Far-right's anti-refugee ship helped out by refugee rescue boat

What goes around comes around, they say.

In a deeply ironic twist of fate, the ship that was commissioned by far-right group "Generation Identity" to stop refugees from coming to Europe, went in distress off the coast of Libya and had to be rescued by a refugee rescue boat.

The refugee rescue group Sea-Eye said in a Facebook post that it had been instructed by the EU's Operation Sophia to help the C-Star, bought by Generation Identity with the "Defend Europe" campaign.

The ship went into trouble after experiencing mechanical failure and was unable to move.

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Michael Buschheuer, the chairman of Sea-Eye, said: “To help a ship in distress in the duty of anyone at sea, without regard for their origin, race, religion or beliefs.”

Defend Europe confirmed on Twitter that the C-Star was having technical difficulty, but sought to play down the incident saying there was "no distress". 

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The statement read: "C-Star developed a minor technical problem during the night, in order to rectify before the vessel entered the SAR zone and navigated closer to other vessels, the main engine was stopped."

"This means that under COLREG the vessel is considered 'not under command' and information of this was sent out to vessels nearby in accordance with regulations. The problem is about to be resolved."

Generation Identity is a far-right group that wants to prevent refugees from coming to Europe by intercepting the humanitarian ships working in the Mediterranean Sea.

The group, which includes a number of alt-right YouTubers, claims "so called 'humanitarian' NGOs are smuggling hundred thousands of illegal migrants to Europe and are endangering the security and future of our continent."

In May, Italian police detained some members of Generation Identity after a Periscope live stream in which they fired flares at refugee rescue ships in the Mediterranean.

The troubles for Defend Europe didn't stop there.

After they managed to buy the C-Star through a crowdfunding campaign in July, the vessel was detained near the Suez Canal.

UPDATE: Aug. 11, 2017, 4:04 p.m. BST C-Star has refused help from the refugee rescue boat, Sea Eye said in a Twitter update:

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