Are we are this is the government not at all calling for the Syrian Opposition to really address some of the structural issues we listen i still think that travel is the safest mode of travel and to spend that we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter on how it is their own. Day theyre welcome to the stream home edition im josh rushing sitting in for femi ok you are joining me from my home in Fairfax Virginia while were still under quarantine here today were talking about you its been a huge story duchess and us but across the world black lives matter and many countries e. U. Countries offer support for that and so that they stood in solidarity with it but were asking about what about the black life that their southern border the ones that are risking their lives to try to get across the bed to enter the e. U. And are being blocked off and pushed back to places like war and torn libya now were joined by a wait before we go if you watch this on you tube theres one thing i want to bring up look over there to the right you see that boxer thats actually a live youtube chat id love for you to engage in this conversation we actually have a producer dare right now who can take some of your questions your comments are going to get into me and i will get on to this exciting panel of guests that im joined but now im going to ask the guests to actually introduce themselves im going to begin with deanna didnt he tell us who you are and how youre related to this conversation hello my name is that another dose of. Whats the matter alarm fun at whats ahead a lot of fun Grassroots Network a walk to be still of the year up in north africa that supports people on the mall people who watch price to cross the Mediterranean Sea and we provide a Hotline Service of her the people who are in distress at sea and we relay their distress cause to their european crosscuts. You know were going to set that up more to enter the later this year im going to explain that again and how it works going to move over to frederick can you tell us a bit about who you were. Hello im fredricka so if oppression of a so its made it i think which is an organization chartering a rescue ships we have the ocean which is one of the rescue ships see that rescue ships operating in the Central Mediterranean and im speaking from must say france. Thank you for joining us today and aljazeera english is own for us here on it can it can you introduce yourself. Because i want to deny correction im doing here is an american. Journalist would tell this here i work on a website and i sort of. Migration and human rights and i happen to be on the ocean like nuff you know which fredericks s. O. S. Med they operate now in for us for an incredible article were going to talk more about your later in the show but ill show you right now just waited it out is this black life matter even the one surrounding in the mediterranean thats actually the idea that sparked this show today so for us thank you for that frederick im going to begin with you numbers are actually down right now compared to previous years i think 2016 was the high is whats happening out there in the water is that a good thing why are the numbers down. Its always a good thing that people are not risking their lives in such conditions in the life of the in the Mediterranean Sea. The question is. Nevertheless the situation continues over a number and weeks in people continuing cross in europe especially this year in 2000 when we had massive departure over the last months when there was no restitution very little no rest you can see and the consequence of that there is there are more people gunning more people deferring and this route remains known are the deadliest maritime routes in the world and thats really whats the problem whats at stake here. Is that if you do understand it correctly youre actually a captive a ship who was out there rescuing those. Im not the captain i am im supporting the operations from from the shore the ship is now in sicily we just ended the mission actually we started months in the house. For rescue operation and rescue 180 people this was extremely tough on board because the ship has been left without possibility to disembark the people for a very long period for 10 days to a very dramatic situations on board we had to declare a state of emergency and eventually we were allowed disembarkation 2 weeks ago in sicily and following that because we are in the cockpit and they make situation and this makes it all more complicated weve been instructed to carry on the current time when the ship has been under quarantine for the last 2 weeks and it is actually today as we speak it is actually being released from the quarantining to. What countries prove prevented you from embarking on what. The big issue and this is the situation were denouncing for more than 2 years now is that all european states theyve been signing Maritime Conventions which are extremely simple extremely straightforward they say any cap then of any ship has a duty to assist people in distress at sea this is a centuries old rule it has been. Its very clear cut so there is a duty to assist but no one is doing it only civilian rescue organization are doing it now and european states are mixing up the holy see migration policy. Imperative with their mixing up this with their duty to assist and and this is what with the nonsinging human life comes 1st i mean you need to respect Maritime Convention you need to respect assistance to people in danger and then other considerations come afterwards and this result is for the last 3 years in a situation where systematically whenever a ship can be. Like the ocean viking where it can be also a commercial ship whenever a ship does its duty to rescue people in the high seas in between Southern Europe and libya then it is being left at sea for days for weeks because there is a dispute about where should these people disembark and marked on no again is very clear people should disembark in a place of safety in a place where people are given support and in a place where their human rights are not abuse and there is a risk for that and the place of safety more close in this