“IT’S not a scene from a horror movie, it’s a real-life tragedy,” says Chris Catrambone, co-founder of the Malta-based NGO, Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), referring to the drowning on Wednesday of at least 34 people off the Libyan coast. They were among the 500 migrants aboard an overcrowded boat that capsized in the Mediterranean Sea. Some of the dead were toddlers. But Catrambone forgot to mention the most important thing about the drowning deaths: This is a recurring tragedy.
Over 1,440 have died this year trying to cross the Mediterranean, according to the UN Migration Agency (IOM). Migrants board flimsy and overcrowded boats in a bid to flee war and violence in the Middle East and Africa. According to the IOM, 5,083 died crossing the sea in 2016. We don’t know how may went to their watery graves before they reached the Mediterranean. As many as 850 lives perished in the worst-ever migrant disaster on the Mediterranean that took place in the last week of April 2015. The photograph of a drowned migrant baby in the arms of a German rescuer was distributed by a humanitarian organization hoping it will persuade European authorities to ensure safe passage to migrants, after hundreds are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean in the last week of May 2016.
More than 50,000 people have been rescued at sea and brought to Italy so far this year, a 46 percent increase over the same period of last year, the interior ministry said this week. Most rescues take place just outside the 20-km mark that separates Libyan territory from international waters. The vast majority of migrants attempting to reach Europe by boat try to cross from Libya to Italy.
It is political instability and resulting violence that forces people from Libya and Syria to flee. Those from sub-Saharan Africa who moved to Libya looking for work also swell the ranks of refugees. The second-largest group of migrants come from Eritrea and say economic hardships and forced conscription force them to leave.
Whatever the reasons, smugglers, especially from Libya, have turned a humanitarian crisis into a lucrative business. They charge anywhere from $750 to $3500 apiece for a place on a boat they say is headed to Italy. But in most cases the vessels made of rubber or wood are unseaworthy with barely enough fuel to make them to international waters.
More than 50,000 have made it to Italy so far this year, and numbers are surging. Nearly 6,350 have been intercepted and turned back by the Libyan coastguard this year. There are no signs of either Libya or Syria achieving a semblance of order and normalcy anytime soon. So what is the solution to this continuing exodus and deaths?
The European Union (EU) has been making efforts to prevent loss of life at sea through strengthened border control and a focus on disrupting smuggling networks. But this has only resulted in more people drowning as unscrupulous smuggling networks have been quick to change their tactics making the crossing by sea even more deadly. Training the Libyan coastguard to intercept people at sea and return them to Libya creates some other problems.
People who are returned to Libya face arbitrary detention for prolonged periods of time. They have to leave in unsanitary and inhumane conditions. The conditions in Libya being what they are, there is no way for them to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
So EU should offer these unfortunate people a feasible alternative. Urgent action is needed to provide safe and legal channels for them to seek asylum. People looking for work or seeking safety in Europe or elsewhere would then be able to do so legally rather than having to turn to greedy smugglers.
Otherwise, scenes from such horror movies will continue to be flashed across our TV screens until we become totally inured to the pain and suffering of human beings.
