http://www.irinnews.org/report/100149/understanding-the-surge-in-migrant-boat-crossings-to-europe
Understanding the surge in migrant boat crossings to Europe
By Kristy Siegfried
HIGHLIGHTS
JOHANNESBURG/TRIPOLI, 29 May 2014 (IRIN) - Italian newspapers have recently
been full of reports of countless rickety boats conveying thousands of
desperate migrants to its shores.
Since the beginning of the year, over 38,000 irregular migrants have
arrived in Italy, most of them coming ashore on the tiny island of
Lampedusa south of Sicily. This is a significant jump from the 4,290 who
made the crossing during the same period in 2013, but Italian officials
have suggested that it represents only the tip of the iceberg.
Last month, the head of Italy's Immigration and Border Police agency was
widely quoted in the media telling a parliamentary committee that 800,000
more migrants were poised to depart the North African coast for Europe, a
figure which he later admitted was "not a concrete projection".
While worries in Italy and throughout the European Union are focused on how
many more migrants will come during the usually busier summer months and
where they will go, a small number of researchers are trying to understand
what has prompted the surge in migrants using this route and where they
have come from.
All roads lead to Libya
According to Italy's Interior Ministry, 31 percent of the sea arrivals so
far this year were Eritrean, a significant increase from previous years.
Another 14 percent were Syrian while other nationalities include Somalis,
Ethiopians, Sudanese and West Africans from countries including Mali,
Nigeria and Senegal.
The vast majority of the boats are departing from Libya where smugglers
have taken advantage of a security vacuum created by the fall of Muammar
Qaddafi's regime in 2011 to establish routes for smuggling migrants and
illicit goods from the country's southern frontiers to its northern coastal
towns.
A recently launched report by the Nairobi-based Regional Mixed Migration
Secretariat (RMMS) and the Danish Refugee Council examines evidence that
migrants and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa are increasingly
willing to undertake the risky journey to Libya and then Europe as
previously popular routes to Saudi Arabia via Yemen and to Israel via Egypt
have become largely closed to them.
The authors suggest that the flow of asylum seekers from Eritrea, Somalia
and Sudan who are "Going West" to Libya and Europe is increasing rapidly,
despite the enormous risks associated with this route.
"We can't say for sure how many [migrants] are in Libya. We can say for
sure the numbers are increasing," said Melissa Phillips, a researcher with
RMMS who until recently was a senior programme officer with the Danish
Refugee Council in Libya.
Phillips noted the absence of monitoring at Libya's southern land borders
where the majority of migrants and their smugglers enter the country after
perilous journeys through the deserts of Sudan, Chad and Niger. "There's a
complete black hole of information on Libya's southern borders," she told
IRIN. "At the moment, the only reliable figures we have are for people
leaving...
"There's an unknown number of people who don't make it to their intended
dream [destination] whether it be to parts of Libya to work or to Europe,"
she added.
According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than 170 migrants have
died since the beginning of 2014 trying to reach Europe by sea. How many
died of thirst or hunger while crossing the Sahara is unknown, but the RMMS
report describes the Sahara crossing as "even more dangerous" than the
Mediterranean one.
In just one incident in April, Sudanese Armed Forces discovered 600 mostly
Eritrean and Ethiopian migrants who had been abandoned by their smuggler
near the Libyan border. Ten had died of hunger and thirst before the group
was rescued.
Many of the migrants interviewed for the RMMS report recounted how members
of the groups they were travelling with had died from lack of food or water
during desert crossings.
"Misery and insecurity" in Libya
Their ordeal rarely ended after entering Libya. The country's lack of an
asylum system means that asylum seekers and refugees are usually viewed as
irregular migrants. Although asylum seekers can register with UNHCR, the
agency has no official status in Libya and the document it issues to asylum
seekers is not universally recognized by Libyan authorities.
Asylum seekers interviewed for a January 2014 report by Jesuit Refugee
Service Malta, described living in constant fear of being arrested and
indefinitely detained by Libya's armed forces or by one of the militias
that control large parts of the country. In some cases their captors were
kidnappers who demanded exorbitant ransoms in return for their release.
Conditions even in the state-run detention centres are extremely poor and
medical care is usually unavailable.
