One year of Albatross UNO: Unmasking violence and human rights violations in the Central Mediterranean

One year ago, SOS MEDITERRANEE and the Humanitarian Pilots Initiative launched Albatross UNO, an aerial monitoring operation in the Central Mediterranean. Based in Lampedusa, the aircraft has since carried out monitoring flights to document events at sea, including violations of international maritime and human rights law.

Over its first year, Albatross UNO has demonstrated why an independent civilian presence over the Central Mediterranean remains essential to ensuring that what happens at sea is witnessed, documented and brought to public attention.

During monitoring flights between November 2025 and November 2026, the crew of the Albatross UNO sighted 69 boats in distress carrying an estimated 2,755 people. They also spotted 74 empty boats and the bodies of 18 people, whose identities and the circumstances of their deaths remain unknown. 

Of these 69 cases, 20 (29%) were first sighted by Albatross UNO without any prior alert. The remaining 49 had initially been reported by other sources, including Alarm Phone (30%), Frontex (28%) and Mayday relays from unknown sources (13%). 

Of the 69 documented distress cases, 38 resulted in people being rescued and disembarked in a place of safety: 21 were carried out by the Italian Coast Guard, 16 by civilian rescue vessels, and one by a merchant vessel, which subsequently transferred those rescued to an Italian Coast Guard vessel. 

The crew documented 25 boats intercepted by Libyan actors, with survivors forcibly returned to Libya. Those interceptions accounted for 35% of all boats in distress documented by Albatross UNO between November 2025 and November 2026. 

“In several documented interceptions, Libyan actors used dangerous manoeuvres and practices, including repeatedly attempting to drive into boats in distress and towing unseaworthy boats with people still on board — actions that placed lives at further risk,” says Fulvia Conte, Head of Mission of the Albatross aerial monitoring operation.  

These interceptions are taking place against a backdrop of expanding Libyan maritime capacity. Over the past year, Albatross UNO observed an increasing number of unmarked speedboats operated by unidentified Libyan actors, alongside newly delivered Libyan Coast Guard vessels, including very fast RHIBs. 

Europe’s growing role in deterrence and Libyan interceptions 

The European Union has steadily expanded its surveillance and monitoring capacities in the Central Mediterranean. This expansion reflects a broader European approach to migration deterrence: one that has increasingly invested in monitoring the sea not to rescue people in distress or prevent shipwrecks, but to enable illegal interceptions and pushbacks. 

Detection of people in distress by European aerial surveillance does not guarantee rescue. Between 2019 and 10 August 2026, aircrafts operated by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, sighted 4,654 boats; 1,214 of them (26.1%) were intercepted and returned to Libya1. In other words, more than one in four boats sighted by Frontex ended in a Libyan interception. In 2026 alone, this proportion rose sharply: of the 225 boats sighted between 1 January and 10 August, 106 (47.1%) were intercepted and returned to Libya. 

This pattern must be read alongside Frontex’s systematic sharing of aerial-surveillance information with the Libyan Joint Rescue Coordination Centre. Between 2021 and 2026, Frontex transmitted 3,703 sighting reports, including updates. By contrast, it did not share sighting reports directly with civilian SAR vessels operating near distress cases. Information about these cases reached rescue vessels through Mayday alerts — yet Frontex issued maydays for only 18.4% of the boats sighted by its aircraft during this period. 

“Even when a Mayday is announced by a Frontex aircraft, rescue actors do not necessarily receive the information they need,” adds Conte. Between August and October 2026, the Albatross UNO crew documented three cases in which Frontex drones issued Mayday alerts with inaccurate coordinates, making boats in distress harder to locate. 

Even when a civilian rescue vessel responds to a distress call, interception can still follow. In 59% of the cases documented by Albatross UNO after a Frontex aircraft issued a Mayday, people were intercepted by Libyan actors — including one boat intercepted within Malta’s Search and Rescue Region. Most strikingly, in five of these cases, a civilian rescue vessel had already signalled its intention to respond, yet the people were intercepted before rescue could take place. In two incidents in October 2026, Frontex aircraft remained on scene as the interceptions took place. 

During the year, the Albatross UNO crew sighted the bodies of 18 people floating at sea. None were recovered; nor were the identities of the deceased established, or the circumstances of their deaths investigated. 

These sightings offer only a glimpse of a much larger pattern of invisible shipwrecks in the Central Mediterranean — one that may far exceed official figures. This is not incidental to how the Central Mediterranean is currently governed; it is one of its features. People who are denied rights in life are denied recognition in death: their bodies remain unrecovered, unidentified, and unaccounted for. 

With state-led rescue capacity in the Central Mediterranean scaled back, merchant vessels have become a structurally important part of the rescue landscape by default. 

During its first year, Albatross UNO documented two cases involving merchant vessels that led to starkly different outcomes for the people on board. In one case, people rescued from a boat in distress were handed over to the Libyan Coast Guard and returned to Libya. In another, people rescued at sea were transferred to an Italian Coast Guard vessel and disembarked in Italy. 

These cases show how independent aerial monitoring plays a major role in ensuring that merchant vessels fulfil their international legal obligations to render assistance to people in distress at sea, and that those rescued are disembarked in a place of safety. 

One year of operating Albatross UNO has also underlined the importance of solidarity among civil society organisations. 

In a deadly gap created by the failure of European states to uphold their responsibilities, civilian organisations have taken on the role of independent monitors of the central Mediterranean, observing what happens at sea, including alerting on distress situations. They also document violence and interceptions, spot bodies of those who have died and support in efforts to recover them. 

“One year after its launch, Albatross UNO’s message remains clear: what happens at sea must be seen. People in distress must be rescued. And every life lost must be accounted for.” concludes Conte.