area of the world are cells in european states they are closing their ports because they denounce that there is a lack of european saree directive which we fully agree on that i mean there should be much more from the european states to support the Southern European states but this is another issue the issue is people need to disembark fast and just an anecdotal story but on the last rotation of the ocean viking couple of days ago we had a suicide attack. We have people jumping overboard we are fights we are people and we had very very stressful situation just because people were left on the ship without any perspective and this is exactly the situation that mari time low wants to prevent saying that people needs to disembark as soon as possible they cannot be left on a ship which is an emergency situation you cannot leave 180 people in the ship like thats a full days i mean this is a terrible situation i want to bring in to. Become a calm site it is from someone in our community who recorded a video forces actually an analyst on immigration in greece named Joel Hernandez get we bring him in here and he state dealing with refugee flows one need to find a balance between receptive measures to safely register and processor i hopes and restrictive measures to discourage irregular migration and deter human smuggling by all means there can be disagreement among us about where to strike the balance between recession and restriction however there cannot be disagreement among us about whether our migration policy should fall the law pushbacks or unlawful full stop when it is beneath the you for them to happen on european soil or in european waters beneath the e. U. I would go to dinner with with with that because youre actually with an activist group and you have your the alarm phone i want to hear about that but im curious. Why it is that the you guys are doing this rather then you know some either in geo or official or you know Country Organization 1st tell us about the lore bone how it works and then lets talk about why this responsibility seems to of all of the people who just a pound the situation on acceptable. Yes as i was saying there learn for provides it relate to a distress caused by people in distress so were all its really true to get in touch with people who are in distress at sea they generally call us when. Theyre in distress situation and we try to relay their g. P. S. Coordinates to their target is so that rescue can happen and alarm phone had to was initiated in 2014 because it was clear at the time but her was a. Lack of capacity and luck or willingness by european authorities to actually rescue people if and their distress cause were being ignored so that has been that have been several events years before where the distress had alerts much teens and italian authorities but they were. Pushing the responsibility to one another were told intervening and this led to. Several shipwrecks and hundreds of people lost their lives because of these delays in rescue and because of this none assistance so that told her of their alarm for inside had been tension was to relay the distress caused by people in distress and to put pressure on authorities to rescue as quickly as possible to take responsibilities for people in this stress and to avoid not assistance practices. You mentioned how desperate the situation was out there how that motivate if you want to bring another comment from our community this is from someone who works with him which is the Doctors Without Borders near the ceiba. Serai we see her but no. Picture is of a dead body on a deflated. For several weeks seen cannot take this situation in december meeting in sea. Libya and European Union you know nobodys taking responsibility for saving lives of migrants or if he does have a site and see kids but he hurried down now treating the remains of people read the necessary dignity the body should have been retrieved and should have been identified him agin for a 2nd it destroys our families looking at these pictures and thinking it could be gotten off once hes talking about. Search and rescue teams have seen a some kind of vessel out there like a raft or something floating with a dead body in it as far as we know at this moment no ones even going to recover this yet and its been out there for a while now and back this is one of the search and rescue. Operators that tweeted about seeing the body and what it means it knows it up with a stick up this way. And people die crossing the mediterranean as a result of your appeal then a fortress around itself. And when these dead im not laid to rest. That shows that the last bit of dignity that you had left has drowned with these people and the meant. We request safe and legal votes. So that tragedies like this one do not have to occur again. And youve actually been out there with down on the put up there hasnt interacted of page with some of your photos here can you tell us it will you do almost there your photos because theyre really powerful can you tell us about some of the people that you met and what you saw when we when you were with them. I mean it was quite powerful what you saw its looking at these photos is one thing but being asked me out. On the sea i mean the 1st photo that you saw this he was quite calm in the evening some things we saw like a big swell that was high waves and stuff and these people who were risking their lives just to get a shot at a life that was people that left the country of origin 2 weeks ago and they were people that left the country or region 5 years ago and they were stuck on the way there was that in libya they had left their families behind that and heard it for them in weeks and weeks and weeks and months and they knew that they were taking a risky journey. But it just goes to show how bad the situation is in the country of origin that they want to leave behind and sake get on this journey which they know may not end as well as they hope it to be they were like this one that you seeing right now she was 32 years old she was in the 8th month of a pregnancy with twins she actually said shes going to reach europe and shes going to name the twins ocean and whiting