LAST WEEK’S SHIPWRECK off the coast of Greece, in which hundreds of people are thought to have died, has brought the plight of those attempting to reach safety in Europe to the forefront of public consciousness once again. 

The latest tragedy took place a week before World Refugee Day, which falls today, and is yet another example of what is unfolding on the world’s deadliest migration route.

This month alone there have been ten other cases of boats in distress that have resulted in the deaths for some of those onboard. 

Last month The Journal reported that the first quarter of this year was the deadliest in the Central Mediterranean since 2017.

The total number of dead or missing people along that stretch of the sea now stands at 1,289, according to the UN’s International Organisation for Migration, which is likely to be an underestimate due to the way in which figures are counted.

According to NGO workers in the Mediterranean and a number of Irish politicians, EU policies are directly contributing to making the situation more hazardous for those attempting to make the journey to Europe. 

‘This will all blow over again’

Media attention paid to Mediterranean migration has ramped up since the fishing boat carrying hundreds of people sank off the Greek coast last week, according to Caroline Willeman, a search and rescue coordinator with Médicines Sans Frontier (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders.  

“I’m grateful that at least people are willing to pay some attention. I wish there wasn’t such a bad reason to speak about it but here we are,” she said. 

Speaking from her years of experience working in the area, Willemen believes “it takes this level of disaster for people to talk about it”.

“And then, not wanting to sound cynical, I’m afraid I’ve been doing this too long to not also be afraid that this will all blow over again,” she added. 

Willemen does not hold out much hope that the prominence of this latest disaster will prompt a change in European policy on migration. 

“In terms of, let’s say, the likelihood that the attention will actually impact policies or will impact practices of how Europe is assisting people in need, let’s say that I’m at a point where I’m not sure how much difference it will make.”

She also believes that part of the reason for the extra attention from politicians and the media is due to the fact that the fishing boat sank off the coast of an EU country and not an African one. 

“The scale of this disaster was very big, which it is why gaining more media traction. But that’s also because it happened close to European shores, and many of the drownings happen closer to Libya or Tunisia.”

When people do make it to Europe, often traumatised and in need to medical attention, they are met with yet more hostile conditions.

This is the case on the Greek island of Lesbos, which became infamous for the Moria camp, which held over 20,000 people at one point. After a fire tore through the camp in September 2020, it was closed.

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently visited the island while campaigning during the country’s general election. 

“The hellhole of Moria, as it would become known abroad, is no more,” he said. 

“It belongs to the past. And of that I am especially proud because I kept the promise I had given to local society, particularly local communities … We enforced a tough but fair policy on the migration issue.”

‘Very chaotic’

While the number of refugees on the island may have come down from its peak in 2015, conditions for those who arrive by boat or are rescued nearby are not much better now, according to Nihal Osman, a project coordinator with MSF on Lesbos.

Moria might be closed but there are two other camps in operation, one of which was a Covid quarantine facility during the pandemic.

A new Greek policy decision has made the work of NGOs like MSF more difficult and is pushing people into homelessness, Osman said. 

“The ministry is trying to reduce the capacity, which means to only keep asylum seekers inside the camp,” she explained.

“So they’re not providing any more food or basic services to people who were denied international protection and the ones who were granted refugee status.

“They consider that once people get the asylum status or refugee status, then they don’t get any kind of support because they are somehow immediately integrated within the society, which is of course not the case. 

“So far the authorities are not physically forcing people to go outside of the camp, they just don’t provide the services. So now NGOs are covering the food distribution for the ones that are excluded from the food provision.

“It’s very chaotic. We are very concerned that it will probably end up in homelessness for a lot of people.”

MSF provides medical assistance to those in the camps and to new arrivals, but the presence of what appear to be anti-refugee vigilantes is complicating their efforts.

There have also been reports that Greek coast guard authorities have been doing ‘push backs’ – forcing migrants arriving on boats to return to where they came from – which was reported by the New York Times.  

Of the vigilantes Osman says: “We see them around the location where we’re going [to attend a landing]. We see cars without number plates, we see people with masks.”

While MSF staff say they have not seen this happen themselves, their patients on the island have reported it to them often, Osman says.

“Most of our patients report to us that this happened to them before or it’s happened to them upon arrival,” she said. 

