Since the beginning of December, a Green Helmets team has been supporting the sea rescue organization RESQSHIP with the maintenance of its ship Nadir in Malta.
By Simon Bethlehem
Bonn, 7 January 2025 – If you like, sea rescue is one of the roots of the Green Helmets: our founder Rupert Neudeck founded the aid committee Ein Schiff für Vietnam in 1979, from which our sister organization Cap Anamur later emerged. At the time, the initiative rescued more than 11,000 Vietnamese refugees in the South China Sea and brought them to Germany.
When the German sea rescue organization RESQSHIP, based in Hamburg, asked if we could help repair their ship, it was immediately clear to us that we would do it!
RESQSHIP was founded in 2017 to rescue people fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe. With the 19-meter-long motor sailing ship Nadir, RESQSHIP observes and documents the movements of refugees in the Mediterranean, calls ships for help and rescues them if no other, larger ship is nearby.
Sanding, painting, engine maintenance
This year, as every year, the Nadir is spending the winter in Malta. Since the beginning of December, we have been supporting a Green Helmets team of five tradespeople in a shipyard there to make the Nadir fit for the upcoming missions: A mechanical engineer has taken over engine maintenance, a carpenter and a joiner are refurbishing the wooden parts on deck as well as the floors, windows, doors and built-in furniture. Meanwhile, a logistician and a metalworker are working on the outer skin of the steel ship, removing silt, removing rust, sanding and repainting it.
We will be working on Malta together with RESQSHIP helpers until mid-January. In February, the Nadir will then be put back in the water and deployed for future missions.
State repression against sea rescuers
Since the EU decided to end its sea rescue operations in 2014, it has been up to private sea rescue organizations to save refugees from drowning in the Mediterranean. Italy’s right-wing government has also tightened numerous laws to prevent sea rescues. As a result, organizations have to withdraw ships or the crew is threatened with legal consequences.
One consequence: although significantly fewer people have arrived in Italy recently, the number of deaths in the Mediterranean remains high. According to the children’s charity Unicef, more than 2,200 people died on their crossing to Europe last year. The number of unreported cases is probably much higher.
We have already supported Sea-Watch with our expertise in the past – and now RESQSHIP. It is very important to us that the desperate are helped. With our support, we can make at least a small contribution to this.