“Face down in the water we found you. Killed by the ignorance of a society who believes closed borders are more important than human lifes. You remain nameless to us. But not to those who knew and loved you. We will remember” Words from Dakini crew who were on scene before the coast guard arrived

We will always remember and never stop denouncing.

In the last years the state has done everything it could to obstruct the journeys of people on the move in the central Med. Part of the strategy included removing, criminalizing, and obstructing solidarity ships and their rescue efforts.

On the 15th of September, f.Lotta was at sea, in this border area where freedom of movement and solidarity are repressed. In less than 48 hours, we could witness:

• during our commemorative moments close to the island, a coastguard coming to port to disembarked people from a rescue
• when we were sailing south, two civil rescue boats, Dakini and Imara, performed a rescue, and Imara took the people on board,
• we heard a Mayday Relay from a plane, about a case in advanced distress.
• Dakini engaged with the search of another case in the evening
• we saw debris and empty boat on our route.
  

It is shameful that many assets of the civil fleet are currently detained and couldn’t join rescue efforts: Aurora, Mediterranea, Colibri2.

Our solidarity goes to the associations, groups, individuals that support and facilitate people on the move during their dangerous journeys, whether at sea or on land. We stand with people on the move against the border regime.

Today we filled the sea with a different paradigm. There are alternatives to the border system, anchored in the political horizon that f.Lotta stands for: freedom of movement for all.

f.Lotta is sailing from Mazarra del Valo for Lampedusa! 

11/09/2024 This morning, f.Lotta civil fleet has set sail in direction of Lampedusa, the door of Europe. Our objective is to occupy the Central Mediterranean Sea and to advocate for freedom of movement for all. 

The situation now: repression and invisibilization

The central Mediterranean sea has become a symbol of the border regime itself. Here, we witnessed a recent worsening of state repression: people on the move are constantly criminalized, a wave of arbitrary detentions blocks rescue vessels, Lybian militias, sponsored by the EU, deliberatly open fire against SAR assets.

Shipwrecks and deaths at sea are not a humanitarian tragedy, they are the result of conscious political choices. We remember the latest shipwreck, on 13th August, close to Lampedusa, with grief and anger.

Our Response: Occupation as Political Presence

f.Lotta refuses the normalization of boder violence. We are occupying the central Med and other seas and land areas​​​​​​​ with our bodies and our boats to reclaim it from the logic of the border regime and to fill them with another logic: that of freedom of movement​​​​​​​. Our occupation is a collective act of resistance and liberation, we stand as political actors, not as a humanitarian mission​​​​​​. 

Freedom of Movement: Our Political Horizon

Our collective political horizong is freedom of movement, a vision which many political groups within f.Lotta shaped through several campaigns. These campaigns are many and intersectional, projecting ideas for a radically different alternative present: https://flotta.noblogs.org/campaigns/

Each ship of the f.Lotta action is associated to a campaign, and it becomes its witness and standard bearer, carrying the demand in the contested area of the central Med. If freedom of movement is our manifesto, each campaign becomes a demand for change.

Decentralized Occupations: Sea and Land

The occupation in the central Mediterranean has stirred occupations elsewhere, liberating other areas from the border regime. While it unfolds, parallel actions will unfold across Europe and beyond. From Marseille, Berlin, Elba, Rome, Lampedusa, to Calais, f.Lotta spreads across borders. At the moment, it can count on 6 f.Lottine (occupations on rivers and sea other than the one south of Lampedusa) and 10 land f.Lotta actions.

f.Lotta as a grassroots and decentralized initiative allows many groups and individuals to join a shared platform, counter far-right narratives and Fortress Europe with collective action.

f.Lotta is a spontaneous, horizontal, grassroots movement, created by individuals and groups bringing solidarity and resistance practices other than professionalized sea rescue.

Why now?

10 years ago, on September 2015, thousands of people on the move started to walk from the borders of Hungary towards Germany, effectively opening the closed borders of fortress Europe. They proved that collective, coordinated, direct action can break the cycle of normalized violence.

f.Lotta pays tribute and takes inspiration from that act of collective defiance. Some anniversaries should not go without noise.

f.Lotta
Sea occupation against the border regime

The central Mediterranean sea is one of the world’s deadliest migration route: more than 25,000 lives have been lost since 2014 (1). 

f.Lotta will stage a sea protest south of Lampedusa, bringing together as many boats as possible. Its aim is to repoliticise what is now an open graveyard, occupy it with its collective solidarity and resistance, reclaim it from the state border regime.

The protest at sea south of Lampedusa will take place during 3 days between 10th-20th September. It will include two concentrations moments close to the island, a collective sailing across the southern border of the European Union and commemoractions.

In parallel with the main action south of Lampedusa, several other maritime and land protests will take place in different European cities. The decentralization of f.Lotta allows it to amplify its reach and encourages different groups and individuals to collaborate and coordinate with each other.

f.Lotta overarching political message is freedom of movement for all, without conditions. The message is articulated through many specific, connected campaigns which all together compose the f.Lotta political platform and its demands. Each campaign is developed by one or several land groups that join f.Lotta, and is associated with a specific boat during the sea protest. The campaigns are listed at https://flotta.noblogs.org/campaigns.

f.Lotta is an initiative federating individuals, collectives, groups with or without boats. It calls on civil society to reject the border regime to its foundations: racism, colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy.

10 years ago, in September 2015, thousands of refugees started to walk on the highways from Hungary towards Germany. Their spontaneous, direct action opened the closed internal borders of the European Union. f.Lotta pays tribute to and takes inspiration from that event.

Sources
(1) https://missingmigrants.iom.int/region/mediterranean

Contacts
press.flotta@inventati.org
f_lotta@inventati.org
https://flotta.noblogs.org
https://www.instagram.com/f.lotta