Catholic Worker Demands Malta Give Safe Harbor to Damaged Aid Vessel
Catholic Worker Cassandra Dixon was scheduled to board the Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel until two drones attacked. The Flotilla is calling on the Maltese government to allow access to the vessel.
A Catholic Worker is protesting the Maltese government’s inaction in the wake of a Friday drone attack on the Conscience, a humanitarian aid ship she was scheduled to board with about thirty other peace activists later that day.
Four people who were aboard the ship suffered burns and minor injuries, and the ship sustained significant damage, Cassandra Dixon said in an email to Roundtable. Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the non-governmental organization operating the ship, held a press conference Sunday, accusing Maltese authorities of failing to provide aid in response to the ship’s distress calls and of blocking the flotilla’s volunteers from aiding the vessel.
Dixon provides prison hospitality at Mary House Catholic Worker near the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, and has traveled to the West Bank every year for fifteen years with Operation Dove, a nonviolent accompaniment organization.
She has previously sailed with Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an organization that aims to bring international attention to Israel’s decades-long blockade of Gaza by delivering humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people there.
Dixon was waiting in Malta with volunteers from more than 20 countries, to board the Freedom Flotilla’s ship, the Conscience, for its scheduled departure on April 29, she wrote in an email. After some “bureaucratic delays,” she said, they were rescheduled to board on Friday, May 2.
But, before they could board, “our ship was attacked by armed drones in international waters off Malta shortly after midnight on May 2,” Dixon said. Their unarmed civilian ship was carrying food and aid supplies for starving Gazans. “For more than two months, Israel has not allowed a single bag of flour or bottle of water to enter Gaza,” Dixon said.
Dixon concluded her message with an urgent call to action, asking for readers to contact Maltese officials in the United States “to ask that the boat and its crew and passengers be protected from further attack and allowed to enter Maltese waters.”
The Republic of Malta’s embassy contact information can be found at the U.S. State Department website here.
Freedom Flotilla Coalition released a press statement on Sunday, updating the situation, accusing the Armed Forces of Malta of intercepting volunteers who were trying to reach the Conscience in order to support the ship’s crew and several volunteers who have been on board the ship.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said that, despite the ship’s captain sending out urgent SOS distress calls and communicating directly with Maltese authorities, “Malta blocked the ship’s passage and continues to deny entry into its waters or authorization to bring the bombed ship into port.”
“Maltese authorities have not given any reason for refusing to allow the ship to dock in its ports nor for preventing volunteers from delivering support,” the organization said.
You can read the organization’s entire statement at its website, and learn more about the attack from Reuters.
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