Eastern Swiss sea rescuer "Letter from survivor gave me goosebumps"
Arno Tanner was out in the Mediterranean with Sea-Eye.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
The sea rescue organization rescues refugees from drowning.
Image: Sea-Eye/Leon Salner
To prepare for the mission, Tanner completed a ten-day training course in Wales.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
The man from eastern Switzerland was at the forefront. One of his tasks, together with the team leader, was to pull people out of the water.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
One of the survivors wrote a handwritten letter in which she processed what she had experienced. A touching moment for Tanner.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
After his missions, Tanner always needs one to two weeks to reflect on what he has experienced.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
He has been involved with the Mediterranean and sea rescue issue for a long time. He says it helps him to talk about it with others, but also to spend a lot of time alone or to write about it.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
Since 2014, over 30,000 people have gone missing or drowned in the Mediterranean.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
Arno Tanner was out in the Mediterranean with Sea-Eye.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
The sea rescue organization rescues refugees from drowning.
Image: Sea-Eye/Leon Salner
To prepare for the mission, Tanner completed a ten-day training course in Wales.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
The man from eastern Switzerland was at the forefront. One of his tasks, together with the team leader, was to pull people out of the water.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
One of the survivors wrote a handwritten letter in which she processed what she had experienced. A touching moment for Tanner.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
After his missions, Tanner always needs one to two weeks to reflect on what he has experienced.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
He has been involved with the Mediterranean and sea rescue issue for a long time. He says it helps him to talk about it with others, but also to spend a lot of time alone or to write about it.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
Since 2014, over 30,000 people have gone missing or drowned in the Mediterranean.
Image: Sea-Eye/Anna Dütsch
In October, Arno Tanner was on a sea rescue ship. The man from Eastern Switzerland told blue News how he feels after the mission and what it will take to improve the situation in the Mediterranean.
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Arno Tanner has been intensively involved in refugee aid for years, including missions with organizations such as Sea-Eye.
- He was recently in the Mediterranean with the sea rescue organization.
- Tanner reflects on his missions during breaks, in conversations and in writing and emphasizes the human fates behind the refugee movements, which are also documented in a moving letter from a rescued person.
- blue News he explains what he thinks needs to happen for the situation in the Mediterranean to stabilize.
Three years ago, Arno Tanner returned to Switzerland after volunteering in a refugee camp on Lesbos. It was in the middle of the Christmas season - a difficult moment for the committed man from St. Gallen.
"When you come back from an island like Lesbos so close to Christmas and everyone here is happy and everything is a bit overflowing, it feels a bit strange," recalls Tanner in an interview with blue News.
The young man used to work at a curative education school, started to dedicate himself to refugee aid in 2021 and finally quit his job in 2022. After a job at Médecins Sans Frontières, he is now fully committed to the topic, sits on the board of the German organization Europe Cares and is also involved in public relations and fundraising in Eastern Switzerland to support various aid projects.
Tanner returned from a mission with Sea-Eye at the end of November. He spent a month on the high seas with the sea rescue organization to save refugees from drowning. "After a mission, I always need one to two weeks to slow down and reflect on all the experiences," explains Tanner.
Reflective breaks, time with his friends, sport and time in nature help Tanner to process his missions. "I've found a way to deal with what I've experienced. Of course, I've been dealing with the issue of the Mediterranean and sea rescue for a long time, but it helps me to spend time with friends with whom I can talk about it, while also spending a lot of time alone or writing about it."
Tanner is currently taking a break, and from January he will take over the project management of a new medical project on Kos, Greece, organized by Medical Volunteers International, for four months.
"Witnessed 22 people being forced into the water just like that"
Tanner prepared physically for his mission with a lot of fitness and a ten-day training course in Wales, known as Search Rescue Training, where he learned the basics of how a rescue works. This also includes emergency medical care, psychological first aid and various rescue techniques.
"But what happens in the end is out of your hands, you can prepare for a long time with documents and reports from previous missions, but in the end anything can happen."
Tanner's crew encountered an unusual case that had never happened before: "We witnessed how an unknown group of people simply forced 22 people off the boat into the water and sailed away." His boat was able to rescue everyone.
