SAR: from the sea to the sky

摘要

In March 2019, the EU declared the end of the migrant crisis, a period marked, according to the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM), by almost 19,000 actual or presumed migrant deaths. Characterised by people crowded into small boats or inflatables, sometimes lacking room even to kneel, this people trafficking nightmare of oft-doomed voyages across the Mediterranean led to a complex and fraught political situation and has altered aspects of searchand-rescue (SAR) operations in the region. The crisis not only effected a notable change in the presumed role of coastguard vessels off Italy but across the wider Mediterranean as well. Before the crisis, attendance upon vessels or seafarers in distress by coastguard vessels had been taken for granted; it was regarded as integral to their role, with the terms 'coastguard vessel' and 'search-and-rescue vessel' often used interchangeably. However, after the refugee crisis, this role shifted; in the Mediterranean, the 'European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders' became the more robust European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), with its budget almost tripling.