Episode 75: Frontex ‘likely’ breached refugees' right to life
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Lucille, operation communications manager for SOS Mediterranee. She tells us how the Ocean Viking's crew found 25 people adrift in the Mediterranean Sea by chance in March 2024. The survivors told Lucille that they had left Libya five or six days ago with around 60 people. Most of them didn't survive. A serious incident report published quietly by Frontex in May this year corroborates the survivors' accounts, that their boat was spotted by planes and commercial ships, but no rescue was launched. The Frontex report also...
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Episode 74: Is solidarity a crime?
The Civil Fleet Podcast
We speak with Silvia from the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, or PICUM. She tells us about a report she wrote for PICUM on the criminalisation and non-judicial harassment of people-on-the-move and activists working in solidarity with them in Europe last year. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: [email protected] --- Show notes --- For more on PICUM, see: You can read the PICUM report talked about in this episode here: Follow PICUM on social...
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Episode 73: Dismantle the Home Office
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, migrants rights campaigner Zoe Gardner tells us why the UK Home Office should be dismantled. In a report she recently wrote for the Green Party, Zoe says the controversial department should be split up into two new ministries. We talk about the Home Office's acts of cruelty to migrants, refugees and people on the move, and how government policy of housing asylum seekers in unfit accommodation has created a billionaire. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: [email protected]...
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Episode 72: Mapping Malta's border violence
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with academic Cetta and foreign policy analyst Daniel about the Malta Migration Archive. We discuss the Maltese government's refusal to save refugee lives in its own search-and-rescue zone, how it ignores civilian rescue ships, pressurises commercial ships to not rescue refugees, and how it organises pushbacks with the so-called Libyan coastguards. Cetta and Daniel tell us how the Malta Migration Archive maps all of this, and why it is so important to expose and combat the Maltese government's silence. ---Get in touch--- ...
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Episode 71: Dead children and distant ports
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with medical doctors Hannah and James about their latest missions on the Nadir, a sailing boat operated by ResQship. Hannah tells us about a rescue in May, when the crew found a boat carrying over 60 people, including two dead children. The people they rescued had been at sea for four days with no water. James tells us about the Nadir's last rescue in June. After bringing 112 people to safety in Lampedusa, the Italian authorities decided to block the ship from leaving port. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: ...
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Episode 70: They were left stranded on a gas rig
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, Sea-Watch's search-and-rescue coordinator Hendrik tells us about the rescue of 32 people stranded on a gas rig in central Mediterranean in March. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: [email protected] --- Show notes --- For more on Sea-Watch, visit: Follow Sea-Watch on BlueSky: Instagram: seawatchcrew Also, check out episodes 65, 43, 22, 7 and 1 of The Civil Fleet Podcast for more on Sea-Watch. For more on the Miskar Platform rescue, see here: https:// You can...
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Episode 69: ‘You don't have children anymore‘
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Arturo, captain of the refugee rescue ship Seapunk I. He's going to tell us all about the Seapunks activist group and its connection with punk rock music. He also tells us about a dramatic rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea in January, in which several people died. We also discuss how the Italian authorities force NGO ships to take the refugees to distant ports, and how this deliberately results in more refugee deaths. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: ...
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Episode 68: EU plans to criminalise solidarity with refugees
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Yasha Maccanico a researcher and journalist at StateWatch, a UK-based charity focused on civil liberties, human rights and democracy in Europe. We talk about a proposed EU law that could make it easier for states to criminalise acts of solidarity with people on the move. Yasha also talks to us about abuses of state power in Europe under the guise of lowering immigration, the externalisation of the EU's borders in Africa, and much more. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: ...
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Episode 67: Syria, Gaza, and European hostility to refugees
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Michaël Neuman from Doctors' Without Borders (MSF). He tells us about the charity's work in Syria, and how the fall of Bashar Assad's regime could affect this. We also discuss MSF's work in Gaza, Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinians and the fact that, unlike most conflicts, the people there have no escape. Michaël also tells us why MSF decided it needed to help asylum seekers in the UK, and why European governments have been far too quick to pause asylum claims for Syrians. ---Get in touch--- Twitter:...