said i was quite nice that even in those times they think of all those things but. Those people who wanted to play football in europe it was people who just wanted to get a better shot at life they were people who were running away from corruption they were. They were people who were running away from corrupt governments that was people with person issues there was probably. There was also source bosch and so its i mean the list is quite long the behind leave their homes and enduring the situation on the way to libya and then staying in libya in what theyve called as hell. And i remember one guy he rescued he caught on the ocean wiking and i spoke to him and in the 1st by 2nd the told me that the situation in libya is so bad that if the libyan coast guards come right now hes going to smash his head in the wall slit his throat and jump off the ship and drown in the water. Instead of going back to libya. And that just course to show how bad the situation is for them in their view what the situation is and i mean even getting on the rubber dinghy in the middle of the night with no guarantees theyre going to reach europe they still choose to take that make that journey knowing that they might not see land ever again but its just they want to take that risk just even if its like a one percent chance of reaching europe so some seem a lot of activity here in our you tube. Chat over there in theres this whole cost sentiment the number of people have this why does your need to accept these refugees can someone speak to. This is another question if i may. The question is not was of people need to whether europe need to accept all know thats of the sea people i mean we are the who are the question is there are human beings joining at sea. Should we risk you them all not. Extremely clear there is a duty to us and these people need to be assisted whatever comes afterwards in terms of migratory polices exeter is another matter but the any policy is only valid whenever it is based on strong values on principle and on the rule of law and this is what the very in the middle the Central Mediterranean today and this is what were dancing extremely hard these regard for the law and for the very basic human values of assisting people in danger and this is far before considering whether these people need to be accepted not accepted i mean there are laws of people who need protections need to be protected but before anything people that are drowning needs to be rescued and thats something that any sea pharo will repeat and repeat ever on again and heres a quote from for us a story that really broke my heart. In life when you see youve lost everything youre not afraid of anything anymore you dont see the waves you just see a boat and thats your chance to get to freedom again and a lot of people if they even do make it across safely arent getting to freedom because theyre being pushed back to libya a war a war torn country 9 others a case in italy where a boat captain is going to be tried for picking up some people in the water and returning them to libya because an international water. I mean International Law in libya is not safe harbor it is that true can someone speak to that. Yeah. One of the one of the main problems in the church trying to denounce as an alarm for. The Central Mediterranean is very european out or it is rely on the libyan coast guard to capture people at sea and to bring them back to libya which is a violation of their rights and instead of rescuing people at sea european authorities wait for the libyan costco to intervene. And just a few days ago the Italian Parliament has signed a new agreement to finance and give resources and money to very dense coast guard which not only violates peoples rights by bringing them back to the place where they escape in from where they are risking their lives to escape from but also. That it can cause god is known for conducting very dangerous interception operations and several times weve heard from people been intercepted and who get in touch with us afterwards to document their story and to denounce what happened several times they tell us that have lost people at sea the during the interception operation people selling their water or people jumped in the water because they didnt want to be taken back to libya and. Nobody looked for them nobody search for them they just died and there is no accountability process there is no institution pushing the libyan coast guard to actually and safe people in distress there are only aim is to capture them at sea its a bit i dont reach european waters and sometimes they even intervene with seeing european search and rescue zones as it happened. 2020. 4 armed for and for many of the organizations that are active in the central Mediterranean Sea one of the main demands is to stop financing that indian coast guard and to stop. Collaborating with libyan authorities in illegal pushbacks. We have a comment from frederick a soda hes the chief of mission for the International Organization for migration i. O. M. In leave in libya he said the actual chief of mission there he says responding to a question and the stream talk to him earlier this week he said its well documented as being a very bad detentions arbitrary and definite so there really is not a Legal Process for people to get out of detention or the finite amount of time that they stay there so nothing has changed its been bad situation for a number of years now and weve been advocating for the end of these facilities and for improvement but theres been limited progress and yet is there not an enormous contract with e. U. The e. U. To send refugees back to libya look how can that be the case if you did you find out anything about that on your trip across. Yes sir i mean its been there was an a. P. Investigation as well recently and its been well documented in reports and stuff that the e. U. Has been financing. The libyans will they call it coastguards but its made up of a lot of other groups. They have been funding they have been training them its been the equipment its been provided its them as well and theyve been told to basically just keep these people away from your insurance and al