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 admits that its own failures — as well as those of the Libyan, Maltese and Italian maritime authorises — "likely" breached the fundamental right to life of those who died.

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--- Show notes ---

For more on SOS Mediterranee, see their website here: sosmediterranee.org

Follow SOS Mediterranee on social media:

BlueSky: @sosmediterranee.org‬

Insta: SOS MEDITERRANEE

Twitter: @SOSMedIntl

You can download Frontex's serious incident report 13681 / 2024 here: https://tinyurl.com/4bhb495d

Find the full Frontex report on The Civil Fleet's website, too: https://thecivilfleet.wordpress.com/2025/08/08/episode-75-frontex-likely-breached-refugees-right-to-life/

For more on SOS Mediterranee's old ship, the Aquarius, read this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/dark-day-migrant-rescue-ship-aquarius-ends-operations-mediterranean

For more on Doctors Without Borders (MSF), see episodes 67, 21 and 14 of The Civil Fleet Podcast

For more on Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, check out episodes 68, 54, 52, 50, 34, 31, 23, 15, 7 and 1

For more on Malta, see episodes: 74, 72, 37, 27, and 5

For more on Seabird, check out episodes: 65 and 1

Alarm Phone activists are interviewed in episodes: 48, 5 and 3

You can read Alarm Phone's account of all this, here: https://alarmphone.org/en/2024/09/27/denial-of-rescue-85-people-left-to-die-in-march-2024/

Oh, and Ben mentions the episode with Nadir, ResQship's rescue ship. That is episode 71. Also, check out episode 27 for more on the Nadir.