Volunteers in sky watch migrant rescues at sea

As dozens of African migrants traversed the Mediterranean Sea on a flimsy white rubber boat, a small aircraft circling 1,000 feet above closely monitored their attempt to reach Europe.

The twin-engine Seabird, owned by the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch, is tasked with documenting human rights violations committed against migrants at sea and relaying distress calls to nearby ships and authorities who have increasingly ignored their pleas.

On this cloudy October afternoon, an approaching thunderstorm heightened the dangers for the overcrowded boat.

Nearly 23,000 people have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since 2014, according to the United Nations' migration agency.

The aircraft's tactical coordinator, Eike Bretschneider, communicated via radio with the only vessel nearby.

The captain of the Nour 2, agreed to change course and check up on the flimsy boat.

But after seeing the boat had a Libyan flag, the people refused its assistance, the captain reported back on the radio.

Bretschneider, a 30-year-old social worker, quickly calculated that the migrants must have departed Libya approximately 20 hours ago and still had some 15 hours ahead of them before they reached Lampedusa.

That was if their boat did not fall apart or capsize along the way.

Despite the risks, many migrants and refugees say they'd rather die trying to cross to Europe than be returned to Libya where, upon disembarkation, they are placed in detention centers and often subjected to relentless abuse.

Bretschneider sent the rubber boat's coordinates to the air liaison officer sitting in Berlin, who then relayed the position (inside the Maltese Search and Rescue zone) to both Malta and Italy.

Unsurprisingly to them, they received no response.

Running low on fuel, the Seabird had to leave the scene.

The next day Bretschneider got news that the white rubber boat had reached waters near Lampedusa after all and was picked up by the Italian Coast Guard.

But many other boats this year have not been so lucky.

More than 49,000 migrants have reached Italian shores so far this year according to the Italian Ministry of Interior, nearly double the number of people who crossed in the same time period last year.

For years human rights groups and international law experts have denounced that European countries are increasingly ignoring their international obligations to rescue migrants at sea.

Instead, they've outsourced rescues to the Libyan Coast Guard, which has a track record of reckless interceptions as well as ties to human traffickers and militias.

Maltese and Italian authorities did not respond to questions sent by AP.

Although it is illegal for European vessels to take rescued migrants back to Libya themselves, information shared by EU's surveillance drones and planes have allowed the Libyan Coast Guard to considerably increase its ability to stop migrants from reaching Europe.

So far this year, it has intercepted roughly half of those who have attempted to leave, returning more than 26,000 men, women and children to Libya.

Sea-Watch has relied on millions of euros from individual donations over several years to expand its air monitoring capabilities as well.

It now has two small aircraft that, with a birds-eye view, can find boats in distress much faster than ships can, explained Felix Weiss, who heads Sea-Watch's airborne operations.

Taking off from Lampedusa, which is closer to North Africa than Italy, the planes can reach a distress case relatively quickly if its position is known.

But when there are no exact coordinates, they must fly a search pattern, sometimes for hours, and scan the sea with the help of binoculars.

But finding boats in distress is only the first challenge. Getting them rescued is just as difficult, if not harder.

With the absence of state rescue vessels and NGO ships getting increasingly blocked from leaving port, Sea-Watch often relies on the good will of merchant vessels navigating the area.

Without any state authority, the Seabird can only remind captains of their duty to rescue persons in distress.

In this way, Bretschneider recently got an Italian supply vessel to save 65 people from a drifting migrant boat, just moments before the Libyan Coast Guard arrived.