A desperate search is under way for a country willing to issue a flag to the Aquarius, the last civilian migrant rescue ship operational in the Mediterranean, after its Panamanian flag officially expired this week.

The Aquarius is unable to sail without a flag and is now grounded in Marseilles, starting an effective blackout across the Mediterranean, with no vessels aside from the Libyan coastguard conducting search and rescue operations.

“We are in a race against time to find another state willing to issue a flag to the Aquarius,” said Sophie Beau, co-founder of SOS Méditerranée, the organisation operating the vessel alongside Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

“Our big fear is that we will effectively become a pirate vessel and lose our insurance. We currently have found a short-term stopgap, with Liberia issuing us a temporary flag, but this does not allow us to conduct rescue missions and we know that people are drowning out at sea with no help coming for them at all. We will not rest until we find a solution to this.”

The Aquarius has become a focal point for fast-moving anti-migration policies being rolled out by the Italian government, led by the interior minister, Matteo Salvini. Last June, the Aquarius was forced to detour to Spain after it was denied permission to dock in both Italian and Maltese ports to disembark hundreds of migrants it had rescued at sea.

Gibraltar and Panama have since revoked their flags for the Aquarius, moves that SOS Mediterranée and MSF claim were a direct result of Italian political and economic pressure.

“The ship owner of the Aquarius has been told by Panama that they will issue the ship with a flag only if we stop the search and rescue operations,” said Beau.

“This is effectively blackmail being perpetrated by flag states due to political and economic threats designed to ensure we do not have the ability to operate.”

Salvini denied that his government was behind the decision to de-flag the Aquarius, saying in a tweet that he did not know the international dialling code for Panama.

This time last year there were 10 civilian rescue ships operational at sea, picking up almost half of all migrants rescued in 2017. Until this week the Aquarius was the only remaining operational vessel, with the de-flagging now effectively shutting down all humanitarian operations in the Mediterranean.

According to the UN, there has been a sharp rise in the number of people dying while attempting to make the dangerous crossing from north Africa to Europe this year. More than 1,700 lives have already been lost since the start of 2018, in large part due to reduced search and rescue capacity.

The Libyan coastguard now run the only remaining search and rescue vessels operational in the Mediterranean and do not have the capacity to deal with the scale of the need, according to humanitarian agencies.

An exercise is conducted in front of the Aquarius. Photograph: Nicoló Lanfranchi

“We know that the Libyan coastguard do not have the right equipment, they don’t have lifejackets or the expertise to conduct sensitive and complicated rescue operations, and they do not have the capacity to cover the whole search and rescue area,” said Beau.

“We have seen ourselves that they often do not respond to distress calls. There are often moments of panic when people see the Libyan coastguard coming for them, which can cause dangerous accidents. Many migrants have told us they would rather die than be taken back to Libya, where they know they will face extortion, violence and detention.”

Beau said that the Aquarius’s best chance is Switzerland, where a flag request is still pending, and that they have also made requests to other European states.

“We are urgently awaiting answers from these flag states and are desperate to get back to sea as soon as possible,” said Beau. “It is a criminal policy for Europe to allow people to die at sea when we know we can save these lives. If European countries are not able to provide a framework to allow us to fulfil our humanitarian obligation, this undermines the fundamental principles of our democracies and ultimately we will all pay the political cost.”