CATANIA — The European Union proposed doubling the size of its Mediterranean search and rescue operations yesterday, as the first bodies were brought ashore of as many as 900 people feared killed in the deadliest known shipwreck of migrants trying to reach Europe.
As if to emphasize the scale of the problem, three other rescue operations were reported to be underway to save hundreds more migrants in peril on overloaded vessels making the journey from the north coast of Africa to Europe.
Italian prosecutors also announced they had arrested 24 suspected migrant-traffickers, although it was not clear whether they had any connection with the latest disaster.
The mass deaths have caused shock across the world and in Europe, where a decision to scale back naval operations last year seems to have increased the risks for migrants without reducing their numbers.
“The situation in the Mediterranean is dramatic. It cannot continue like this,” said European Council President Donald Tusk, calling an extraordinary summit of EU leaders for Thursday to plan how to stop traffickers and boost rescue efforts.
Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said as many as 900 people may have died in Sunday’s disaster off the coast of Libya when a large boat capsized.
EU ministers in Luxembourg to discuss the crises held a moment of silence. The bloc’s executive, the European Commission, presented a 10-point plan to address the crisis, which would include doubling the size and the funding of “Triton,” an EU naval operation in the Mediterranean. But even that would leave the operation smaller and less well-funded than “Mare Nostrum,” an Italian mission abandoned last year due to costs and domestic opposition to sea rescues that could attract even more migrants.
‘Slavery’
As morning arrived, news emerged Italy and Malta were working to rescue another two boats carrying an estimated 400 people off the coast of Libya. Hundreds of kilometres to the east, coast guardsmen were struggling to save scores of migrants from another vessel destroyed after running aground off the Greek island of Rhodes.
The Greek coast guard said at least three people were killed there. Television pictures showed survivors clinging to floating debris while rescuers pulled them from the waves.
Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi compared the smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean to the African slave trade.
“When we say we are in the presence of slavery, we are not using the word just for effect,” he said.
Following an investigation launched after hundreds of migrants drowned near the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2013, prosecutors in Palermo yesterday announced they had arrested 24 suspected traffickers suspected of organizing the transport of thousands of Ethiopians and Eritreans to Italy. It was not yet clear whether they had any connection to the latest set of tragedies.
Among those named by officials in the investigation were an Ethiopian and an Eritrean based in Libya who were suspected of being two of the key figures profiting from the so-called “Libyan route.” They were not among those arrested.
Exodus of immigrants
European officials are struggling to come up with a policy to respond more humanely to an exodus of migrants travelling by sea from Africa and Asia to Europe, without worsening the crisis by encouraging more to leave.
Chancellor Angela Merkel said that alongside efforts to fight trafficking, more should be done to save those at sea: “We will do everything to prevent further victims from perishing in the most agonizing way on our doorstep.”
Sunday’s tragedy has put the topic back on the agenda. The immigrant vessel overturned and sank off the coast of Libya, apparently after passengers rushed to one side to attract attention from a passing merchant ship. A Bangladeshi survivor told police there had been 950 passengers onboard, many locked into the hold and lower deck.
However, Catania Chief Prosecutor Giovanni Salvi, who is conducting a homicide investigation into the case, said the figure needed to be treated with caution.
In the Maltese capital of Valletta, coast guard officers brought ashore 24 corpses. The 27 survivors rescued so far arrived in the Sicilian port of Catania late yesterday. Another survivor was earlier taken to a Catania hospital by helicopter.
In Greece, more than 90 people were rescued from the boat wrecked near Rhodes: “We have recovered three bodies so far — that of a man, a woman and a child,” one official said.
If the toll is confirmed in Sunday’s tragedy, as many as 1,800 migrants will have died so far trying to cross the Mediterranean since the start of this year. The IOM estimates around 21,000 have made the voyage successfully. The number of migrants normally surges in the summer, meaning far greater numbers are likely to attempt the voyage in the coming months. In total last year, 174,000 made the journey successfully and around 3,200 died.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald