Ray there welcome to the stream home edition im josh rushing sitting in for fit me ok and 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 just in 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 and often pushed back to places like warrant 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 guest 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 another dose of. Whats the matter a lot of fun whats her by the mom 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 that distress cause to the european cost cuts. You know were going to set that up more day in 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 and director of oppression of s. So this may be you know 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 action 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 if ross wrote 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 stranded 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 waters 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 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 rescue ship available no rest you can see and the consequence of that there is there are more people gunning more people disappearing and this route remains known are the deadliest maritime routes in the world and thats really whats the problem whats the thing 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 quarantined on 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 asses but no one is doing it only civilian rescue organization are doing it now and youre going state are mixing up the police the migration policy. Imperative with their mixing up this with their duty to assist and and this is what would you nancy i mean 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 2 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 our souls and european states they are closing their ports because they denounce that there is a lack of europeans really directly 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 murray 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. 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 process or 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 reception and restriction however there cannot be disagreement among us about whether our migration policy should call the law pushbacks or unlawful full stop and 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 war zone how it works and then lets talk about why this responsibility seems to of all of the people who just a pound the situation in acceptable. Yes as i was saying their alarm 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 a distress situation and we try to relay their g. P. S. Coordinates to their target is so that rescue can happen and alarm fun had to was initiated in 2014 because it was clear at the time that her was a. Lack of capacity and lack of willingness by european authorities to actually rescue people and see if and their distress caused were being ignored so there has been that have been several events years before where boats in distress had alerts much teens and italian authorities but they were. Pushing their 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 thats how alarm france started being patient 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 known assistance practices. You mentioned how desperate the situation was out there how that motivated you and i want to bring in another comment from our community this is from someone who works with. Us is that doctors are porters theyre the ceiba. Serai we see her but no. Picture is of a dead body on a deflating. For several weeks seen cannot take this situation in december meeting in sea. Libya and the European Union you know nobodys taking responsibility for saving the lives of migrants or if you do you have a site and see kids but equally 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 got milk lance is 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 in fact 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 paper die crossing the mediterranean as a result of your appeal than 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 for us 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 and while 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 the actually 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 there 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 or they were people that left the country or region 5 years ago and they were stuck on the way they were stuck 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 think 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 there was people that person issues that was paul would say. 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 and if you know what the situation is and i mean even getting on the rubber dinghy in the middle of the night with no getting seas 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 could a 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 sequel i mean we are the war that the question is there are human beings droning ats. Should we risk you them or 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 and 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 indenture 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 in that 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 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 authorities 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 coast guard to intervene. And just a few days ago the Italian Parliament there signed a new agreement to finance and give resources and money its a very dense course code 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 it can cause current 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 like 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 also its quite funny how the e. U. And libya they come up and say we rescued these many migrants refugees on see what is what theyre forgetting is its not a rescue taking these people who left unsafe shores of libya back to those unsafe shores and back to the unsafe country this war going on we saw last year when that sentient center was bombed 53 i believe it was migrants and they died and then greece we get the stories about whats happening in the Unofficial Detention Centers that nobody has any record about theres extortion rapes theres all sorts of violence taking place and. I mean its all been funded as you can see from by the e. U. Because when people try to leave they pay some of them pay some money to the smugglers just to get out and then the e. U. Fund the coast guard to send them back to where this caper um and so its this is it doesnt seem to be any sort of effort by the e. U. To make things any easier for them but is there just funding its just making it more and more difficult for them to cross and also its increasing the casualty figures at these war and but also hindering the process of rescue operations like the s. O. S. Meds sea voyage and all the other people its also adding to the figures that die drown or that disappear on scene without having any knowledge of whats been happening next. Some people in our you tube chat here this is touring news agrees with he used pay the libyan coast guard 90000000 euros on how to police and attain migrants and in them back rather than investing in the people for their life and then lost my password says this is more than a stain on a u. S. Reputation if you cannot call their western world leader of human rights unless they understand the value of human life or the suffering of humans in distress predict what should happen here and what needs to change moving forward. Where a humanitarian organization the solution is probably extremely complicated string some stability in libya at some point this is what we dream of at some point and people will not have to take their religious journey which they have no choice and we had repeatedly the same testing many on the occurrence before and on the ocean viking of us over 5 years we sent more than 51000 rescue and rescue more than 31000 people and the. End of the. Ones with. The long Term Solution probably due to some kind of a meeting. About that but in the meantime what weve seen over and over was that as a rescue ship available was that there is no rest she has a level where there are strong deterrence policies and when it was at the risk criminalize ation against n. G. O. S like ours. And innocent people. And. Everything the boys and getting. Younger and stronger and they. Really brought in a direct use to the rest and this is what they did nothing in the example of. That terrible the picture that. Both the left. And people made. Off. Of contact with. You from you and i quite agree with your with your. With your read on you tube on this comment i mean we are all a very fair use lot of print and on the. And were going to leave it there and i still look at your photo here for us of them on the boat and i keep thinking they dont see the waves they see a boat. Bras are going to be on Instagram Live here. To talk about this on the a. J. Streams instagram of youll be able to find that it any point will be saved on there like they call my guest for being with us today and i hope we this gets better with or. You know. Business leaders theres more to buy now bras palm. Business waiters theres more to buy now bras palm. Commented beyond well. Taken my dad has a. Defined. We should not have to trade our culture for oil and gas we live here we make the rules. Our investigate exposes and question the use and abuse of around the globe. On aljazeera. If you want to help save the world. Hello im Barbara Starr in london these are the top stories on aljazeera theres been a dramatic escalation in the tension between the United States and china the u. S. Government has ordered beijing to close its consulate in Houston Texas saying its to protect American Intellectual property a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign ministry has denied media reports that staff had been burning documents inside the building and accuse the u. S. Of violate