Two online campaigns to help the German captain of a rescue ship under house arrest in Italy have between them raised more than €1m. Carola Rackete’s arrest on Saturday, after she forced her way into port in Lampedusa carrying migrants and refugees she had rescued off Libya, prompted a fundraising appeal by two prominent German TV stars that by Tuesday morning had raised €917,195 from more than 33,000 donors.

A second campaign, started by an Italian anti-fascist group on Facebook, had raised a further €433,993 by Tuesday, well over the page’s stated goal of €349,000, bringing the total raised in support of Rackete to more than €1.3m. “The wave of solidarity is wonderful,” Ruben Neugebauer, a spokesman for Rackete’s migrant rescue NGO Sea-Watch, told Spiegel Online. “We certainly also need the money.”

The funds will go towards paying Rackete’s legal fees if charges are brought against her. Otherwise, Neugebauer said, the NGO would need about €1m to buy and equip a new ship if Rackete’s vessel, Sea-Watch-3, remained out of action.(theguardian)…[+]