Christians in Germany purchase boat to aid shipwrecked migrants

A rescue ship purchased via crowdfunding, organized by the Evangelical Church in Germany, set sail from Spain in early August. Named Sea-Watch 4, the ship will aid migrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.

The voyage across the Mediterranean is notoriously dangerous, with boats capsizing and killing hundreds of people at a time. Between 1993 and 2018, volunteers at United for Intercultural Action logged 27,000 known migrant deaths at sea, although the total was almost certainly much higher. An estimated 400 people have drowned just in 2020.

And yet, the last rescue ship—Doctors Without Borders’s Aquarius—ended operations in 2018, citing harassment from European nations. In June of that year, Italy refused safe harbor to Aquarius, which was carrying more than 600 migrants.