"Going to Italy, it is not necessarily our goal, but is because of misery
and insecurity. In Libya, they target you with a gun"
A survey of about 1,000 migrants conducted by the Danish Refugee Council
late last year found that West African migrants in particular often wanted
to remain in Libya to work and support their families back home, but that
prevailing insecurity as well as increasingly difficult living and working
conditions forced some of them to consider moving on to Europe.
Camara Diagarida, a 24-year-old from Ivory Coast, came to Tripoli, the
Libyan capital, in March hoping to find work. "We come every day to the
roundabout," he told IRIN. "When a truck stops, we all run at it. If you
are lucky, the boss will take you, but you can spend two or three days
without working and sometimes, they don't even pay you.
"If I find the money, I will go to Europe. It costs about US$800 to $1,000.
Going to Italy, it is not necessarily our goal, but it is because of misery
and insecurity. In Libya, they target you with a gun, it is not for fun. In
Europe, our brothers told us it is difficult to find a job, but at least
they have security."
Europe's response
Following a shipwreck that claimed the lives of more 350 asylum seekers a
short distance from Lampedusa in October 2013, the Italian Navy and Coast
Guard launched Operation Mare Nostrum to intercept and rescue migrants from
unseaworthy boats and prevent further tragedies. The mission has
undoubtedly saved lives with more than 43,000 people rescued by the fleet's
five vessels during the past seven months, but anti-immigrant groups in
Italy have complained about the cost to tax payers and argued that, by
reducing the risk of the crossing, it is encouraging more migrants to make
the journey.
Recently Italy's Interior Minister threatened to release migrants seeking
asylum to other countries unless it receives more EU assistance to foot the
cost of rescuing and processing migrants.
Meanwhile, refugee and migrant rights groups argue that Europe's focus on
intercepting and rescuing migrants is misplaced. They point out that
migrants, many of them fleeing persecution and conflict in their home
countries, would not undertake such risky journeys if legal means were
available for them to come to Europe. They have called for European
countries to significantly increase the numbers of refugees they accept for
resettlement, to relax the rules governing family reunification and to make
it possible to apply for asylum or humanitarian visas via embassies in
countries of origin or in third countries.
"People are leaving by boat because the legal means aren't there," said
Phillips. "There needs to be some legal opportunities to reach Europe and
for Europe to show that it's truly committed to burden-sharing with
countries like Libya."
Member states are funding a US$41 million mission to help Libya better
secure and manage its borders through the EU Border Assistance Mission
(EUBAM) to Libya. However, the mission, now entering its second year, has
been severely constrained by Libya's unstable security environment and its
lack of a strong central government.
"Libyan officials are open to our advice, but to be honest there's a
limited absorption capacity," said Francoise Lambert, EUBAM's press and
information officer. "Local counterparts we're working with are not always
properly trained and someone you might have engaged with for a while, all
of sudden is not there anymore."
Insecurity in the south has prevented mission staff from visiting the
southern border area where the majority of illegal entries into the country
occur. Much of the mission's work has instead focused on training
coastguards to rescue and apprehend migrants attempting to leave Libya by
boat. While part of that training includes talking about the importance of
not violating migrants' human rights and providing medical care, EUBAM's
mandate does not extend to the detention of migrants that usually follows
their interception.
EUBAM was launched in response to a request by the Libyan government for
assistance, but it is clearly also viewed as serving the interests of EU
member states who would prefer that fewer migrants reach their borders.
"Training [Libyan] coastguards in keeping people away is absolutely the
wrong way," said Stefan Kessler, senior policy and advocacy officer with
Jesuit Refugee Service Europe. "Asylum seekers are absolutely not safe
there and then the coastguard hinders them from reaching protection
somewhere else."
Phillips agreed that trying to prevent people from reaching Europe was the
wrong approach. "The problem is being looked at very much from a
destination approach... but unless we look at transit and origin [countries],
we're only looking at one part of the story," she told IRIN.
"We're not understanding the scale and dimension of the situation in Libya
and what's driving people out of their countries of origin and what can be
done to assist them either there or en route."
ks/cb
Received on Thu May 29 2014 - 08:17:16 EDT