How it all started...

The history of migration is a history of restrictions on the movement of all but a wealthy elite. To those with the right passport, the earth appears as a smooth surface whose boundaries a select few can cross effortlessly. For people with the “wrong” passport, each border carries the threat of violence, exploitation or death. These borders have histories. They are built on the legacy of colonial plunder and dispossession, and they reflect Europe’s neo-colonial relation to its former dominions: relations of extraction, tutelage and imperialist warfare. The struggle against borders and for the rights of people on the move also has a history: it is part of a continuum of anti-colonial struggles for emancipation that shaped movements across Africa and the Middle East and inspired large sections of European progressive movements. The story of the Iuventa is a moment in the political history of the border.

The idea that wealthy states could contain the world’s poor and displaced through walls, visas, and militarized borders was always a fantasy.

For decades, European governments built an increasingly layered system of mobility control. But during the so-called "long summer of migration” in 2015, that system began to fracture. Borders are built on the assumption that movement can be regulated through deterrence. But when enough people move at once, the system breaks down and the border cracks open.

European governments attempted to restore control through violent discipline. In the Central Mediterranean, the consequences were deadly; mortality rates reached catastrophic levels as rescue capacities were withdrawn and people were left stranded at sea. Politicians could not openly defend such a strategy. So they looked for others to blame.

The EU increasingly outsourced border enforcement beyond its territory, attempting to shift both responsibility and visibility away from Europe itself. The 2016 EU-Turkey agreement, designed to contain people seeking refuge before they could reach Europe, became a blueprint for the externalization of European borders.

At the same time, a political narrative was constructed around the figure of the “ruthless smuggler and trafficker.” The phrase itself blurred important distinctions. Smuggling refers to facilitating unauthorized border crossings, usually with consent. Trafficking involves coercion and exploitation. In political discourse, the two were deliberately collapsed into one another. A second shift followed. Smugglers — often small-scale operators who exist because legal routes have been closed — were recast as agents of transnational organized crime. Once that framework took hold, the criminalization of solidarity became much easier.

But rhetoric alone was not enough. The narrative required institutions capable of enforcing it. Following the deadly shipwrecks of 2013, Italy expanded the powers and coordination structures linking anti-smuggling and anti-terror investigations. Migration increasingly became treated as a matter of organized crime and national security. No institution embodied this shift more clearly than Italy’s anti-mafia directorate, the DNAA. Originally established to combat organized crime networks, it gradually repositioned itself at the centre of migration policing in the Mediterranean. Once smugglers were framed as mafia-like criminal actors, anyone assisting people on the move could be portrayed as a collaborator: activists, rescue crews, lawyers, journalists, aid workers.
Not by accident. By design.

We never hid what we were doing. Our aim was simple: to make the crossing less deadly. If that made a smuggler’s job marginally easier, and the border guard’s job of violent exclusion marginally harder, then so be it.

It was inevitable that our activities would be in tension with European border policy. Rescue operations reduced the lethal consequences of deterrence at sea and complicated efforts to seal the route entirely. Authorities could not openly criminalize rescue itself. Instead, they constructed a narrative of collusion between NGOs and smugglers. The smear campaign that followed was not random or accidental. It came out of a network of state institutions, media actors, private security contractors, and far-right political circles.

It began in the autumn of 2016. A man named Pietro Gallo and a group of former police officers working as security contractors aboard Save the Children’s rescue ship contacted Italian intelligence services, alleging that the crew of the Iuventa was “in contact” with smugglers. The message initially received little attention.
But weeks later, Marco Minniti became Italy’s Interior Minister. On the day he took office, a report containing similar allegations was forwarded from the Interior Ministry to the DNAA (Italy’s anti-mafia directorate) with instructions to intensify investigations into rescue NGOs operating in the Mediterranean.

At the same time, Frontex circulated reports echoing similar suspicions while citing unnamed Italian sources. Comparable claims appeared across far-right media networks, including Gefira, a Dutch neo-Nazi think tank, before being repackaged into viral online content and amplified by mainstream Italian television and politicians, including Matteo Salvini.

Meanwhile, wiretapped conversations later revealed that Gallo and his associates had been privately sharing operational information with Salvini’s office, hoping their access would help secure future political appointments.

In spring 2017, prosecutors escalated the campaign. Carmelo Zuccaro, the chief prosecutor in Catania, announced a task force targeting rescue NGOs. He publicly suggested that humanitarian organizations could be connected to a broader effort to “destabilize the Italian economy” through migration.
No evidence was presented. But by then, the objective was no longer simply to investigate but to disseminate suspicion.

