| 6 August | The vessel Astral (Proactiva Open Arms) assists 2 boats underway to Lampedusa. One of these boats is found with the air support of Seabird 1. |
| 8 August | After an alert from the Alarm Phone, Seabird 1 is able to find a boat carrying 7 people. The Astral is then able to meet and support the group of people in distress until the Italian coast guard finally arrives and rescues them. |
| 11 August | After 47 people in distress reach out to the Alarm Phone, the aircraft Colibri 2 (Pilotes Volontaires) is able to find the boat in distress underway towards Lampedusa. Upon the arrival of the Astral, the wooden boat capsizes and everybody except a child is rescued. The Italian coast guard later takes the survivors (6) (cf. focus). |
| 17 August | After the Alarm Phone stayed in contact with 101 people in distress throughout the night, the new ship the Open Arms Uno (Proactiva Open Arms) is able to perform her first rescue in the morning near Lampedusa. |
| 21 August | The Geo Barents receives a very rare alert from the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center about a boat in distress approximately 70 to 80 nautical miles southwest of Sicily. The Geo Barents rescues the 90 people within the shared Search and Rescue Region of Malta and Italy (7). |
| 25 August | The Ocean Viking patrolling off the Libyan coast finds and rescues 41 people in distress traveling on a wooden boat. |
10.08.2022 – 40 people calling Alarm Phone and spotted by aircraft Seabird 1 and Colibri 2, rescued in critical conditions by the Astral, one child missing
At just before 1100 UTC, Seabird 1 spotted an overloaded wooden boat at sea, five nautical miles north of the boundary to the Maltese SRR. There were 40 people on board the unseaworthy vessel without lifejackets. The crew of Seabird 1 informed the relevant authorities in Malta, an alert which heeded no action from the Maltese RCC. Later in the day, the people in distress also reached out the Alarm Phone for help, which also urged the responsible authorities in Malta to act. The people on board subsequently reported to the Alarm Phone at around 1800 UTC that their vessel was no longer underway and that they were drifting. Malta still did not take any steps regarding the situation.
The following day, with conditions at sea worsening, the aircraft Colibri 2 (Pilotes Volontaires) spotted the vessel in distress early in the morning, also informing authorities and demanding that the situation be addressed. Thanks to these combined alerts by the Alarm Phone and the two NGO aircraft, the vessel Astral (Proactiva Open Arms) was later able to arrive at the scene, locating the boat amid strong winds and waves. After several attempts to secure and stabilize the vessel in distress however, the poor sea conditions and the overloading of the vessel led to it capsizing, whereupon the crew of the Astral had to rescue and embark the people. An Italian coastguard asset then finally took the people from the Astral, disembarking them in Lampedusa. One child, though, was ultimately reported missing out of the ordeal.
Without the coordination of civil fleet reconnaissance assets, the Alarm Phone distress hotline and the presence of a properly equipped NGO rescue vessel, the outcome for these people could have been far graver. The Maltese RCC once again showed no willingness to uphold its legal obligations during the event, having time to act and refusing to do so, where the community of international NGOs was fortunately able to step in, keep track of and ultimately provide critical lifesaving assistance to the people. Our thoughts are with the child and their family.
