The signatory organizations named below demand that the European Union provide a unified response to the tragedy in the Mediterranean. We insist that migrants and refugees who risk their lives crossing the sea must be admitted onto European soil.

In response to the systematic failure of European ships to rescue shipwrecked migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, people across Europe and Africa cried out for justice. Finally, on July 11th a Spanish ship used by NATO forces, called the Almirante Juan de Borbón, came to the rescue of more than one hundred women, men, and children of sub-Saharan African origin [1], whose makeshift boat was sinking in international waters. These shipwrecked migrants had set out from Libyan ports [2], but they never made it to European soil. [3].