Despite the opposition from over 160 human rights organisations, the EU parliament voted in favour of the Migration and Asylum Pact last year. While Luxembourg's government fully backs the agreement, NGOs like Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) fear that the lives of asylum seekers will be endangered, especially on the EU’s borders.
When we call Margot Bernard for an interview at the end of October, she takes the video call from inside a meeting room on board of the Geo Barents. Maps of the Italian coast are hung on the off-white wall behind her. Bernard is the project manager of the MSF search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean Sea. She has witnessed herself the danger people put themselves through to reach Europe. The Geo Barents is one of MSF’s search and rescue boats in the Mediterranean. Since their first rescue mission in June 2021, the boat and its team have saved over 12.000 lives. At the time of the videocall, the boat, however, was not on the sea, but in the Italian city Napoli. Bernard explained that they were waiting for their boat to go into the dry dock for maintenance.
Bernard has been doing rescue work for several years now, but she can still not imagine what it truly is like to be on a boat of asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean – "days after days, seeing only water and nothing else". She explains that it can take one to two days for people to sail from the West of Libya to Italy in favorable condition, "but we also see people who are stuck on sea for three, four or even five days". Rescued people are often severely dehydrated.
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