ROME – On Thursday, 12 dead bodies were thrown overboard an American Navy ship off the coast of Libya, in lack of a safe port to dock at after Italy closed its borders to migrants.

 On Tuesday morning a US Navy ship, the Trenton, rescued a rubber dingy carrying 52 migrants 20 miles off the Libyan coast. The boat proceeded to request aid from the NGO Sea Watch which duly arrived with food and blankets for those who had survived; unfortunately, 12 lives had already been lost by the time the dingy was rescued.

 The control centre in Rome informed the two ships that “they would not be able to provide assistance in either navigation or offering a safe port to dock in” and so the Sea Watch 3 boat was unable to transport the deceased bodies back to land, as they are obliged by law to do. After being stranded for two days at sea with nowhere to dock and no fridge to store the deceased in, the American ship was forced to throw the 12 bodies overboard.

 The President of the German NGO Sea Watch, Johannes Bayer, spoke out against the Italian decision, saying that “it is unacceptable that people who have been literally pulled out of the sea, who watched their friends drown, are forced to remain stranded at sea with no port offering to accept them. The discourse about the allocation of asylum-seekers has nothing to do with rescuing those in trouble at sea, and it should not be conducted at their expense.”

 “While great effort was made to ensure the safe landing of the people aboard the Aquarius this week, there is a shocking, as well as purposeful, lack of means to rescue those in trouble in the Mediterranean; a sea which is often considered the most lethal border in the world and where people continue to die every day. The disaster yesterday shows a worrying inability to carry out rescue and it is safe to say that there will be many more tragedies like this to come, as long as there is an absence of safe and legal routes to Europe.”

 “We urge the European governments to find a quick solution for this humiliating tragedy.”

 The Sea Watch 3 is currently the only dedicated rescue asset in the Mediterranean Sea.

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