2017 On 6 November 2017, the crew of a Sea-Watch ship rescued 58 people in an operation hindered by the
Libyan Navy. Twenty other people drowned. Video footage that implicated the
Libyan Coast Guard was later used in legal action against Italy in the
European Court of Human Rights.
2018 The ship
Sea-Watch resumed her operations in November 2018 after it was detained in Malta between July and October. On 22 December 2018, another of the organisation's ships,
Sea-Watch 3, rescued around 32 people, but was unable to dock in Malta, Italy, or Spain.
2019 On 3 January 2019, France, Germany and the Netherlands offered to take some of the 49 migrants blocked off Malta on
Sea-Watch and
Sea-Eye "as a collective allocation effort". Two weeks after the rescue, the 49 migrants were still blocked off Malta on
Sea-Watch 3 and the ''
, in spite of an appeal by Pope Francis. On 9 January, they were finally allowed to disembark in Malta after an agreement to relocate them to eight other European countries was reached. On 19 January, Sea-Watch 3
rescued 47 further migrants. The Italian government forbade her from entering the port, and initiated legal action against the Netherlands; the organisation referred the case to the European Court of Human Rights. On 29 January, Italy, Germany, France, Malta, Portugal, Romania, and Luxembourg agreed to relocate the 47 migrants. Deputy Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Salvini demanded that Sea-Watch 3'' be detained. On 19 May 2019, the Italian police seized
Sea-Watch 3 at the island
Lampedusa, allowing the disembarking of the 47 migrants whom she had recently picked up on 15 May 2019. Reports of the operations angered Matteo Salvini, who opposed the landing of the migrants. In June 2019, the ship was again detained; 53 migrants had been rescued from the coast of Libya on 12 June. Italy allowed only 11 especially vulnerable people to disembark; on 25 June 2019, the captain of
Sea-Watch 3 threatened to land at Lampedusa in spite of the interdiction, eventually entering Italian territorial waters. According to the organisation, it was "not as a provocative act, but out of necessity and responsibility". A column in French newspaper
Le Monde stated that Captain
Carola Rackete was only "reminding us all of the existence of international conventions such as that stating rescue at sea is a duty for all". In an editorial in the same newspaper, 700 celebrities supported the migrants and opposed Salvini. A poll by Italian daily
Il Giornale showed that 61% of Italians were opposed to
Sea-Watch 3 landing at
Lampedusa. During the night of 28 to 29 June, the ship was seized, and Carola Rackete was arrested for helping illegal immigration.
Sea-Watch 3 later collided with the 50-knot Class 800 patrol boat "808" of Italian law enforcement agency
Guardia di Finanza, which had tried to block the larger vessel from docking. The boat was pushed against the dock and slightly damaged. Since the Guardia di Finanza was legally considered a combatant while it protected waterways, the Italian media reported that Rackete could also be charged with attack on a warship, a crime punishable with 3 to 10 years in prison. Two days later, an Italian judge decided that no further incarceration was necessary, and Rackete was released. , the criminal investigation continues. From September to December,
Sea-Watch 3 was detained at
Licata.
2020 Sea-Watch 4 was introduced.
2021 Despite complications during the
COVID-19 pandemic, and further detentions, rescues continued.
2022 In between further periods of detention, rescues continued; in August,
Sea-Watch 4 was acquired by
SOS Humanity.
2023 Sea-Watch 3 was scrapped;
Sea-Watch 5 began rescue services.
2024 Rescues continued, using
Sea-Watch 5.
2025 In late August 2025 activists with the Alarmphone NGO got an emergency call from a boat which had left Libya with 41 migrants on 27 August and got in distress. Alarmphone organised a rescue and platform support vessel
Maridive 208 was instructed by Tunisian authorities to pick the migrants up. Activists didn't want them to be brought to Tunisia, which they do not consider a "safe harbor". The migrants themselves refused to be rescued by a Tunisian navy vessel that had been dispatched and stayed on the
Maridive 208. Running low on supplies, the
Maridive 208 entered Maltas territorial waters, but neither Italy nor Malta wanted to take the people in. Sea-Watch vessel
Aurora finally evacuated the migrants from the
Maridive 208 on 2 September, but the activists calls for a harbor got again ignored by authorities in Malta and Italy. The activists finally made their way to Lampedusa on 4 September 2025 and landed the 41 migrants, most of them claiming to be from Sudan.
2026 After several operations early in the year, by late March and early April 2026 both active Sea-Watch vessels in the Mediterranean,
Sea Watch 5 and
Aurora, had been impounded by Italian authorities for disobeying orders, which usually meant the failure to coordinate with the Libyan authorities or not accepting ports assigned to them for disembarkation by Italian authorities. == See also ==