Everyone has taken an interest in the refugee crisis taking place throughout southern Europe but just don’t know how they can help. Now, a new app lets you actually help save the lives of migrants in distress.
A new smartphone application is currently being tested by a migrant rescue service. The app basically allows users to scan the vast seas of the Mediterranean for boats in distress. The theory: the more eyes on the Mediterranean, the better the odds of saving more lives.
Available on iTunes, the I SEA App depicts the common routes used by migrants in divided graphs to narrow down the focus and not overwhelm users. The millions of small plots are actually to be assigned to registered users. The users then send an alert to the Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) when they think that they have come across a migrant ship in distress.
“The idea is that with more people getting interested you can cover bigger areas of the sea,” Ian Ruggier, MOAS head of operations, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“It allows people to see that they are contributing towards saving lives. [The success] will depend on the popularity of the app,” he said.
Much focus is on common routes from Libya to Italy and from Turkey to Greece as migrants often attempt to reach the shores of Greece and Italy in makeshift, overcrowded and damaged boats.
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