This is one of the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts from this year. These things are a bitch to find for free generally, but this happened to be on YouTube in its entirety. The documentary follows volunteers from SeaWatch, a German non-profit that used to go after whalers but now patrols the Meditteranean looking for and helping refugees fleeing in the thousands from North Africa. The refugees have left their homes in Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Syria, and other places due to civil war, economic depression, and lack of opportunity to seek a better future in Europe. Unfortunately, they are crammed onto boats never meant to face the open water with very little in the way of supplies. SeaWatch attempts to provide medical care in emergencies, as well as safe transport to Europe so the refugees have a chance to request asylum.
In three days, they rescued 3200 people. That's over a thousand a day. People who have already fled hundreds, maybe thousands of miles just to get to their starting point in Libya. It is truly a humanitarian crisis with no easy solutions. The documentary does not focus on any of the political aspects, keeping a very narrow lens on the rescuers and the refugees themselves. Several of them are interviewed to put a human face on this massive, worldwide problem but I don't know how effective it is in such a short timeframe (24 minutes).
Like I said, it's on YouTube and you can give it a look now and sort of prepare yourself for the inevitable documentary about our own border because we are in the darkest timeline.
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