On the afternoon of Saturday, August 24, as the ship MARE JONIO, accompanied by the sailboat MIGRANTES, passed the island of Lampedusa, it began receiving numerous alerts about boats in distress, fleeing from Libya and Tunisia.

Thanks in particular to the aerial reconnaissance flights by the civilian observation plane Colibrì of Pilotes Volontaires, the MEDITERRANEA Saving Humans vessel was able to locate and intercept a wooden boat that was on the verge of sinking, with 67 people on board, including 16 women and around 15 small children. Our Rescue Team reached the boat in distress in the corridor between Tunisia and Lampedusa, about 25 nautical miles from the Pelagie island, immediately began distributing life jackets, stabilized the vessel, and ensured its safety.

Just minutes after communication was sent from the MARE JONIO, a SAR patrol boat from the Italian Coast Guard, the CP311, arrived on the scene. It took charge of the rescue and later disembarked the people in difficulty at Lampedusa.

The MARE JONIO, together with the support sailboat MIGRANTES, was thus able to continue its southward navigation, patrolling the waters of the Central Mediterranean and verifying numerous alerts from Alarm Phone and civilian aircraft, as well as the positions of boats in distress reported via radio by Tunisian and Sicilian fishermen.

During the night between Saturday and Sunday, it carried out its second rescue operation, after managing with great difficulty to locate in the darkness an overcrowded rubber dinghy that was adrift, with deflated tubes and at imminent risk of sinking in international waters more than 30 miles south of Lampedusa. A total of 50 people were evacuated to the MARE JONIO, including two women and 43 unaccompanied minors, most of them Ethiopian nationals, with others from Sudan. The dinghy had reportedly departed four days earlier from Abu Kammash, and the extended time at sea had severely weakened those on board, many of whom were suffering from serious dehydration.

Shortly after the rescue operations concluded on board the MEDITERRANEA ship—around 2:40 AM—the CP327 patrol boat of the Italian Coast Guard arrived, transferring

the survivors from the MARE JONIO and taking them swiftly to Lampedusa for disembarkation.

At that point, the MARE JONIO and its support vessel resumed navigation southward toward the last known positions of two distress cases reported by Alarm Phone. Around 6:10 AM, with the first light of Sunday, August 25, the ship’s bridge sighted a dangerously listing fiberglass boat about 40 miles south of Lampedusa, at risk of imminent sinking. On board were 65 people, including 5 unaccompanied minors, of Syrian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi nationality, who were rescued by the MEDITERRANEA Rescue Team in the third operation of Mission 18.

Once safely on board the MARE JONIO and treated by our medical team, most of them showed clear signs of abuse suffered during their time in Libya.

It is also important to emphasize that, although all three rescue operations took place within the Maltese SAR (Search and Rescue) zone of responsibility, the Maltese authorities, despite being informed, were never reachable and never offered any assistance in these cases. As a result, MARE JONIO remained in constant coordination with its flag state's maritime rescue coordination center, IT MRCC in Rome, which assigned Pozzallo as the “Place of Safety” for the last 65 rescued individuals. The MEDITERRANEA vessel arrived there in the early hours of Monday, August 26.