Sea rescue NGO SOS Humanity has published voice recordings that show what the group calls an illegal pull-back and a lack of assistance to four missing persons in the Central Mediterranean by Tunisia's and Italy's coast guards.

Shortly after rescuing 26 people from distress off Libya on July 11 (see the chapter after next for more), SOS Humanity says the Sparrow II aircraft, operated by EU coast guard agency Frontex, notified the NGO's Humanity 1 vessel about a vessel with "approximately 70 to 100 people on board with engine problems" via a mayday relay. That's according to a press release published by SOS Humanity on Monday (July 14).

Another reconnaissance aircraft on site -- the Seabird 1 operated by fellow sea rescue NGO Sea-Watch -- also received the distress call about the adrift migrant boat, Sea-Watch spokesperson Paul Wagner confirmed to InfoMigrants.

While en route to the scene, coordinated by the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC) in Rome, SOS Humanity says the Humanity 1 then overheard a radio exchange between Tunisian and Italian coast guards.

The Tunisian and Italian coast guards in the conversation said they took 33 and 27 people on board, respectively, but they also confirmed four people were still missing.

"That means that four people remain," the Italian coast guard said, to which Tunisian coast replied "something like that," adding that they'll use "the small boat to try to find the others." The member of the Tunisian coast guard is then heard saying "we are moving away you know to last situation, will not be complicated more. You'll see what happens."

According to SOS Humanity, the Italian MRCC later informed the crew of Humanity 1 that the "rescue of this case [boat] has already been performed from someone else" and instructed the vessel to proceed to Brindisi in Italy without offering an explanation or further information on the four persons despite SOS Humanity asking "who rescued the boat", according to an audio recording between SOS Humanity and the MRCC obtained by InfoMigrants.

By the time of publication on Friday afternoon, InfoMigrants was not able to determine to what lengths, if any, either coast guard went to find the four missing persons. InfoMigrants asked both the Italian and the Tunisian coast guard to comment on the incident, but has not received a response so far. The MRCC has also not responded to a request for comment.

Read AlsoSea-Watch aircraft discovers five bodies off Libya

Survivors' testimonies 

Some of the 27 rescued migrants the Italian coast guard vessel brought to the island of Lampedusa later reported their version of the incident.

Based on two NGO-run websites -- Maldusa and Mediterranean Hope -- that have published survivors' testimonies, the migrant vessel set off from the city of Sfax in Libya on July 8 with 63 people on board.

In both accounts, as many as 30 migrants jumped into the water to reach the Italian vessel, presumably in the hope that they'd be brought to Europe instead of Tunisia. Only 27 made it, according to the accounts, and were then brought to Lampedusa.

The Maldusa account also claims that the Tunisian coast guard "attempted to prevent people in the water from reaching the Italian coast guard vessel," allegedly leading to the death of three people by drowning.

It is important to note that InfoMigrants was not able to independently verify these reports.

Read AlsoThe "hell" awaiting migrants in Tunisia

Disembarkation in Italy after four days of transit

Last Friday (July 11), SOS Humanity rescued 26 people from distress at sea off the coast of Libya. According to the NGO, the rescue took place in international waters in Libya's search-and-rescue zone.

Survivors had departed from the Libyan city of Zuwiyah near the capital Tripoli and spent 30 hours at sea, SOS Humanity said. Most survivors, who included minors, are Sudanese, others hailed from Egypt, Mali and Ivory Coast.

Following a four-day journey, the rescuees went ashore in the southeastern Italian coastal city of Brindisi, SOS Humanity announced on Tuesday.

'Deadly consequences of the EU externalisation policies'

SOS Humanity called what transpired on July 11 an "illegal pull-back" by the Tunisian coast guard, meaning they intercepted and forced 33 people back to Tunisia -- while possibly leaving at least four persons missing at sea.

"The Tunisian Coast Guard does not conduct search and rescue according to international law but illegally forces people back to Tunisia despite the Italian Coast Guard being on scene for rescuing them and bringing them to a place of safety," the Berlin-based NGO said in its aforementioned press release, adding that intercepted and returned migrants “are subjected to arbitrary detention, racist discrimination, and collective expulsions to the desert."

Similar to neighboring Libya, the conditions for migrants in Tunisia are indeed brutal. In March, for instance, hundreds of migrants were reportedly abandoned in the desert in the Algerian-Libyan border region after being intercepted at sea by Tunisian forces.

Read Also'Fatal signal' – German opposition parties, NGOs decry end of government funding for sea rescue

Together with 31 other organizations that operate in the Mediterranean, SOS Humanity on Thursday renewed their criticism of Italy for what they call "systematic obstruction of non-governmental search and rescue (SAR) efforts".

Since February 2023, according to a joint statement by the NGOs, the Italian government under Prime Minister Georgia Meloni has escalated these tactics by detaining 29 civilian rescue ships and assigning them to distant ports to disembark rescued people. Thus far, the detentions have amounted to 700 days of not being able to pursue rescue missions, according to the statement.

"Without the presence of NGO assets and aircraft, more people will drown while fleeing across the Central Mediterranean, and human rights violations, as well as shipwrecks, will occur unnoticed," SOS Humanity's Janna Sauerteig is quoted in the press release.

The NGOs also reiterated calls for a Europe-wide, state-sponsored rescue program for the Mediterranean. In mid-June, SOS Humanity and other organizations urged the European Union and its member states to re-establish an EU search and rescue program for the Mediterranean along the escape routes, which has not existed since the end of operation Mare Nostrum in 2014.

Six deaths per day

At present, 21 organizations are reportedly involved in rescue missions in the Central Mediterranean, ten of them from Germany. This 'civil fleet', as it's often called, currently comprises 15 rescue vessels, seven sailboats and four reconnaissance planes.

More than 22,000 migrants have died or gone missing since 2015 in the Central Mediterranean, according to the Missing Migrants Project. That's close to six deaths per day on average. The real number is almost certainly higher.

With 4,574 dead and missing migrants, 2016 was the deadliest year in the past decade, followed by 2023 (2,526). Attempts to cross the Mediterranean in often unseaworthy boats repeatedly lead to fatal disasters like the Cutro shipwreck off the southern Italian Calabria coast in 2023, in which at least 94 migrants lost their lives.

The rescue of migrants trying to reach Europe from the Middle East or Africa via the Mediterranean has been one of the most contentious issues in European politics for decades.