REFUGEE rescue volunteers Sea Eye condemned the Italian coastguard today for detaining its vessel Sea Eye 4 in Palermo, Sicily.

The coastguard claimed on Saturday that it had detected 23 “irregularities” on the ship, which disembarked over 400 refugees rescued from people-traffickers’ unseaworthy boats in the Mediterranean at a different Sicilian port last month.

The coastguard says that Sea Eye has been rescuing larger numbers of people than it has the equipment to save safely, arguing it only has the capacity to safely evacuate 27 people in the event of an emergency.

Sea Eye chairman Gorden Isler said the argument was familiar and “grotesque.”

“Rescue ships would regularly save too many people from drowning and not have the right certification.

“Our captain carried out the duty of sea rescue in an exemplary manner,” he said, in reference to when it rescued 408 people, including 150 children, last month.

He witnessed cases of distress at sea and carried out a safe rescue.

“The EU could learn from it,” Mr Isler added pointedly.

The EU ended Operation Sophia, its last search-and-rescue programme in the Mediterranean, last year, having effectively ended it by depriving it of all ships in 2019. 

It was condemned by Human Rights Watch and other charities last year when it agreed to deploy a naval mission to enforce an arms embargo on war-torn Libya, but only on condition that the warships involved avoid areas where they might encounter refugees and be obliged to respond under international humanitarian law.