The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD) has acquired the former research ship of the Geomar Institute Kiel Poseidon. The ship, renamed “Sea-Watch 4”, will take part in sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean. The EKD council chairman Heinrich Bedford-Strohm sees this as a human duty: “Need has no nationality” and: “Anyone who saves people from drowning must not be criminalized.” The ship has been equipped for its mission in the last few weeks in the Schwentine estuary opposite the Kiel Pain Clinic. The vice president of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament, Aminata Touré, carried out the baptism with the new name on February 20, 2020. The United4Rescue alliance to support civil sea rescue brings together social organizations and groups who do not want to stand idly by and watch thousands of people die in the Mediterranean. United4Rescue has been raising funds to purchase the ship since December 2019. In a bidding process, it was awarded the contract together with the sea rescue organization Sea-Watch. The ship was built in 1975 and is 60 m long. It was previously used as a research vessel by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel.

It left the port of Kiel on February 24th, 2020 for its new mission in order to be further expanded for the new tasks in Spain. It will then be handed over to its destination in the Mediterranean from April.

The video shows the ship leaving its berth opposite the pain clinic on February 24, 2020 at 8 a.m. We wish the ship a safe journey and much success in its humanitarian mission. It is a correct response to pain and death in the Mediterranean.