Italy launched a massive search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean Sunday, after an overcrowded boat carrying hundreds of migrants capsized overnight off the coast of Libya. As many as 700 people are feared dead.
By nightfall Sunday, authorities said 28 people had been rescued about 200 kilometers south of the Italian island of Lampedusa, and another 24 bodies were recovered. Rescue workers said the majority of the missing appeared trapped in the 20-meter vessel at the bottom of the sea.
The boat capsized 193 kilometers south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, when it is believed migrants moved to one side of the vessel as a merchant ship approached.
If confirmed, the latest drownings would push the 2015 Mediterranean death toll past 1,500, compared to about 90 such refugee deaths in the same period a year ago.
Analysts say they expect human trafficking in the Mediterranean to worsen in the coming months, as warming weather and the promise of European stability and prosperity lure desperate refugees from Africa and beyond.
As details of Sunday's disaster spread, government leaders across Western Europe called for emergency talks to address the crisis.
"We have said too many times, never again," European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement. "Now is the time for the European Union as such to tackle these tragedies without delay."
In a televised address, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras urged the European Union to face the crisis head on. "The Mediterranean must stop being a graveyard sea, and southern European countries a storage [for] human souls," he said.
French President Francois Hollande directed his wrath at sea smugglers, who offer transit to desperate refugees seeking to flee Africa, South Asia and parts of the Middle East for the relative safety and prosperity of Europe.
But the huge rise in deaths in 2015, and the largely similar levels of arrivals in Italy, suggest the tactic has not worked. In Tripoli on Saturday, a smuggler told the Guardian he was not aware of Mare Nostrum in the first place, nor knew that it had finished.
“I’ve not heard of that. What is that – from 2009?” said the smuggler, who says his network organises 20 trips a week during the busy summer months. “Many people would go on the boats, even if they didn’t have any rescue operations.”
Migrants interviewed this week in Libya, the main launching pad for those seeking to reach Europe, say the demand will continue despite the deaths. Mohamed Abdallah, a 21-year-old from Darfur who fled war at home to find another war in Libya, said he could not stay in Libya, nor return to Sudan.
“There is a war in my country, there’s no security, no equality, no freedom,” Abdallah said. “But if I stay here, it’s just like my country … I need to go to Europe.”
Save the Children, one of the primary aid agencies working with migrants arriving in Italy, called on EU leaders to hold crisis talks in the next 48 hours and to resume search-and-rescue operations.
“It is time to put humanity before politics and immediately restart the rescue,” the organisation said in a statement. “Europe cannot look the other way while thousands die on our shores.”
Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, called for an urgent meeting of EU leaders this week.
“How can it be that we daily are witnessing a tragedy?” Renzi asked, before convening his own cabinet for an emergency meeting.
The EU commission for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, is due in Italy on Thursday. The EU indicated it would convene ministers to reevaluate its approach towards the crisis on its doorstep.
In Misrata, a major Libyan port, coastguards told the Guardian that the smuggling trips would continue to rise because Libyan officials were woefully under-resourced.
In all of western Libya, the area where the people-smugglers operate, coastguards have just three operational boats. Another is broken, and four more are in Italy for repairs. Libyans say they have been told they will not be returned until after the conclusion of peace talks between the country’s two rival governments.
“There is a substantial increase this year,” said Captain Tawfik al-Skail, deputy head of the Misratan coastguard. “And come summer, with the better weather, if there isn’t immediate assistance and help from the EU, then there will be an overwhelming increase.”
Save the Children has been on the front lines in the migrant crisis, and said it was growing increasingly worried about an expected increase in children making the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
On Friday, it reported that nearly two dozen badly burned Eritreans had landed in Lampedusa that morning, the victims of a chemical fire in the Libyan factory where they were held before their departure.
According to witness accounts, five people, including a baby, died in the blast – which occurred after a gas canister exploded – and the rest of the victims were not taken to hospital by the smugglers holding them. Instead, the injured were put on a ship bound for Italy a few days later. The victims were airlifted to hospitals across Sicily on their arrival.
The story was confirmed by UNHCR, which also interviewed survivors
Monday 20 April 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/700-migrants-feared-dead-mediterranean-shipwreck-worst-yet
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