More migrants die crossing the Med
Forty one migrants, including three children, have died in a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa as they attempted to make the most deadly crossing for small boats in the world.
Four survivors of the shipwreck, one woman and three men from the Ivory Coast and Guinea, say the boat sank within six hours of departing Tunisia after being hit by a large wave. They swam for several hours, found an empty iron boat without an engine and were adrift for days before being rescued.
The UN’s latest figures show that 1.5 million migrants have crossed the central Mediterranean since 2014, of which over 17,000 have died or disappeared at sea. More than 1,800 have lost their lives crossing from North Africa to Europe just this year.
Yet the mounting deaths are no deterrent. Italy has recorded almost 94,000 migrant arrivals by sea this year, according to figures released by the interior minister earlier this week – over double the figure recorded last year.
Recent escalating hostility towards black Africans living in Tunisia is pushing an ever greater number of them to make the perilous journey to Europe, even some who had been in Tunisia for years and previously planned to stay there.
Back in February, Kais Saeid, Tunisia’s president, gave an inflammatory speech declaring that there was a “criminal conspiracy” to settle sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia and change the country’s racial makeup. His speech prompted a wave of abuse against black Africans across the country, some of whom have since been evicted from their homes, fired from jobs or attacked on the streets.
Sub-Saharan migrants aside, an increasing number of Tunisians are deciding to emigrate and make the crossing themselves to escape their country’s worsening economic crisis, with an estimated 1,600 Tunisians crossing in the first three months of 2023, up from 900 in the same period last year.
While Saeid’s aim was to create a hostile environment for migrants in Tunisia, the welcome awaiting them across the Med is not much warmer.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister, has restricted the activities of humanitarian groups that operate rescue boats for migrants and, during her trip to London earlier this year, she found common ground with Rishi Sunak over their mutual desire to impose a harsher crackdown on illegal immigration.
Which brings us to Number 10’s latest announcement during what is being dubbed “small boats week.”
In the latest twists and turns over migrants arriving in the UK, the government has agreed a new deal with Turkey to share live intelligence to crack down on people smuggling gangs, or more specifically, ones that manufacture rubber dinghies.
Turkey is no random partner on this front. According to evidence obtained by UK Border Force, the overwhelming majority of inflatables used by smugglers ferrying migrants over the Channel from northern France are being manufactured in Turkey.
Will this new measure make any difference? Admittedly, it’s hard to imagine that traffickers in France aren’t resourceful enough to find an alternative location to source a rubber dinghy from.
Yet Sunak is desperate to show he is making an effort to fulfil his pledge to stop the small boats – even if it does, as ever, feel like a mission that is destined to fail.
The Italian migrant shipwreck during a week which Number 10 has dedicated to announcing measures to tackle migrant crossings is a reminder that this is not just a domestic issue. But, as usual, each government’s attempts at a solution seems to be shifting the problem onto another country.
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