Our charity exists to save lives at sea. Our mission is to save every one. Our lifesavers are compelled to help those in need without judgement of how they came to be in the water. They have done so since the RNLI was founded in 1824 and this will always be our ethos. 
After a national newspaper article was published over the weekend, we’ve faced a huge volume of comments on social media about our lifesaving work in the Channel.
We want to be absolutely clear that we are incredibly proud of the humanitarian work our volunteer lifeboat crews do to rescue vulnerable people in distress.
HM Coastguard and the Irish Coast Guard can request any of our lifeboats to launch to an incident. Our lifeboats operate under international maritime law, which states we are permitted and indeed obligated to enter the waters of other territories for search and rescue purposes.
Where we believe there is a risk to life at sea, we will always launch. We are not border control and, once a rescue is complete, we hand over responsibility for casualties to UK Border Force and/or the police.
We have been overwhelmed by the supportive messages we've received. We would like to thank you wholeheartedly – your kindness means so much to us. It normally costs around £180m each year to run our charity – all funded by our generous supporters.
We have always been and remain focused on our core purpose: to save lives at sea. If you would like to donate and help us save every one, please click the link below 👇 rnli.social/SaveEveryOne
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