In recent years, the Mediterranean has become not only a central route for migration but also a contested political space where solidarity at sea is increasingly criminalized. Since the introduction of the Piantedosi decree in January 2023, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) conducting search-and-rescue (SAR) operations have faced mounting administrative and legal obstacles. Among these, the policy of systematically assigning increasingly distant Ports of Safety (PoS) stands out as one of the most consequential measures affecting rescue capacity and operational efficiency.
The decree formalized a broader trend of deterrence and obstruction targeting civil SAR actors. By compelling NGO vessels to disembark rescued people in remote ports, often several days of navigation away from the rescue zone, authorities effectively reduce NGO presence where distress events occur most frequently. This practice results in longer turnaround times, higher fuel consumption, and diminished rescue availability—thus extending the time people in distress remain without assistance at sea.
The arrival in Ancona of humanitarian vessel Ocean Viking of the NGO Sos Mediterranée with 336 rescued passengers on board
March 18, 2024 | Photo: ANSA/DANIELE CAROTTI
This article seeks to document and quantify this phenomenon. Using publicly available AIS displacement data and NGO rescue statistics, we analyze how distant port assignations have evolved before and after the implementation of the Piantedosi decree. To capture the operational burden of these policies, we introduce a simple but informative metric mileage per rescue which relates the total distance traveled by an asset to the number of rescues performed over a given period.
By comparing this metric across different types of NGO vessels (ships, fast assets, and sailing assets) and over time, we aim to assess how policy-induced distance has reshaped rescue performance and availability. Beyond numerical indicators, this analysis contributes to a broader understanding of how maritime governance mechanisms are used to regulate, and at times hinder, humanitarian action in the central Mediterranean.
In this analysis, we draw on a dataset based on AIS displacement data of NGO assets (publicly available), as well as NGO rescue statistics. Each rescue performed by an NGO asset is recorded and time-stamped, as well as the corresponding Port of Safety (PoS) to which it is assigned. Based on AIS tracking data, we can compute the distance driven by each asset. To compute a robust metric, we propose a month-aggregate ratio of (distance) / (number of rescues), which would roughly describe the rescue performance of every asset : a higher score means more time and energy for a given number of rescues ; a lower score means more rescues for less time and energy spent (better performance). We will introduce this metric as the “mileage per rescue”. Note that through this whole article we refer to nautical miles as “miles”, and that one nautical mile is 1.852 kilometers. This ratio informs us on the performance of every asset, but we propose to group the assets in clusters that exhibit similar behavior:
- Ships : large boats with high capacity, high fuel consumption, and relatively high speed. They typically patrol the Mediterranean sea when they are operational and can perform one or more rescues before returning to port.
- Fast assets : smaller boats with high reactivity, usually docked at port until a mayday relay is issued.
- Sailing assets : can perform rescues but often provide assistance by stabilizing distress vessels and handing out lifesaving equipment, while waiting for the coast-guard to take over rescue.
In the computation of this mileage-per-rescue metric, the various ways by which a NGO asset can provide assistance are not considered, like providing food and water while waiting for rescue, or accompanying the ship through the journey. This type of assistance, which is different from a rescue, remains to be properly analyzed in the future.
This analysis does not address qualitative aspects of rescue operations—such as the experience of people on the move once on board—since all NGO vessels operate according to established safety and humanitarian standards. Here, we focus exclusively on the nautical miles traveled by each asset.
Mileage per rescue analysis
The images above show the mileage per rescue for the three categories of boats. All boat categories present an increase in mileage per rescue during the year 2024, also represented by the general average. Although the Piantedosi decree was introduced in January 2023, its application concerning distant ports seems to start only in 2024-2025 ; even if the decree was enforced earlier concerning ship detention and charged fines.
Additionally, sailing assets show a consistently lower mileage per rescue than ships : from 500 to 1000 nautical miles for ships, to 500 nautical miles and below for sailing assets. This is caused by the speed capacities of ships versus sailing assets : as ships can reach higher speeds and can sustain longer trips even with medical emergencies, they are often assigned to further ports. The same can be said concerning fast assets, that generally show a low mileage per rescue (consistently below 1000) ; the fast assets are intended to be a very reactive fleet, and only drive when rescue is necessary. This could explain their performance.
The ship category is the most statistically significant, the main reason being the high number of assets in this category. It presents a seasonal pattern for the years 2021 to 2024, with an increase in mileage during the winter months. Our interpretation is that in winter, the number of crossings decreases because of bad weather. Thus, ships generally perform more “blind” research patterns. In contrast, the high number of crossings in summer usually imply a higher number of mayday relays, either coming from the Alarm-Phone, from flying assets like Sea-Bird, or from Italian coast-guards. In such situation, it can be more frequent that a ship drives towards a specific distress case during summer. This results in a higher mileage for a given number of rescues, in winter.
Sailing assets results also present seasonal variations, in the sense that much less rescues occurred during winter months before 2025.
Concerning fast assets, the few data acquired does not bring a lot of interpretation. We can nonetheless distinguish a seasonal pattern, with very low values of mileage-per-case at the beginning of summer, and an increase going through winter.
Distant Port-of-Safety assignation analysis
The following figures describe the (arbitrary) categories of assigned ports. For simplicity reasons we chose a latitude threshold, defining three categories : Reasonable ports, Distant ports and Very Distant ports. Of course it is always the shortest-distance safe port which is the only safe place to consider (and is most often Lampedusa), and any port aside from that is excessively distant. Over time, distant port policies have reached new heights of absurdity, designating as ‘safe’ ports that are ever more remote. It is important to document this, hence the inevitably arbitrary nature of these categories.
The figures below show the PoS distribution over the period 2023-2025, with monthly results. Despite yearly fluctuations, more than 1/3 of the rescues were assigned to Very Distant PoS during 2023-2025, which always imply more than 48h of sailing back-and-forth. This time (and fuel) is essentially lost because of political choices, aimed at weakening the acts of solidarity at sea.
Furthermore, looking at the ship-only distribution (figure below), we note that ships are the category with the most Very Distant PoS assignation. More than 50% of ship rescues were assigned to Very Distant PoS during 2023-2025, and only 13% were assigned to Safe Ports. In this situation, the overall higher capacities of ships (in terms of weather-robustness, velocity, long-distance traveling) are clearly exploited politically to lengthen their journey and reduce their rescue availability.
Conclusion
This analysis examined the operational performance of NGO rescue assets through the lens of their total mileage and the distance of assigned Ports of Safety (PoS). By combining AIS displacement data and NGO rescue statistics, we quantified how the Piantedosi decree and its enforcement have altered rescue dynamics in the central Mediterranean.
Our findings show that larger vessels—those with higher speed, endurance, and capacity—are disproportionately assigned to distant or very distant ports. This pattern suggests that their technical advantages are being politically leveraged to reduce their time of availability in rescue zones. Conversely, smaller assets such as sailing and fast vessels, though limited in range, appear more resilient to these policies: their operational scale effectively prevents the imposition of excessively remote port assignations, allowing them to maintain a higher rescue frequency.
Overall, the results indicate that distant-port policies have tangible operational consequences, diverting resources and time away from life-saving activities. Documenting these effects is crucial to understanding how administrative measures translate into reduced rescue capacity and prolonged exposure of people in distress at sea.
