Millionaire US-Italian couple Christopher and Regina Catrambone were moved by the sight of a winter coat floating past their yacht on a family holiday in the Mediterranean in 2013. Months later, when 400 people – mostly Syrians and Eritreans – drowned off the coast of Lampedusa, some 160 kilometres from the Catrambones’ home in Malta, they took action. With their life savings, they bought a rescue ship, The Phoenix, and in 2014 privately funded a stint – at a cost of over $500,000 per month – rescuing migrants along the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy.
The project became the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS). Now equipped with two drones and two high-speed rescue crafts, it has gone on to save 12,000 lives. In the words of the founders, ‘those who care about migrants drowning no longer have to wait for governments to act’. After the photo of the refugee child washed up on a beach, Kurdish toddler Alan Kurdi, went viral in September 2015, MOAS received $1 million in just two days. Since then, a steady stream of funding has come from Vietnamese boat people and their descendants in the US, and high-profile Hollywood stars. Their next mission will be to help Rohinyga refugees in the Andaman Sea.
