May 2019 On 9 May 2019, the
Mare Jonio and the
Italian Coast Guard saved almost 66 people near the Libyan coast. Their boat had capsized in the sea and the
Mare Jonio ship welcomed 30 people on board. The minister of the interior announced that neither ship had the permission to make the people land, but later they were authorized. The ship headed north, where it encountered the Italian authorities and was taken to
Lampedusa. By order of the Internal ministry, on the night of the 10th the ship was seized and the crew were accused of aiding and abetting illegal immigration. The activists claimed they were undertaking research, and protested against a seizure. On 13 May the
Attorney general of
Agrigento rejected the preventive seizure for lack of evidence.
July 2019 On 5 July 2019, the ship
Alex, a yacht with a sail which had initially just been tasked with accompanying the
Mare Jonio, reached the waters off the coast of
Lampedusa with fifty four people on board, picked up the previous day. As had happened previously with
Sea-Watch 3, the authorities initially refused the request to enter. The Italian government refused to accept people in Lampedusa and referenced Malta, some 100 km away, as an alternative. The spokesperson for the organisation, Alessandra Sciurba, declared the journey to be too long and impossible for the passengers on 6 July 2019. In the afternoon of 6 July 2019, the captain Tommaso Stella entered the port of Lampedusa without permission. The ship was overloaded more than three times the amount agreed upon by the eleven members of the crew. From a maritime point of view, therefore, refusal was not an option.
August–September 2019 On 28 August the rescue ship
Mare Jonio saved approximately 100 people from a refugee ship that was sinking. According to the survivors, 6 people, including children, had previously drowned. The Italian coast guard brought children and women on land in Lampedusa.
Mare Jonio was forbidden from allowing the remaining 34 rescued people to reach land in an Italian port because the operators would have not respected the laws and caused an emergency situation. The authorisation to land "for health reasons" came from the captaincy of the port on 2 September, following a storm and a hunger strike that the migrants had started. The ship was subsequently confiscated until February 2020, when the jury accepted Mediterranea's appeal, immediately releasing the ship from seizure.
June–July 2020 Halfway through March 2020 the organisation announced that its two ships,
Mare Jonio and
Alex would suspend their navigation due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Navigation resumed in the month of June. On the 19th there was the recovery of sixty people, who were able to land at
Pozzallo without facing particular obstacles. On the 29th another forty-three people were rescued, and in subsequent days reached the shores of
Augusta, Sicily. Since some of them had tested positive for the
COVID-19 virus, the crew observed the mandatory
quarantine, which ended without repercussions on 15 July.
September 2020 On 11 September 2020, 27 migrants who had been on board the Maersk
Etienne since 5 August after being rescued in
international waters were transferred to the
Mare Jonio and brought to shore.
April 2024 Mare Jonio rescued 56 people on its 16th operation. Whilst assisting a vessel in distress (distributing life vests to people on a ship) the
Mare Jonio was threatened by the Libyan 'coastguard'.
August 2024 182 people were saved on
Mare Jonio's 18th operation. A sailing ship belonging to Fondazione Migrantes of the Italian Episcopal Conference supported this operation by carrying additional volunteers, medical staff, a cultural mediator and journalists.
October 2024 58 people saved after a tip-off from
Alarm Phone from a ship that had departed from Libya. == Funding and support ==