Click:slot milling
24 Libyan bodies brought to Malta, April 20. Demotix/ Christian Mangion.All rights reserved.Loss of life in the Mediterranean during the
last few weeks brings the death toll this year to 1,776. 2015 is on course to
be the deadliest year on record. The avoidable loss of life is all the more
devastating in light of its predictability. Ongoing violence and instability in
Syria, Palestine, Somalia, Libya and elsewhere meant that people would continue
to leave these areas and attempt to reach Europe. The lack of legal avenues
into Europe for migrants and refugees alongside the EU’s emphasis on border
control ensured that they would be obliged to resort to the services of
smugglers and to dangerous journeys across the Mediterranean. Finally, the reduction
in resources committed by EU member states to search and rescue missions in the
Mediterranean since October 2014 guaranteed that many more of those embarking
on the journey would not arrive on the Sea’s northern shores.
We know all too little of the nameless
bodies that are once again washing up on Mediterranean beaches this week: we do
know that they are men, women, and children who had fled violence, instability,
and poverty and attempted to find safe places for their children to grow and a
better life in Europe. There are reports that they included
people from Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh. In
recent days, Malta and Italy buried the limited number of dead pulled from the
Sea in coffins anonymously marked with haunting words: ‘Body
No: 132’.
As Nando Sigona has written,
the avoidable deaths of so many people brings into sharp relief the question of
how much a human life is worth. It also raises the uncomfortable question of
when we bestow worth onto particular human beings. The hypocrisy during this
last week has been clear: as with previous, avoidable tragedies at sea, while the
dead are commemorated, the few lucky enough to survive are branded as
‘illegal’, put into detention, and threatened with deportation.
Following the response of EU politicians
this week, you would be forgiven for thinking that people cross the
Mediterranean solely because of their access to smugglers’ boats or because of
good weather. Politicians have been quick to call this latest incident a
tragedy, and quicker still to lay blame at the feet of smugglers. Although the President of the European Council declared that the EU’s ‘overriding priority is to prevent more
people from dying at sea’, and at an emergency summit on
Thursday EU member states pledged to triple the
resources available to Frontex operations in the Central Mediterranean, the emphasis
is still overwhelmingly on enforcement and deterrence. If there was any doubt, Frontex
Director Fabrice Leggeri drove the message
home on the eve of the EU summit maintaining that saving lives in the Mediterranean
was not a priority for the agency.
The deterrent and enforcement aspects of the
EU’s response have centered on smugglers, characterized by politicians in recent
days as ‘slave traders’. The EU announced it would launch an operation to seize
and destroy boats used by smugglers in Libya. The details of the plan remain
hazy, yet the rhetoric reduces migrants and refugees to flotsam and jetsam
pushed and pulled by more powerful forces.
It overlooks the fact that despite enormous
resources spent on building ‘Fortress Europe’, borders remain porous and
migration routes adapt in the face of new control measures. Significantly, the
emphasis on combatting smugglers also obscures the ways in which EU border
controls have contributed to the business of smuggling. With no legal routes
around the walls and barriers that surround Europe, Syrian and Somali refugees,
migrants trapped in Libya, and others are left with few options but to engage a
smuggler. The surest way to undermine this booming business of smuggling would
be to open legal channels into Europe.
Conspicuously absent in the EU policy
response is also any discussion of the conflicts that have, for example, caused
the number of Syrians crossing the Central Mediterranean to increase from 100
in 2012 to 10,000 in 2013 and 42,000 in 2014. Although the EU, the US, and
other western states have demonstrated a willingness to intervene militarily
and politically in Libya, Syria, and other parts of the region, a willingness
to take responsibility for the consequences of these interventions is woefully lacking.
Thus, while Turkey, Lebanon, Jordon, and other neighboring countries host more
than three million Syrian refugees, only 150,000 asylum applications have been
made by Syrians in the EU.
Though many welcome the promise of an
expansion of Frontex operations that effectively act as a search and rescue
mission in the Mediterranean, we would do well to remember that even at the
height of Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation last year, over 3,000 people lost
their lives. Search and rescue operations cannot replace legal access to
Europe, access that has been considerably restricted for most of the world’s
population over the last 25 years.
The Mediterranean Sea was the deadliest part
of the world for migrants in 2014: the 3,166 people who lost their lives between
the Sea’s northern and southern shores constituted over 70% of migrant deaths
worldwide according to the International
Organization for Migration. These deaths occurred despite the extensive
search and rescue activities of Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation that rescued
more than 150,000
people between October 2013 and October 2014. Given the still limited resources to rescue
people at sea as well as the lack of legal channels into Europe for the vast
majority of Syrian, Somalis, Palestinians and others, the recent deaths at sea
and the response by EU politicians raise the question of
what kind of Europe we want to create and live in: one that is a leader in the
world because it lives up to its principles of inclusion, freedom of movement,
refugee protection and other human rights, or one that builds walls to exclude,
allows people to die en masse at its borders, and leads the world only in
migrant deaths?
