Lukas Kaldenhoff, spokesperson for SOS Humanity: ‘The disbursement of federal funds by the Federal Foreign Office to sea rescue organisations is based on a Bundestag resolution from 2022, which is being consistently implemented regardless of current populist tendencies. The current debate about supporting sea rescue with federal funds therefore seems like election campaign bluster.’

All three governing parties had committed to supporting sea rescue in the Mediterranean in their 2021 coalition agreement. Lukas Kaldenhoff: ‘This year, funding for sea rescue accounts for just 0.09 per cent of the Federal Foreign Office’s budget for humanitarian aid – a negligible proportion. What is being forgotten in the debate is that this is about saving people from drowning! Supporting sea rescue remains hugely important: currently, one person dies every four hours in the Mediterranean, and in 2024 alone, more than 1,600 people seeking protection did not survive the dangerous journey. But instead of actively tackling this humanitarian crisis, the CDU and FDP are once again playing political games on the backs of people in acute need. That is shameful! Anyone who seriously wants to do something about the deaths in the Mediterranean should not get lost in polemical and unobjective debates, but instead support sea rescue and specifically a European sea rescue programme, which the German government also expressly supports in its coalition agreement.’

Since its foundation, SOS Humanity has been calling for such a governmental, European sea rescue programme that reliably and legally rescues people from drowning in the entire central Mediterranean.

For further questions, statements or interviews, please contact
Press Officer Lukas Kaldenhoff, presse@sos-humanity.org

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