Emotional letter from a rescued person
It took a while before Tanner traveled to Lesbos for the first time. First Covid-19 prevented him, then the fire in the Moria refugee camp - and finally his father died after a long illness.
"That was also the reason why I made my decision in the summer of 2021. This stroke of fate made me realize how short life is and that if you really want to do something, you should go for it," says Tanner. Since then, he has undergone a huge change.
When asked what particularly touched him during his last mission, the man from eastern Switzerland says: "We had a survivor on board who withdrew one evening and wrote a two-page letter by hand in Arabic. In it, he processed what he had experienced and told us how he felt."
These touching words gave the sea rescuer goosebumps and brought tears to his eyes. According to Tanner, the letter is still hanging in the ship's dining room.
"At that moment, I thought how strong a person must be to be able to put it all into words and deal with it." Tanner mentions the hopelessness that drives refugees to leave their country.
He recalls a quote from the Somali-British author Warsan Shir, which sums it up quite well for him: "Nobody risks their life and that of their children on the water unless the water is safer than the land."
Logically, his day-to-day work is usually full of negative issues, but occasionally nice things happen. "And they can be so positive and emotional that they make you realize why you're doing it."
Conscious political decisions
Many politicians in Europe and also the security forces in some countries equate the work of organizations like Sea-Eye with the criminal activities of people smugglers. However, Tanner sees the problem in the fact that conscious political decisions have been made in recent years that have made this work necessary in the first place.
"It wasn't the case that civilian sea rescue organizations simply decided that they wanted to deal with this issue, but that civilian sea rescue came about because states shirked their responsibilities." Today, there are virtually no legal escape routes for people who want to come to Europe.
In many situations, the only way out for people is the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean. "Political decisions have virtually forced them to do so," says Tanner.
The fact that sea rescue is supposed to be a so-called pull factor that encourages people to flee has been refuted by several studies in recent years. "Pull factors have to do with the situation on the ground, that's the reason why people flee, and not because people feel they have someone on the water to help them."
International legislation is paramount; it states that people in distress at sea must be helped. "But if at the same time you have countries that criminalize this active help, it's actually a political decision to put a stop to it," Tanner continues. Sea rescue organizations have long been calling for a state-coordinated sea rescue programme from the EU.
Global situation decisive for refugee situation
According to the International Organization for Migration, over 30,000 people have disappeared or drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014, but the number of unreported cases is significantly higher. Tanner emphasizes that too often people talk about numbers and never about human lives.
Sea-Eye itself rescued 504 people in 2023 and 860 in 2024. In total, over 18,000 lives have been saved by the organization in the Mediterranean since 2015.
According to the UNHCR, many people are still fleeing Syria and Afghanistan. Depending on how the political situation changes, a new wave could be triggered in Syria. "If the whole country plunges even further into chaos, new migration flows could possibly break out there again." If the global situation changes, the refugee situation will also change.
A little lucky charm
As it was the first time that Tanner had undertaken such a mission, he did not set out with any specific hopes or expectations, as he admits. "The basic orientation is simply to help people who need help."
A meaningful silver bracelet from Jordan accompanied Tanner on his mission. However, his lucky charm broke during a rescue. The sea rescuer remembers: "I thought that if I wore a glove over it, it would hold up. But my job was to pull people out of the water together with our team leader, and unfortunately it got lost." His lucky charm is now probably somewhere at the bottom of the Mediterranean.
Tanner lowers his eyes to his hands. He becomes thoughtful and introspective. What will it take for the situation in the Mediterranean to improve? "It has been shown in the past that putting up a border tower or closing escape routes doesn't help - people will always find another way. Because the desperation and the life-threatening situation that people find themselves in is simply stronger."
On the one hand, of course, you have to try to bring more stability to the countries of origin. "On the other hand, I believe that visible escape routes could bring about change and sustainable improvement."
Above all, however, Tanner hopes that people will think more in terms of humanity and less in terms of numbers. "I hope for more interpersonal solidarity and that people will support other people. Every human life deserves to be protected and to live in peace and freedom."