António Vitorino, director general of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), accuses the European Union of using “false arguments” to justify the decision not to accept immigrants trying to reach the European Union through the Mediterranean.
After the sinking off the coast of Greece of a ship from Libya, “the most serious in the central Mediterranean since 2017”, criticism from non-governmental organizations multiplied, accusing the Greek and European authorities of lack of action on the matter. of assistance. to migrants.
For António Vitorino, “there was not the slightest doubt about the situation” of the passengers, so the refusal of help by the captain of the fishing boat, who ended up dying, “is completely inexplicable.”
“The first contacts with this ship already indicated that there was a situation of enormous risk to the lives of the passengers, it is completely inexplicable in my opinion,” says the director general of (OIM).
Speaking to TSFAntónio Vitorino stresses that international law is not respected and, in some cases, justifications that are not true are used.
“There is only one truth: humanitarian law and international law of the sea oblige us to assume responsibilities in terms of search and rescue,” he says.
The director general regrets that arguments such as “a search and rescue system would further encourage people to emigrate” to justify the lack of support for migrants. Vitorino believes that this “is a completely fallacious argument, not to say false”, for which reason “this international law obligation must be observed by all the Member States of the European Union” and stresses the importance of “coordination at the European level “.
The Greek authorities have opened an investigation to find out what is behind the sinking of the ship heading to Italy in the early hours of Wednesday, which did not follow the usual route and chose a “more dangerous route”.
“This route from eastern Libya is much more difficult from the point of view of currents and from the point of view of weather conditions, despite the fact that today we are already in spring and, therefore, in that sense there is no no expectation. from the inclemencies of winter, but unfortunately it is a more dangerous route and one that is being used more and more,” says the IOM director general.
António Vitorino recalls that there is a “resistance limit at sea”, that is, with respect to hypothermia and even the survival capacity of each person.
“The photographs we have seen from the ship show that most of the people did not have life jackets and therefore this makes their survival very unlikely and we have really chilling reports that there were over a hundred children on board and They are naturally the most vulnerable and die.” before the aggressiveness of the shipwreck,” she says.
So far, just over a hundred bodies have been recovered, close to 104, and there are records of 78 fatalities; however, according to the reports that were coming from some survivors, the IOM indicates that “some 400 to 700 people”, so Vitorino believes that the real dimension of the tragedy is much greater.
“This also corresponds to a worsening of the situation, in general, of arrivals. Right now, at the end of May, around 54 thousand people arrived in Italy, which is double the arrivals of last year in the same period of 2022, ”he explains.
Given these numbers, the organization fears that 2023 will go down in history for the worst reasons.
“Unfortunately this year, 2023, we have already registered more than a thousand dead and missing on the central Mediterranean route, which compares to the total number of dead and missing last year for the entire year, of 1,400. I was talking about the shipwreck. if they are confirmed, unfortunately we will have reached, even before the middle of the year, the total number of deaths and disappearances for the whole of 2022, which makes us fear a truly terrifying figure at the end of this year”, he laments.
Source: TSF
