Following last year’s uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, many asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants strove to reach Europe. More than 1,500 of them met untimely deaths in the Mediterranean. Last year, one particular boat set sail with 72 passengers. The vessel, en route to Italy from Libya, drifted for two weeks. The men, women and children on board came from several African countries. Hopes rose when a military helicopter dropped supplies. But it never returned. In fact nobody came. One by one, people began dying. Only nine survived the journey. This disaster has since been investigated by the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Despite that, nobody has been held to account for these 63 deaths. The survivors have shared their account with the world. But many more die silently at the very gates of Europe. Few bodies ever wash ashore for their families to mourn.
Round-the-clock patrols strive to intercept those who try to cross the sea. Many are rescued from unseaworthy boats which unscrupulous smugglers recklessly cram above capacity. But more must be done. Europe’s response to last year’s wave of people fleeing from North Africa and the Middle East failed to save too many of the lives risked on this dangerous crossing. In May, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said 81 people attempting to reach Europe from Libya have been reported or confirmed dead this year, an average of two people every three days.
Rather than boosting their search and rescue work, the EU and its member states seem obsessed with excluding people at all costs. Italy has already relaunched cooperation with Libya on controlling irregular migration to Europe, despite the country’s general lawlessness and the great risks Sub-Saharan migrants still face there. Are these people really only acceptable ‘collateral damage’ in the ‘fight’ against irregular migration?
Migration control measures don’t always comply with human rights obligations. It seems Europe’s professed values of equality and human rights don’t apply to people on the move. Europe willingly concludes migration agreements with countries, like Libya, with notorious human rights records. The human rights situation in Libya hasn’t essentially changed from Ghaddafi’s time. Effectively ‘out of sight, out of mind’, migrants are stranded in these countries, which have acted as a proxy police force for the EU. These migrants endure all kinds of violation: discrimination, arbitrary detention in squalour, beatings and sometimes torture. Some are forced back to their home country and hardly anybody has a chance of applying for asylum. Europe simply turns a blind eye.
Today, borders are one of the few areas where European countries continue to operate with little scrutiny. But a recent European Court of Human Rights decision marks a new milestone. The court found that Italy had breached the human rights of 24 Eritreans and Somalis by intercepting them on the high seas and forcing them back to Libya, where they risked serious human rights violations and compulsory return to their homeland. The Council of Europe’s investigation into deaths at sea also highlights the importance it attaches to greater scrutiny. Ensuring greater scrutiny and transparency is an objective of Amnesty International's new migration campaign When you don't exist, which will be launched in Brussels on 13 June.
High fences and ‘secure’ borders won’t stop people coming. It’s human nature to flee from torture, discrimination, war and poverty. Europe must accept that migration is a fact of life. It’s time ‘European values’ also applied to migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees, within and beyond Europe’s borders.
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