page_title: Proactiva Open Arms
section_title: 2018
hierarchical_section_title: Proactiva Open Arms / Mediterranean search-and-rescue zone / 2018
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Die Open Arms in Pozzallo nach der Beschlagnahme durch die italienische Staatsanwaltschaft
context_page_description: Proactiva Open Arms is a Spanish NGO devoted to search and rescue at sea. Set up in October 2015, it carried out its first rescue action that same month from its base on the Greek island of Lesbos.
  As well as maintaining a permanent base on Lesbos, the NGO carries out its rescue operations from three ships, a sailing yacht Astral, the Golfo Azzurro and Open Arms.
  In 2016, Proactiva won the H.E.R.O. Award for Outstanding Team Contribution to a Maritime SAR Operation at the first edition of the UK-based International Maritime Rescue Federation's H.E.R.O. Awards for their participation in saving the lives of over 200 people who had capsized off the north shore of Lesbos.
  The NGO has received several other awards, including the European Citizen's Prize awarded by the European Parliament in 2016. Its founder, Òscar Camps, was named Catalan of the Year in 2015.
context_section_description: 27 January 2018: Proactiva, in a co-ordinated rescue operation with the Spanish Navy frigate Santa María, rescued 329 people, including 95 women, three of them pregnant, and 37 children, six of whom were newborns.
  11 March 2018: Proactiva rescued three brothers who had fled Libya in a rubber dinghy, one of them a 13-year-old boy suffering from leukemia and with an IV line attached to his body.
  12 March 2018: Proactiva rescued 93 migrants, disembarking in Pozzallo, Sicily.
  16 March 2018: a Libyan coastguard vessel intercepted the Open Arms in international waters and threatened to "shoot to kill" unless the lifeguards handed over the women and children on board who were among the 218 people rescued earlier that day by Proactiva in international waters. Open Arms had attended an alert sent out by the Italian coastguard's Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) to rescue two boats in difficulty. After the Spanish lifeguards had reached the boat carrying the migrants, IMRCC informed them that Libya forces had command over the operation, but "told the Open Arms crew to use their judgment". A Libyan coastguard patrol boat reached the scene approximately 30 minutes after all the migrants had been issued with life jackets and all the women and children had been transferred to Proactiva’s rigid-hulled inflatable boats.
  Two days later, The Associated Press, quoting the Italian news agency Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), reported that the ship had been impounded by Italian authorities and its captain and two other people were being investigated for human trafficking after arriving in Pozzallo, Sicily with 216 of the 218 migrants they had rescued in international waters, 73 miles (117 kilometers) from the coast of Libya. Two of the people rescued, a mother and her sick child, had been evacuated to Malta, where the ship is based, before Italian authorities permitted the ship to proceed to Pozzallo, Sicily "given the precarious conditions of the migrants and worsening weather forecasts".
  16 April 2018: The Italian court orders the release of the vessel Open Arms, nevertheless the human trafficking investigations continue.
caption: Open Arms in Pozzallo 26.3.2018 after confiscation
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