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Episode 66: We found a child floating alone in the dark
The Civil Fleet Podcast
In this episode, we speak with Katja and Matthias, co-founders of the refugee rescue group CompassCollective. They tell us how they operate their rescue ship, the Trotamar III, to document human rights violations and save lives in the central Mediterranean. They also tell us about the recent rescue of an 11-year-old-girl they found by chance floating alone at sea for 2 or 3 days. ---Get in touch--- Twitter: Mastodon: Bluesky: Instagram: [email protected] Support:...
info_outlineIn this episode, we speak with journalist Bashar Deeb from Lighthouse Reports about two investigations he worked on.
The first, called 'Frontex and the Pirate Ship', is a disturbing story of how the European Border and Coastguard Agency helped a notorious Libyan rebel group intercept a refugee boat in the Mediterranean.
The second, ‘Drowning in Lies’, exposes how Greece tried to cover up its role in the Pylos shipwreck by tampering with witness testimony.
--Get in touch---
Twitter: @FleetCivil
Mastodon: @[email protected]
Instagram: thecivilfleet
Support:
---Show Notes---
Check out Lighthouse Reports here: lighthousereports.com
And follow them on Twitter: @LHreports
Read Frontex and the Pirate Ship here: lighthousereports.com/investigation/frontex-and-the-pirate-ship/
Read Drowning in Lies here: lighthousereports.com/investigation/drowning-in-lies/
For more on Frontex, see episodes 50 and 23 of The Civil Fleet Podcast
Read The Civil Fleet's coverage of Frontex, here: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/tag/Frontex/
Check out this 2021 report by Sea-Watch called ‘Crimes of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex in the Central Mediterranean Sea’ here: sea-watch.org/frontex_crimes/
For more on the Tariq Ben Zeyad unit, read this Amnesty International report: amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/12/libya-hold-commanders-of-tariq-ben-zeyad-armed-group-accountable-for-catalogue-of-horrors/
For more on the campaign group Refugees in Libya, check out episode 23 of The Civil Fleet Podcast
In early 2020, The Civil Fleet exposed how the EU planned to continue to support the Libyan Coastguard despite the bloc's concerns the government was violating the human rights of migrants and profiting from their detention: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2020/02/21/eu-to-continue-supporting-the-libyan-coastguard-despite-its-fears-of-human-rights-abuses/
Read this interview with a Somali refugee held in a bogus ‘refugee camp’ in Libya: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/they-lock-our-legs-together-with-a-chain-an-interview-with-a-slave/
For more on Libya, check out episode 15 of The Civil Fleet Podcast
Check out episode 33 of The Civil Fleet Podcast for more on the situation at the Lithuania-Belarus border
For more on Malta's floating prisons, read this: maltatoday.com.mt/comment/blogs/102694/illegal_floating_prisons__carla_camilleri
The UK is also holding people on the move on a floating prison, called the Bibby Stockholm. For more on that, see episodes 44 and 40 of The Civil Fleet Podcast.
It was the Maersk Etienne that rescued 27 people in 2020, which Malta refused to allow to come ashore. Listen to episode 18 and/or, read about it here: bit.ly/3HyJMHU
For more on Alarm Phone, listen to episodes 48, 5, and 3 of The Civil Fleet Podcast. Read about them here, too: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/tag/Alarm-Phone/
Read about the Crotone shipwreck here: msf.org/italy-over-60-people-killed-crotone-shipwreck
Read about the Pylos shipwreck, here: thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2023/06/16/shipwreck-survivors-say-greek-coasts-towed-their-boat-before-it-sank/
Ben was trying to paraphrase this quote by Robert Fisk at the end of the episode: Journalists rarely "move mountains or bring down regimes; instead, we just chip, chip, chip away at the rock face, hoping that someone notices — so that no one can say ‘we didn’t know’."