Almost 2,200 people died or were reported missing in the Mediterranean during 2023. This year is already “the deadliest” on this migratory route since 2017, warns Doctors Without Borders (MSF), accusing the European Union of “violent practices” and of “deliberate inaction.” ”to help immigrants.
In a report titled “No one came to our aid”, the NGO states that the number of people reaching the Italian coast via the central Mediterranean route in 2023 “doubled compared to the same period last year”, surpassing Tunisia Libya as the main starting point.
“This significant increase in departures, associated with the lack of rescue capabilities, has resulted in a greater number of vessels in danger and sinking. Since the beginning of the year, an average of eight people have died or disappeared every day in the Central Region “Mediterranean”, says the humanitarian organization.
Aboard the rescue ship Geo Barents, Doctors Without Borders carried out 3,660 consultations with survivors between January and September and documented cases in which European countries “deliberately” put the lives of migrants at risk: “They delay, they don’t effectively coordinate rescues or facilitate the route of boats to unsafe places,” reports the NGO.
Doctors Without Borders continues to witness forced returns to Libya. Tunisia and Albania are the latest cases of Europe’s attempts to deviate from its obligations to protect migrants.
At the beginning of 2023, the Italian government also adopted new rules that condition the activities of NGOs. In the first nine months of 2023, Italian authorities detained six rescue ships, “limiting humanitarian assistance and widening the gap in rescue operations in the central Mediterranean.” The ships were detained and inoperable for more than five months.
The Doctors Without Borders report also denounces violence against immigrants. The humanitarian organization’s medical team reported that 273 migrants had scars from gunshot wounds or violent beatings, unwanted pregnancies caused by sexual violence and “worrying levels” of psychological distress, such as anxiety or nightmares.
“For more than two years, MSF teams on board the Geo Barents addressed the impacts of European migration policies on physical and mental health,” says MSF search and rescue manager Juan Matías Gil, quoted in the document. .
“The patients’ injuries and stories reflect the magnitude of the violence they were subjected to in their home country and throughout their journey, including in Libya and Tunisia,” he said.
For this MSF official, the European Union and its Member States have shown themselves to be “indifferent to the immense suffering unfolding at their doors”, having even invested “even more in harmful migration policies, laws and practices that show little or no regard for the value of human life.”
Juan Matías Gil lamented that, “although the MSF team in the Mediterranean continues to witness forced returns to Libya, [os países europeus decidiram fazer] new agreements with third countries”.
The agreement with Tunisia this summer and, more recently, with Albania, are “Europe’s latest attempts to avoid States’ obligations to help and protect people,” he criticized.
“Once again, deterrence and containment take precedence over the rights and lives of people,” lamented Gil.
Furthermore, the practice of assigning remote landing ports to NGO ships forced the Geo Barents to travel an additional 28,000 kilometers – equivalent to about 70 sailing days – to arrive and return.
“In addition to delaying survivors’ access to adequate medical help, protection and shelter services on land, these were days when we were deliberately prevented from helping people in distress at sea. Although the new Italian rules point to the NGO, the real price is paid by those who flee through the central Mediterranean,” warned Juan Matías Gil.
On board the Geo Barents, MSF “also witnessed first-hand flagrant rights violations, with Italy and Malta unable to coordinate rescues and ensure assistance to people at risk of drowning, causing delays in rescues or preventing to occur,” he said. outside.
The Italian authorities, he added, “have on several occasions ordered NGO ships not to help ships in distress and have forced them to immediately head to port.”
For its part, MSF has witnessed the consequences of “Malta’s systematic policy of non-assistance at sea” and, last June, documented at least one death as a direct consequence of this strategy.
The crossing of the central Mediterranean is one of the deadliest migratory routes in the world, from Libya, Algeria and Tunisia to Europe, specifically the Italian and Maltese territories.
According to data from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency -Frontex-, this route registered, in the first nine months of this year, the entry into Europe of 131,630 people, which represents an increase of 83% compared to the same period. of the year. last year.
The other two Mediterranean routes are the eastern one (which runs mainly from Turkey to Greece) and the western one (from Morocco to Spain).
According to the IOM, more than 17,000 people have died or gone missing in the last nine years in the central Mediterranean, while the western route has killed 2,300 people and the eastern route about 1,700.
Source: TSF
