MEDITERRANEAN: More deaths and rescues ― German government to stop funding ‘civil fleet’ ― Spanish police investigating murders of people on the move near Balearic Islands ― NGO report reveals use of torture against people on the move ― Greece deploys …

• There have been more deaths and NGO-led rescues along the Mediterranean migration routes.
• The German government has announced that it is cancelling the funding that it has been providing to search and rescue NGOs since 2022.
• Spanish police have launched a murder investigation after a number of bodies with their hands and feet tied were found floating in the sea off the coast of Mallorca.
• A new NGO report has highlighted the use of torture against people trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean migration routes.
• Greece has deployed naval vessels close to the Libyan coast in an effort to prevent people on the move from arriving on its southern islands.
• A report by Italy’s highest court has raised doubts about the constitutionality of the Italy-Albania Protocol.

One person has died and several others are missing after a boat capsized near the island of Lampedusa. According to the Agence France Presse news agency, the Italian coastguard rescued 87 people following the incident on 30 June. The survivors were taken to a Red Cross-run reception centre in Lampedusa.

The search and rescue (SAR) NGO Sea-Watch has announced that the crew of its Seabird 1 aircraft spotted five bodies floating in the sea off the Libyan coast during a reconnaissance flight on 25 June. According to a press release issued by the organisation on 26 June, “an armed Libyan militia with an Italian-financed patrol vessel was present close to one of the dead bodies but refused to respond to any of the aircrew’s radio calls”. Sea-Watch added that, to the best of its knowledge, none of the bodies had been recovered. Commenting on the discovery, Sea-Watch Spokesperson Paul Wagner said: “The Mediterranean continues to be a politically willed mass grave”.

Two days before its aircraft made the grim discovery off the coast of Libya, Sea-Watch’s Sea-Watch 5 rescue ship disembarked 69 people in Naples. Elsewhere, the Ocean Viking rescue vessel, which is operated by SOS MEDITERRANEE, disembarked another 73 people in Savona. Commenting on the Italian authorities’ order for the people to be disembarked over 1,100 kilometres away from where they were rescued, the NGO said: “Such a long trip is illogical, it is inhuman. The people on board were exhausted, in urgent need of care, protection and rest”.

The latest deaths and rescues in the Mediterranean have been brought into sharp focus by the German government’s announcement that it is ceasing its financial support for the SAR NGOs that operate there. On 26 June, Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told journalists: “Germany remains committed to humanity and always will be but I don’t believe it is the foreign office’s job to use funds for this type of sea rescue”. According to the Federal Foreign Office, the German government has provided €2 million per year to SAR NGOs since 2022. The news that the funding would be stopped in 2025, despite €900,000 having already been disbursed, was met with disbelief from SAR NGOs and German opposition politicians alike. “The loss of over two million euros has a concrete impact on rescue operations and the chances of survival for people in distress at sea,” Sea-Eye said in a press statement. The organisation’s words were echoed by Green parliamentary group leader Britta Hasselmann MP who said that the move would “worsen the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean and cause human suffering”. The head of SOS Humanity, Till Rummenhohl, questioned Germany and other European government’s spending priorities. “It is absurd that so much money is being spent on sealing off Europe while so little money for the rescue of human beings is apparently still too much,” he told the InfoMigrants news agency. Rummenhohl also dismissed Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s 2023 claim that SAR NGOs were “de facto collaborating with smuggling groups and promoting irregular migration to Europe”. “People flee across the Central Mediterranean because they have no alternative to escape war, violence, discrimination, lack of prospects and climate change in their countries of origin, as well as human rights violations and torture in Libya or Tunisia,” he said.

Spanish police have launched a murder investigation after a number of bodies with their hands and feet tied were found floating in the sea off the coast of Mallorca. Speaking on 30 June, the head of the Civil Guard on the Balearic Islands, Alejandro Hernández, said that the bodies may have been “migrants who were travelling in a boat that arrived in Alicante”. Spanish media have reported that at least five such corpses have been recovered by Civil Guard patrol boats since mid-May and that the victims may have been “tied up and thrown overboard during their crossing, possibly following a dispute with human traffickers or migrant smugglers”. President of the Balearic Islands Marga Prohens described the incident as showing the “cruellest side of irregular migration”.

A new NGO report has highlighted the use of torture against people trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean migration routes. According to the report, which was published by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (26 June), torture is “widespread” for people on the move in the Mediterranean region. The authors note that, between January 2023 and February 2025, MSF helped 160 torture survivors through its rehabilitation project in Palermo (Sicily). They also revealed that in 82% of the cases, the torture occurred in transit countries, particularly Libya and Tunisia, and that more than a third of cases occurred in nine countries that are listed as “safe” by both Italy and the European Commission.

Greece has deployed naval vessels close to the Libyan coast in an effort to prevent people on the move from arriving on its southern islands. During a meeting with Greek President Konstantinos Tasoulas on 30 June, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced that he had asked his minister of defence and the leadership of the armed forces to arrange the deployment so that “as a precaution, and in co-operation with the Libyan authorities and other European forces, we can send a message that the smugglers are not going to dictate who enters our country”. “I believe that it is a move that is necessary under the current circumstances,” he added, referring to the recent increase in the number of arrivals on Crete and Gavdos. Dimitris Avramopoulos MP from the governing New Democracy party voiced reservations about the plan to deploy the warships. During an interview on the Action24 television channel, the former European commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, said: “I don’t know if deploying a fleet will be effective. Countries cannot block the boats – there is international humanitarian law, and pushbacks are illegal”. Avramopoulos also warned of the risk of the Hellenic Navy being involved in an accident, such as the capsizing or sinking of a small boat. “If we have another Pylos, we will be held accountable,” he added.

A report by Italy’s highest court has raised doubts about the constitutionality of the Italy-Albania Protocol. The report, which was prepared by the Court of Cassation and published on 30 June, is critical of the vagueness of the language used in the protocol and suggests that it may be incompatible with the Italian Constitution. Although it is non-binding, the report has been described as the “biggest legal challenge yet” to the protocol and a “new blow” for the far-right government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. Commenting on the report, the opposition Five Star Movement called on the government to “recognise that the Supreme Court has taken into consideration a wide range of scholarship that raises serious doubts about the compatibility between the government’s plan and the constitution”.

The publication of the Court of Cassation report came a week after the Altraeconomia newspaper revealed that the first repatriation of people who were being detained in the Gjadër Pre-repatriation Detention Centre (CPR) had taken place on 9 May. On 23 June, the newspaper reported that five Egyptian citizens had been flown from Tirana to Cairo without first having returned to Italy as had been the case with previous repatriations from the CPR. The move has been widely condemned. “Under existing EU law, deportations carried out by an EU member state cannot take place from the territory of a third country,” said Nour Khalil from the Refugees Platform in Egypt, Gianfranco Schiavone from ECRE member organisation the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI) and opposition MP Rachele Scarpa in a joint statement.

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