Sea-Watch
German non-governmental organisation dedicated to rescung refugees in the Mediterranean
Sea-Watch is a German non-governmental organisation that operates in the Mediterranean Sea, notably by commissioning reconnaissance aircraft to find boats potentially in distress and ships to rescue their occupants.
Cooperation with Protestant Church
The sea rescue ship Sea-Watch 4 (with the suffix "powered by United4Rescue"), financed by the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), was deployed under the direction of Sea-Watch in 2020. For this purpose, the sponsoring association, United4Rescue, was set up, with Thies Gundlach from the EKD as the first chairman and Michael Schwickart from Sea-Watch as the second chairman.
Ships
Sea-Watch was a former 21.12-meter (69 ft 3 in) fishing ship. Built in 1917 and purchased in 2015, Sea-Watch used her in 2015 until she was transferred later that year to the organisation Mare Liberum, receiving the name Mare Liberum.
Sea-Watch 2 was a former fishing research ship, originally entering service as Clupea in 1968. She was deployed on 14-day rescue operations between Libya and Malta in 2016 and 2017 along with Sea-Watch. Sold to the organisation Mission Lifeline, she now operates under the name Lifeline.
Sea-Watch 3 was a 50.53-meter (165 ft 9 in) ship. Built in 1972 as an offshore supply ship, the organisation Médecins Sans Frontières commissioned it as a search and rescue vessel under the name Dignity I before transfer to Sea-Watch.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Sea-Watch” as german non-governmental organisation dedicated to rescung refugees in the Mediterranean. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as german non-governmental organisation dedicated to rescung refugees in the Mediterranean. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q20850693. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1917, 2015 and 1968.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
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Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sea-Watch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.