Rescue ship captain arrested after ramming Italian police boat while trying to bring migrants to shore

Carola Rackete
(Image credit: ANAELLE LE BOUEDEC/AFP/Getty Images)

The German captain of a humanitarian rescue ship risked 10 years' imprisonment when she rammed an Italian police motorboat off the coast of Lampedusa on Saturday.

The 31-year-old Carola Rackete was captaining a ship carrying 40 migrants who were rescued in the Mediterranean Sea from an unseaworthy vessel launched from Libya when her ship was blocked by the much smaller police boat. No one was injured.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.