity in serious human rights violations in Libya, amounting to crimes against humanity, collusion with smugglers and traffickers, and of being responsible for violent pushbacks at sea,” says Juan Matias Gil, MSF search and rescue representative. “We have been sanctioned for simply fulfilling our legal duty to save lives.”

On 23 August, our teams onboard the Geo Barents conducted five rescue operations. The third operation, in which MSF is accused of failing to provide timely information about, occurred after our team witnessed a significant number of people going overboard in the vicinity of the ship.

“It was in the middle of the night; we saw people jumping off a fibreglass boat, falling or being pushed into the water,” says Riccardo Gatti, MSF Search and Rescue Team Leader. “Our teams had no choice than to go, stabilise people and retrieve them out of water as quickly as possible. There was an imminent danger of people drowning or getting lost in the darkness of the night.”

This latest detention order is significant, not only because it is the third time the Geo Barents has been detained, but also because it’s for the longest period. So far, humanitarian rescue ships have been detained on 23 occasions since the enforcement of Italian decree-law in early 2023, known as the ‘Piantedosi Decree’. The decree-law is specifically designed to impede the vital search and rescue activities of NGOs at sea.

“This is yet another example of how much the Piantedosi Decree not only contravenes international and European laws, but is also contradictory to the obligations to act in the face of a state of necessity when human lives are at risk,” states Matias Gil. “The authorities are forcing us to prioritise either saving people at sea or the freedom of the rescue ship.”

“The preservation of human life is at the core of our social mission,” says Matias Gil. “We will therefore be contesting this unlawful detention through the appropriate legal channels.”

The Geo Barents is currently unable to conduct rescues in the Mediterranean Sea due to the detention. This will further exacerbate the already insufficient search and rescue capacity at sea, making the Central Mediterranean – one of the world’s most dangerous migration routes – even more deadly.

We urge the Italian authorities to release the Geo Barents from detention, to enable us to fulfil our duty of rescuing lives. MSF asks Italian authorities to cease immediately obstructing humanitarian lifesaving assistance at sea. We also call on the EU and its member states to suspend all material and financial support to the Libyan Coast Guard and authorities with a track record of human rights violations.