Tatort Mittelmeer

The central Mediterranean is one of the deadliest refugee routes in the world. Every year, thousands of people die at Europe’s external border while trying to reach safety. In the name of sealing off Europe, the EU and its member states are knowingly abandoning those seeking protection. The number of legal violations and human rights abuses is on the rise; since 2014, over 35,000 people have drowned: The Mediterranean is not only a mass grave but also a crime scene.

“Tatort Mittelmeer” is a staged reading performed annually at different theaters. This October, it will be presented at the Munich Volkstheater.

Well-known actors—some of whom are familiar to audiences as TV detectives from the crime series *Tatort*—shift the focus of this event series to a different crime scene: the Mediterranean. Mechthild Großmann, Carlo Ljubek, Nina Kunzendorf, Carol Schuler, and Daniel Sträßer will read firsthand accounts recorded by SOS Humanity from both those rescued and their rescuers, as well as documentation of legal violations in the Mediterranean. The “Tatort Mittelmeer” reading aims above all to amplify the voices of those whom hardly anyone hears: people fleeing their homes. The reading will be accompanied musically by the Palestinian-Syrian pianist Aeham Ahmad, who received the International Beethoven Prize for Human Rights in 2015.

SOS Humanity advocates for a world in which everyone’s human rights are upheld. SOS Humanity stands for humanity at sea and on land. Since 2015, the organization has been working to ensure that no one fleeing their home has to drown and that everyone is treated with dignity.

The staged reading *Tatort Mittelmeer* aims to draw more attention to the humanitarian catastrophe that has been unfolding in the Mediterranean for years and to provide an opportunity to raise funds for the life-saving missions of SOS Humanity’s rescue ships. 

“Tatort Mittelmeer” is an event organized by the civilian maritime rescue organization SOS Humanity in collaboration with the Munich Volkstheater.