IT WAS another fraught weekend for refugees attempting to reach Europe by sea and for the activists trying to help them.  

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) confirmed on Sunday that the Libyan Coastguard returned 227 people to Tripoli in the early hours.

The survivors had fled in three rubber boats from Zawyia and Zwara, the UNHCR said, whose medics tended to the refugees upon disembarkation.

Meanwhile, German refugee rescue charity Sea Eye announced on Saturday that its rescue ship, the Alan Kurdi, had been detained by the Italian authorities the previous evening.

The crew had just completed a two-week quarantine off the coast of Sardinia following the rescue and disembarkation of 133 refugees when the authorities banned the ship from sailing for a list of supposed safety irregularities — including carrying too many “passengers.”

The ship’s captain Joachim Ebeling said that “if [the authorities] were really concerned about the safety of the people we rescued, [they] would not spend hours on end looking for ways to detain us at every opportunity.”

This is the second time the Alan Kurdi has been delayed by Italian authorities this year after rescuing hundreds of people.