Concrete changes along the Mediterranean border regime were already underway while the smear campaign gathered momentum. For a time, the presence of civilian rescue ships had forced Italian and EU authorities to keep up rescue operations and bring people safely to shore. We had established working relationships with both the Italian Coast Guard and the European Naval Force, under whose coordination we operated. But by the end of 2016, that cooperation began to break down. Authorities became increasingly evasive, coordination deteriorated, and rescue conditions worsened. At times, the Iuventa remained overcrowded for days while waiting for larger vessels to disembark the people we had rescued.

The composition of the search-and-rescue zone was also changing. European assets became less visible as a new actor expanded its role. On 2 February 2017, Italy signed a Memorandum of Understanding with one of the major factions involved in Libya’s post-Gaddafi civil war. The agreement helped formalize and expand the so-called Libyan Coast Guard, incorporating militia-linked actors into Europe’s border enforcement system.

The agreement however, established a system of proxy interceptions designed to shift responsibility away from European states. Instead of being rescued and brought to Italy, many people were intercepted at sea and returned to detention centres in Libya.
Numerous investigations by journalists, humanitarian organizations, and international bodies documented widespread abuse inside these facilities, including torture, extortion, forced labour, trafficking, and arbitrary killings. The system became part of a broader economy of violence surrounding migration through Libya.

One of the key political architects of the agreement was Marco Minniti, who moved between roles in Italy’s security apparatus, the Interior Ministry, and corporate sectors connected to defence and energy interests. The policy itself operated with the full support of the European Union.

The machinery was in place. One final obstacle remained: the civilian rescue fleet itself.

In May 2017, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC), the authority formally responsible for coordinating rescues at sea, ordered the Iuventa to leave one of the largest ongoing rescue operations and sail more than 250 kilometres to Lampedusa in order to disembark five minors. That same day, listening devices were covertly installed on board as part of the growing criminal investigation against us.

In that period, Coordination between the Italian authorities and civilian rescue organizations became increasingly restricted. Communication deteriorated, transfers were delayed, and operational cooperation was reduced, further weakening rescue efforts while shifting responsibility away from European states. At the same time, Italy expanded its support for the so-called Libyan Coast Guard by supplying patrol boats, funding, training, and information about distress cases at sea.

Marco Minniti again played a central political role during this period. As Interior Minister, he used the ongoing investigations to pressure rescue NGOs into signing a new “Code of Conduct." The proposed rules would have required organizations to accept police presence on board and cooperate more closely with Libyan authorities, undermining principles many NGOs considered fundamental to independent humanitarian operations. Internal documents later suggested that the criminal investigations were used as political leverage during these negotiations.

At a tense meeting with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), whose rescue ships were also operating in the Mediterranean, ministry officials reportedly implied that cooperation with the code could influence the attitude of prosecutors. In a wiretapped conversation later made public, one MSF staff member described the exchange as a “veiled threat.” MSF refused to sign. So did Jugend Rettet. MSF refused to sign. So did Jugend Rettet. By the time the signing deadline passed, the positions remained irreconcilable. The negotiations collapsed on 29 July 2017.

Three days later, the Iuventa was directed into the port of Lampedusa under the pretext of a rescue operation, a coordinated action involving the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (IMRCC) and the local port authority. By the time the ship arrived, journalists had already gathered at the dock. Portions of the investigation file had been leaked in advance, shaping the public narrative before any charges had been tested in court. The Iuventa was searched and seized on 2 August 2017.

The story dominated headlines for months. Wiretapped conversations involving Pietro Gallo and his associates helped fuel the media campaign. Selected excerpts were circulated as evidence of suspicious conduct aboard the Iuventa. Soundbites and insinuations such as, “weird things happened on the Iuventa,” quickly became public “facts.” Missing from most coverage were other parts of the recordings, including conversations in which Gallo and his associates discussed presenting themselves as useful allies to Matteo Salvini or Italian intelligence services.

The case also deepened divisions within the humanitarian sector itself. A distinction increasingly emerged between NGOs portrayed as “responsible” and cooperative, and those depicted as politically radical or reckless — among them the Iuventa.

Just nine days after the confrontation in Lampedusa, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (IMRCC) in Rome issued warnings about growing security risks for humanitarian vessels operating off the Libyan coast. At the same time, Libyan authorities announced restrictions on NGO rescue ships and asserted control over a newly declared Libyan search-and-rescue zone. Italian authorities stated that they could no longer guarantee the safety of civilian rescue operations in the area.

The consequences were immediate. Rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean was reduced for months as NGOs suspended or limited operations under mounting legal, political, and operational pressure. Another deadly gap opened at sea.