What is Happening in the Mediterranean Right Now – And Why You Should Care

Nov 26, 2025

Janna Sauerteig, Mobilization and Advocacy Manager at SOS Humanity, dives into the critical rescue operations in the Central Mediterranean. She discusses the alarming death toll since 2014 and how organizations like hers fill the gap left by Italy’s Mare Nostrum withdrawal. Janna sheds light on the violent actions of the Libyan Coast Guard and the EU's complicity in human rights violations. She also advocates for a European search-and-rescue program and ways for listeners to assist in these life-saving efforts.

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INSIGHT

Civil Rescue Filled A Deadly State Gap

Since 2014 over 32,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean, showing a persistent lethal migration crisis.
SOS Humanity entered the gap left by state actors to provide civilian search and rescue and document abuses.

ANECDOTE

Humanity One: A Volunteer Rescue Ship

SOS Humanity operates the Humanity One with volunteers including medics and a psychologist to provide at-sea first aid and psychosocial support.
They coordinate with aircraft and Alarm Phone to locate distress cases across a vast and dangerous central Mediterranean area.

INSIGHT

Mare Nostrum's End Created The Rescue Gap

In 2015 Italy's Mare Nostrum briefly conducted large-scale rescues but the EU refused sustained funding, creating the current long-term rescue gap.
That withdrawal catalysed civil-society search-and-rescue interventions that persist today.

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Since 2014 more than 32,000 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. As the EU and its member states have been increasingly prioritising migration deterrence over human life, civic organisations have stepped in and are carrying out search and rescue operations. SOS Humanity is one of these organisations. Janna Sauerteig joins us to talk about the work SOS Humanity and other civilian search and rescue organisations do, the obstacles they face from member states and the EU, the role of the so-called “Libyan Coast Guard”, the ways in which deadly policies are part of the European global and democratic crisis, and possible solutions.

The data about deaths in the Mediterranean mentioned in the podcast are from the Missing Migrants Project. We also mentioned the evidence that migrants and even Black residents are rounded up from North African cities and dumped in the desert; this is from a 2024 investigation by El Pais (in Spanish) and Lighthouse Reports (in English).

Transcript of episode here.

Guest: Janna Sauerteig is Mobilization and Advocacy Manager at SOS Humanity. Their latest report “Borders of (In)humanity”, published this May, demonstrates the connection between the EU’s migration externalisation policies and human rights violations in the Central Mediterranean, namely through EU and bilateral cooperation with Libya and Tunisia in the field of search and rescue. The report is based on survivors’ testimonies which collected by SOS Humanity.

Presenter: Licia Cianetti is Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham and Founding Deputy Director of CEDAR.

The People, Power, Politics podcast brings you the latest insights into the factors that are shaping and re-shaping our political world. It is brought to you by the Centre for Elections, Democracy, Accountability and Representation (CEDAR) based at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

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