After almost four months of blockades, the rescue ship Sea-Watch 3, together with the Spanish NGO vessel Open Arms and the Italian NGO ship Mediterranea, has returned to Libyan coastal waters. Earlier this year, the ship was unlawfully detained in Malta. The three ships, operating as a fleet in cooperation with the Moonbird reconnaissance aircraft, consider themselves civil society's response to the European Union's deadly isolation policy. They will carry out a joint search-and-rescue operation in the central Mediterranean and document human rights violations.