Safe pathways

For Willemen, tragedies such as the one which occurred last week are avoidable. However, until the EU’s approach to asylum seekers and other migrants changes, she believes that they will continue to happen. 

“I think we need to be very realistic. That if there are no safe and legal ways for people to flee their countries and enter Europe, they will keep resorting to these very dangerous ways,” she said. 

“They know that it’s very dangerous. The vast majority of people that I’ve spoken to know very well the risks that they take, but they find themselves in the kind of desperate limbo that they are willing to take this risk.”

This is especially true for those attempting to escape Libya, where the EU funds local coast guards which are reportedly made up of former militias who have been found to have committed human rights abuses. 

“We hear on a relatively regular basis that people tell us they would have preferred to die at sea than go back to Libya, which says quite a lot about the situation there,” Willemen says. 

While some of those who end up in Libya may have come as economic migrants, many end up faced with these dire conditions, which pushes them to attempt the perilous journey across the sea, in many cases more than once. 

“When they start finding themselves in such situations of forced labour, extortion, etc, that’s when they decide to move on.”

Green Party MEP Grace O’Sullivan is of the same view when it comes to why people make these desperate boat trips. 

“There are now almost no safe and legal paths for people from countries like Sudan and Afghanistan to make it to Europe without significant funds and connections,” she told The Journal.

“In creating this environment, we make it almost inevitable for desperate people to take desperate and dangerous methods to make it to Europe and to safety. 

“As a result, we have just seen hundreds more needlessly lose their lives in the Mediterranean, which has become a graveyard for refugees.”

Fortress Europe 

Due to EU policies on policing the Mediterranean Sea border and the stances of member states like Greece and Italy, there is no sign that things will improve for those making journeys to Europe. 

EU countries used to conduct their own search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, particularly back in 2015 at the height of that decade’s so-called ‘migrant crisis’, but that is no longer the case.

Rescue operations are often only carried out by EU coast guards when a boat in distress is found in their territorial waters. 

The core of the EU’s policy is arrangements it has with countries like Libya, where local coast guards are trained and equipped by the EU. Their job is to prevent migrant boats from ever reaching the European side of the sea. 

Frontex, Europe’s border policing force, recently announced that it plans to hire an additional 8,500 staff members by 2027.

The body conducts a small number of rescue operations in the Mediterranean but mostly alerts coast guards authorities in north Africa and Europe of boats in distress via their planes. 

Willemen says she would like to see more coordination between Frontex and NGO rescue boats but says MSF rarely get notified by the agency. 

“Why is it that it happens so rarely, that we are informed by Frontex about distress cases like this?” she asks. 

“It happens very, very rarely. So yes, of course for us, we just have questions. Are we really never ever the best equipped ship around?  You know, we have a rescue crew of 20 people, we are a certified search and rescue vessel.

“We are out at sea quite often. For sure it raises questions about why we are never asked by Frontex to assist a distress case.”

She also doubts that expanding Frontex will necessarily make a difference to the safety of people in the Mediterranean unless there are policy changes that come with it.  

“They might have more staff, but if they still don’t inform, for example, search and rescue NGOs of distress cases, I don’t necessarily see how it will substantially change the safety of people at sea.”

MEP Grace O’Sullivan believes that expanding Frontex is “insane”. 

“I have always opposed the insane proposals to expand Frontex, whose complicity in crimes against migrants and refugees has been proven time and time again,” she says.

“The agency has failed entirely to take responsibility for abuses within the agency and the blank cheque the Commission seems prepared to give to Frontex cannot be justified.”

She also described the approach as “even more significant and deadly than President Trump’s notorious calls to ‘Build the Wall’ on the border with Mexico”.

O’Sullivan also lamented the EU’s general move away from conducting its own rescue missions with particular reference to Ireland’s role. 

“In previous years Ireland has played a positive role in the EU’s role in helping migrants reach European shores safely,” she said.

“Unfortunately, the EU has changed its approach since then from saving refugees in distress to pushing refugees back and building ‘Fortress Europe’. At European Council level, this policy is being led by far-right governments in Hungary, Poland, Italy and elsewhere. 

“Ireland should play a stronger role in Council to push back against the regressive policies that have led to the tragic but ultimately avoidable deaths of thousands in the Mediterranean.”