The Italian Constitutional Court held a hearing on Wednesday morning in Rome to rule on the detention of a civilian ship that rescued 261 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in 2024.
Italian Constitutional Court holds hearing on detention of rescue ship in 2024
Migrants on an overcrowded wooden boat wait to be rescued in the Mediterranean Sea, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019.
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The Ocean Viking salvage vessel, run by the European charity SOS Mediterranée, was detained for not complying with the orders of the Libyan Coast Guard to abandon the scene of a rescue in February 2024. SOS Mediterranée saved 261 people in distress in three different rescues.
According to the reports of the humanitarian organisation, the first boat with 110 people on board was about to break apart, the second had leaked fuel on board and the third was taking water and leaning dangerously to one side.
Despite the life-threatening situation of the people on board of the three boats, the Libyan coast guard ordered Ocean Viking crew to leave the rescue zone.
Once docked in the Italian port of Brindisi, SOS Mediterranée’s ship received a 20-day detention order and a 3.300 euros fine. SOS Mediterranée appealed the decision, maintaining that is was their duty to rescue the people in distress and that Libya is not a safe country.
A judge in Brindisi in the context of the trial that followed raised the case to the Constitutional Court. The decision of the court will have a crucial influence on the anti-migrant policies of the Italian far right government lead by Giorgia Meloni, as she cracked down on humanitarian rescue organisations, accusing them of interfering with national border control.
Since 2015, the European Union has been funding the Libyan coast guard as part of efforts to stem the flow of migrants from the North African country towards Italian shores.
As part of the deal, the coast guard has intercepted migrants in Libyan and international waters and has returned them to Libya. Various organizations have strongly criticized, what they call, the criminalization of the humanitarian actions of search and rescue in the central Mediterranean.
In 2025, almost 50,000 people reached Italy by sea and 454 died in the attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Northern Africa to Europe on rickety boats, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
No date for the verdict of the constitutional court has been set yet.