THE WORLD’S MOST dangerous migration route is getting more deadly.
The first three months of 2023 saw 441 people die while attempting to reach Europe by boat, the highest number of migrant deaths in the central Mediterranean since 2017, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
The total number of people reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean this year now stands at 1,053. Since 2014, more than 26,000 people have died or gone missing while attempting to make the perilous crossing.
While North-African countries are the most common points of departure for those seeking refuge in Europe, many of the people doing so come from countries further to the south, including Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and the the sub-Saharan region of the Sahel.
Their reasons for making the perilous journey north include conflict, famine and repressive regimes.
In years past, the majority of those leaving North Africa attempted to do so by setting off from Libya. However, the growing numbers now coming from an increasingly repressive and authoritarian Tunisia – coupled with restrictive migration policies at EU and member state levels – account for much of the recent increase in departures and fatalities, according to NGOs working in the area.
New policies and legislation from Italy in particular are having a direct effect on search and rescue efforts by limiting the actions of NGO-operated ships.
“We are seeing a sharp increase in the number of people who are attempting these perilous journeys across the Central Mediterranean this year,” UNHCR spokesperson Shabia Mantoo told The Journal.
“This is the third consecutive year that we see an increase in the numbers of people arriving to Italy by sea. There are a number of factors that account for the increase,” she said.
These include, she explained, the worsening civil and economic situation in Tunisia, where almost 20,000 people have departed this year, as well as milder than usual winter weather conditions.
“Needless to say, such crossings are perilous and many vessels are unseaworthy and easily capsize,” she said.
Last month, a collection of search and rescue NGOs who operate in the Mediterranean issued a joint statement calling on the EU and its member states to “withdraw their migration control agreements with the Tunisian authorities.”
That statement argued that Tunisia, which has now overtaken Libya as the main departure point in North Africa, cannot be considered a “place of safety” to which shipwrecked migrants can be returned.
“Tunisia has no national asylum system, and the people rescued at sea, whether Tunisians or non-Tunisians, are at high risk of being subjected to human rights violations, detention, and violent refoulements,” the statement read.
Non-refoulement is a core principle in international law that prohibits countries who receive asylum seekers from sending them back to a country of origin that is deemed unsafe.
“Disembarkation of those shipwrecked and rescued at sea in Tunisia violates international human rights and maritime law,” the statement read.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is one of the NGOs that operate search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean.
Caroline Willemen, a search and rescue project coordinator with MSF who is based in Italy, emphasised the dangers faced by those who are forcibly returned to Tunisia.
MSF doesn’t consider Tunisia to be a place of safety because there is no proper asylum system in place, so there is no clear system for how people can apply for protection. And then indeed there are concerns for certain groups like people who have fled their country because they’re being persecuted based on their sexuality.
Black Africans in Tunisia are also subjected to racist discrimination and abuse, according to human rights observers and refugee NGOs.
The economic, human and civil rights conditions in Tunisia have been deteriorating in recent years, especially since President Kais Saied dissolved parliament last year for the second time, which has allowed him to rule by decree.
One of the main opposition leaders, Rached Ghannouchi, was arrested in April after making remarks warning that eradicating different viewpoints such as the left or political Islam might lead to a “civil war.”
Another incident that highlighted the evermore repressive nature of the Tunisian regime, alongside the country’s worsening economic situation, occurred when a footballer named Nizar Issaoui died after setting himself on fire in protest last month.
As it does with Libya, the EU has agreements with Tunisian authorities that effectively outsource the policing of the bloc’s sea border. Tunisian and Libyan Coastguard agencies prevent crossings and intercept boats – which they then bring back – in exchange for funding, equipment and training.
“The claim from the EU that this will prevent people from dying is ludicrous,” said Willemen.
“Technically, they are not conducting rescues because that would mean returning people to a place of safety and Libya is not safe.”
The EU’s deal with the Libyan Coastguard came under renewed scrutiny in the Dáil recently during a debate about the involvement of an Irish Navy vessel in Operation Irini, which aims to enforce an arms embargo on the country.
Opposition TDs pressed the government to make a commitment not to take part in the training of Libyan Coastguard personnel, which is one of the stated aims of the EU mission.
Taking leader’s questions that day, Minister of State Peter Burke, who was standing in for Tánaiste Micheál Martin, said:
“For absolute clarity, let me confirm that at no point during the deployment will the mission be involved in the training of Libyan coastguard and we will declare caveats to that effect before formally joining the mission.”
Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon also successfully added an amendment to the motion to send the Lé William Butler Yeats on the mission that reaffirmed Ireland’s commitment to rescuing people in distress at sea.
