It remains unclear whether the passengers’ entire voyage took place in the now capsized vessel; smugglers may have transferred the passengers to the smaller boat immediately after reaching Italian waters so that they themselves could flee. This is often what occurs; desperation-driven asylum-seekers will risk death to escape their violence-riddled homelands, and they are taken advantage of and left adrift by unscrupulous smugglers. Calamities of this nature are all too common in Lampedusa, as well as in Tarifa, Spain, and numerous other coastal European cities and islands.
Individual capsized vessels do not usually have a casualty count of this magnitude; indeed, the staggering number of deaths was precisely what attracted international attention and dismay to this tragedy. In Italy alone, a national day of mourning was decreed, and calls for increased patrols of the Mediterranean resonated around Europe. Cecilia Malstrom, the E.U’s commissioner for home affairs, stated that “a wide operation that will cover the whole Mediterranean from Spain to Cyprus in order to be able to prevent future catastrophes and save more lives” was absolutely necessary.
Pope Francis had actually visited Lampedusa in July, on his first official trip outside of Rome, in an attempt to draw attention to the ever-growing quandary of immigrants both during their journeys and once they arrive. The Sicilian island has been compared to Checkpoint Charlie, the gateway between East and West Berlin during the cold war. Yet relatively little attention was paid to Mediterranean-crossers’ plight until now. Over the last 20 years, over 25,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean, many of which are yet to be recovered.
Those immigrants who do survive long enough to reach European shores almost never have visas, as they do not have the means to obtain them, but they classify themselves as asylum seekers so that they cannot be turned away. Many are still told to go back to where they came from or are treated with indifference, as resources to cope with the influx of migrants are lacking everywhere. Attempts to shut out immigrants only render the means they use to reach Europe more perilous; a fence put up along the Greek-Turkish border in 2012 saw an immediate increase in immigrants arriving by sea, and infrared cameras designed to look for large vessels off the coast of Spain triggered the widespread usage of unseaworthy, overcrowded dinghies to evade detection by authorities. Illegal immigrants who are intercepted reaching shore often jump into the water without knowing how to swim to avoid being taken into custody.
The slim silver lining of this tragedy is that people are finally taking notice of this humanitarian crisis on a large scale, and the European Union has pledged aid to Lampedusa by increasing patrols, improving legal channels for immigration applications and providing additional resources to arriving refugees. Yet the widespread unrest remains the most serious issue; as conflict and danger remain rife in Africa and the Middle East, more and more immigrants seek refuge in Europe. This year, 31,000 migrants have already arrived in Europe, 21,780 of these migrants coming to Italy alone.
On October 11th, a mere week after the Mediterranean claimed over 300 lives with one blow, at least 27 immigrants drowned in another wreck. Again, several were children. The Italian coast guard has conducted maritime rescue operations almost every day this month but the future is uncertain even for those they do manage to save.
E.U. aid cannot come fast enough.
hese migrants coming to Italy alone.
On October 11th, a mere week after the Mediterranean claimed over 300 lives with one blow, at least 27 immigrants drowned in another wreck. Again, several were children. The Italian coast guard has conducted maritime rescue operations almost every day this month but the future is uncertain even for those they do manage to save.
E.U. aid cannot come fast enough.
Those immigrants who do survive long enough to reach European shores almost never have visas, as they do not have the means to obtain them, but they classify themselves as asylum seekers so that they cannot be turned away. Many are still told to go back to where they came from or are treated with indifference, as resources to cope with the influx of migrants are lacking everywhere. Attempts to shut out immigrants only render the means they use to reach Europe more perilous; a fence put up along the Greek-Turkish border in 2012 saw an immediate increase in immigrants arriving by sea, and infrared cameras designed to look for large vessels off the coast of Spain triggered the widespread usage of unseaworthy, overcrowded dinghies to evade detection by authorities. Illegal immigrants who are intercepted reaching shore often jump into the water without knowing how to swim to avoid being taken into custody.
The slim silver lining of this tragedy is that people are finally taking notice of this humanitarian crisis on a large scale, and the European Union has pledged aid to Lampedusa by increasing patrols, improving legal channels for immigration applications and providing additional resources to arriving refugees. Yet the widespread unrest remains the most serious issue; as conflict and danger remain rife in Africa and the Middle East, more and more immigrants seek refuge in Europe. This year, 31,000 migrants have already arrived in Europe, 21,780 of these migrants coming to Italy alone.
On October 11th, a mere week after the Mediterranean claimed over 300 lives with one blow, at least 27 immigrants drowned in another wreck. Again, several were children. The Italian coast guard has conducted maritime rescue operations almost every day this month but the future is uncertain even for those they do manage to save.
E.U. aid cannot come fast enough.