REFUGEE rescue and support activists marked the first anniversary of a shipwreck in the central Mediterranean today by reiterating calls for action and accountability for the disaster.

About 130 people set sail from Libya on April 20 2021, around 10pm. A fisherman contacted the distress hotline organisation Alarm Phone the next morning informing them of the boat.

By 11am, Alarm Phone's activists had managed to contact the boat, receive its GPS co-ordinates and pass them on Libyan and Italian authorities. No-one came.

The activists provided the authorities with updated GPS positions for the boat five more times that day — still, no rescue was launched.

Meanwhile, the Ocean Viking rescue ship, run by European charity SOS Mediterranee, decided to interrupt an ongoing search operation and headed towards the boat’s last known position.

When they arrived the next day, April 22, the Ocean Viking’s crew found only bodies floating in the water and the wreckage from the shipwreck.

“We will probably never know exactly how many people lost their lives in this tragedy,” the ship's search-and-rescue (SAR) coordinator Luisa Albera said today.

“A year ago today, not only did SOS Mediterranee witness the consequences of a shipwreck that has put the central Mediterranean in further mourning, but we also experienced a cruel absence of state-led SAR coordination.”

The tragedy was the result of a man-made disaster, Ms Albera said, and proves the deadly consequences of the current lack of state-led SAR services in the central Mediterranean.

"Still, in the past year, no positive action has been taken to prevent such tragedies occurring again,” she said.

Alarm Phone said: “On the anniversary of this harrowing event, we remember the missing, whose absence continues to haunt the communities they belonged to.

“We ask authorities to disclose all the information in their possession as only then the responsibilities of all actors involved can be established.”

SOS Mediterranee, Alarm Phone and seven other refugee rescue organisations including global medical charity Doctors Without Borders addressed an open letter to Italy’s Interior minister Luciana Lamorgese today.

In the letter, they call on Ms Lamorgese to suspend the country’s support for the Libyan coastguard, and to restart maritime rescue operations in the central Mediterranean with state-led rescue vehicles.