September 2015
We arrived on the north coast of Lesbos where there were not any humanitarian organisations. We rescued swimming without equipment and we often had to use precarious boats previously used by the refugees.
October 2015
Thanks to your donations we bought two rescue jet skis, just in time to face the biggest ever Aegean Sea shipwreck on October 28th.
March 2016
EU strikes deal with Turkey: Europe’s year of shame. The Balkan route is shut. Thousands of refugees in Lesbos camps are sent back and only a few arrive on the island.
June 2016
Arrival of ASTRAL a boat that helped us saving 15,000 lives in the first 4 months of missions.
December 2016
We come back to Central Mediterranean Sea aboard the GOLFO AZZURRO, a converted and medicalised fishing boat that helped us saving 6,000 lives in the first half of 2017.
July 2017
Thanks to the donation of the OPEN ARMS, an old tugboat, and after months of restoration, our flagboat starts its humanitarian journey in central Mediterranea Sea.
March 2018
We are threatened to death by the “so-called” Lybian coastguards and upon arrival at the Italian harbour OPEN ARMS is seized by Catania prosecution. Another example of the criminalisation undergone by organisations that protect abandoned lives in the Mediterranean Sea.
May 2018
Origin Project starts to fall into place and takes its first steps in Ghana.
September 2018
We are 3 years old and have rescued more than 59,400 people thanks to more than 75,000 donations from people like you.
December 2018 – January 2019
We settle in Senegal and start Origin Project in West Africa offering resources, training and awareness in order to empower local communities and build up solid alternatives.
January 2019
Spanish government seized our boat OPEN ARMS at Barcelona harbour.
April 2019
We manage to leave territorial waters and bring humanitarian aid to the Aegean Sea Islands in Greece.
July 2019
We come back to the Mediterranean Sea.
August 2019
We set out on mission 65, the hardest one in the life of OPEN ARMS. We were 21 days seized by Salvini and his government and prevented from disembarking more than 100 refugees rescued in international waters. A court order ordains, in extremis, their disembarkation on Lampedusa Island after days 500 metres off the shore. Salvini faces kidnapping charges from prosecution for preventing disembarkation.
January 2020
Our 47 year old boat OPEN ARMS after sailing 59,000 miles in a two year humanitarian mission that rescued more than 6.000 people cannot go on sailing due to its serious breakdowns.
February 2020
Its last breakdown takes OPEN ARMS to Burriana harbour in Castellón to check out the size of repairs and perform annual maintenance tasks.
March 2020
Due to COVID-19 global health emergency our crews remain in lockdown on land, while repair takes place on board. ASTRAL is confined at a harbour in Fuerteventura and its migratory flow monitoring mission in the Atlantic Ocean is interrupted.
April 2020
In the face of the health emergency, our efforts are focused on COVID-19 pandemic most vulnerable people, the elderly ones. We make ourselves available to science so that treatments to stop infection are achieved, as well as to health care teams to avoid more deaths.
July 2020
We assist and accompany people who live in situation of vulnerability and work collecting fruit that had been diagnosed COVID-19 positive.
August 2020
After 7 months of reparations, and focused our efforts to assist the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic, the OPEN ARMS finally returns to our mission at sea.
September 2020
We expand our COVID-19 mission and act to prevent the transmission of the virus in workers of the collection of fruit in the Calatayud region (Zaragoza).