A number of large banners have been unfurled in Isla as part of a demonstration in reaction to today’s EU ministerial meeting on migration at Fort St Angelo.

With banners saying “EU Get Your Ships Together!”, members of the Mission Lifeline wanted to remind EU leaders that as they talk, governments are criminalising NGOs who are being seen as doing the government’s job for them and upholding the law of the sea and the conventions on refugee protection and human rights.

“Tragically, European states are undermining and attacking the post-War international law by subverting the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, other Conventions on Sea Rescue and the Safety of Life at Sea, the Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights,” says David Pichler of the Lifeline. “Such disregard for international law is irresponsible and dangerous”.

“We hope that this summit will address and improve the problems we have witnessed during these last months of EU states denying a safe port to search and rescue NGOs, leading to repeated stand-offs whilst creating unsafe and dangerous conditions for the already vulnerable rescued people on board” states Captain Claus-Peter Reisch from the NGO Mission Lifeline, who recently got a fine of €300,000 after entering the port of Pozzalo in Italy despite the ban.