The Libyan Coastguard has been found to be a corrupt and criminal organisation by a UN fact-finding mission conducted earlier this year, which reported that the coastguard among other Libyan authorities likely “colluded with traffickers and smugglers, which are reportedly connected to militia groups, in the context of the interception and deprivation of liberty of migrants.”
Similar accusations have been made by search and rescue NGOs about Tunisia’s coastguard and other government agencies.
Responding to Burke’s statement in the Dáil, MSF Ireland’s executive director Isabel Simpson issued a statement saying:
“It is important this assurance is now followed through on; both for Ireland’s standing on human rights and to signal to other European countries who are playing a role in Irini the significant humanitarian concerns relating to the Libyan Coast Guard.”
“Things could be different and they have been different in the past, like when Italy had its Mare Nostrum programme (in 2013). I think they rescued something like over 150,000 people,” said Michael Phoenix, head researcher at the office of United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders.
“One of the issues around why things aren’t different is because there’s a lack of solidarity among EU member states when it comes to sharing the responsibilities that are attached to migration,” he said.
Italy has complained about bearing the brunt of the incoming numbers of migrants. This is mostly due to the Dublin Regulation, an EU rule that states an asylum seeker must apply for asylum and remain in the country where they first arrive.
For Phoenix, there is a contradiction on the part of the EU when it comes its commitments to supporting those defending human rights.
“The EU and its member states are major supporters of human rights defenders (outside the EU) and they need to start showing support for them within their own borders.
“The EU has countless policies and commitments to support human rights defenders in its external policy but that’s being undermined by the obstruction of human rights defenders within the EU by EU member states,” he said.
New Italian policies and legislation around the activity of NGO rescue boats, which were brought in by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government following her election in October last year, are directly hindering the efforts of organisations like MSF.
Italy declared a six-month state of emergency in April due to the high number of refugee arrivals in the country.
Italy receives the most migrant arrivals of any EU country, with the Italian Interior Ministry stating last month that around 31,300 migrants and refugees had arrived in 2023 as of 12 April, up from roughly 7,900 in the same period last year.
The new laws now restrict the number of rescues an NGO ship can perform to one per trip. On top of this, newly established decree forces these ships to travel to ports in the north of the country.
An MSF ship, the Geo Barents, was already impounded in March this year under these new powers. The ship was detained and the organisation fined for failing to hand over the ship’s voyage data recorder, something MSF says was never common practice before.
Another civilian-operated ship – funded by UK artist Banksy – was also detained by Italian authorities under the new powers.
“Basically, it gives a wide range of instruments to the authorities to detain NGO ships and so the Geo Barents already had a detention of 20 days. If there would be another perceived infringement, we could be detained for 60 days,” said Willemen.
“So of course, on top of the fact that we can do only one rescue, we’re then sent far away and that takes us out of the search and rescue region, but obviously the detentions do too.
“NGOs being assigned northern ports as ports of safety means rescued people’s time on board is unnecessarily longer than it should be.”
All in all, the requirement to travel further north to dock means that trips can take up to a week longer than they used to. This keeps the ships from rescuing people who they otherwise could, which means more people inevitably drown.
The new Italian legislation and policies are leaving NGO rescue ships in an almost impossible position because if they conduct more than one rescue and then dock in Italy, they are breaking Italian law. But if they fail to answer a distress call having already conducted a rescue, they are breaking international law.
“In international law it’s quite clear,” says Oliver Kulikowski, a spokesperson for Sea Watch, a German NGO that rescues people in the Mediterranean.
“There is a duty to rescue for every captain at sea and basically if you don’t attend a distress call at sea, you’re breaking international law.”
So what Italy tells us is breaking the law, otherwise you will not be granted a port of safety.
“In the central Mediterranean, where most of these civilian rescue ships operate, there are just two relatively close ports of safety, because Libya has none and Tunisia has none, so it’s either Malta or Italy.
“And Malta is basically not allowing ships at their ports. What you do after a rescue (is) you ask the next safe port to provide you with one, either they don’t answer at all or they just say no.”
“Breaking international law will most likely also mean letting people drown.
“There’s a huge rescue gap in the Mediterranean and this of course is due to states not really fulfilling their duty to rescue, but also since there’s no state-run European rescue mission.”
“What’s important to understand is that what we’re facing in the Mediterranean is not a refugee or migration crisis, it’s basically a crisis of human rights.
“In the last two years the European Union took in over two million people from Ukraine,” which is something he would like to see put into perspective when talking about people fleeing North Africa.
“What we see in the Mediterranean is not like a natural disaster or something, it’s basically a manmade catastrophe that can also be changed if there’s political will to do so.”
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