http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/5/574db9d94/mediterranean-death-toll-soars-first-5-months-2016.html
Mediterranean death toll soars in first 5 months of 2016
UNHCR says series of shipwrecks and capsizings last week now appears to have claimed at least 880 lives.
By: Adrian Edwards, Geneva and by Medea Savary, Italy | 31 May 2016
GENEVA, May 31 (UNHCR) – At least 880 people are believed to have drowned last week in a spate of shipwrecks and boat capsizings on the Mediterranean, the UN Refugee Agency said today.
“For so many deaths to have occurred just in a matter of days and months is shocking and shows just how truly perilous these journeys are,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi.
UNHCR told a press briefing in Geneva that the latest figures were arrived at following new information received through interviews with survivors brought ashore in Italy.
“As well as three shipwrecks that were known to us as of Sunday, we have received information from people who landed in Augusta over the weekend that 47 people were missing after a raft carrying 125 people from Libya deflated,” UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler detailed.
He added that eight others were reported separately to have been lost overboard from another boat, and four deaths were reported after fire on board another.
“Thus far 2016 is proving to be particularly deadly. Some 2,510 lives have been lost so far compared to 1,855 in the same period in 2015 and 57 in the first five months of 2014,” Spindler added.
He said that on a Mediterranean-wide basis, the odds of dying on the crossing are as high as one in 81 and getting worse. This highlights the importance of rescue operations as part of the response to the movement of refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean, and the need for real, safer alternatives for people needing international protection.
UNHCR figures also show that so far this year, 203,981 people have made the journey to seek safety in Europe. Almost three-quarters of these had travelled from Turkey to Greece prior to the end of March. Some 46,714 of these travelled to Italy, almost the same as the total recorded there in the first five months of 2015, 47,463.
“The North Africa-Italy route is dramatically more dangerous: 2,119 of the deaths reported so far this year are among people making this journey, making for odds of dying as high as one in 23,” explained Spindler.
UNHCR repeated its call for more action to be taken to tackle people smugglers.
“On the one hand there needs to be better focus on how the people smugglers behind this can be more effectively tackled, but on the other it’s still absolutely vital that serious attention is paid to the need for safe, regular alternatives so we don’t see loss of life continuing like this year after year,” Grandi added.
UNHCR said it was working to better understand the possible reasons and dynamics behind the latest movements. The majority of boats departing Libya are at present reported to be leaving from the Sabratah area to the west of Tripoli.
“As in the past they remain more crowded than those that have normally been seen on the Turkey-Greece route, often carrying 600 or more passengers, and sometimes being towed by larger fishing boats which in turn puts them at risk,” Spindler added.
According to some, as yet unconfirmed, accounts the recent increase in numbers is linked to efforts by smugglers to maximize income before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, in the coming week.
SMUGGLING ROUTES THROUGH LIBYA
According to survivors, smuggler hubs operating in locations including Niger remain active in feeding people from West Africa through to Libya, where many remain for months before being put onto boats for the crossing to Europe.
Reports of trauma from sexual and other forms of gender-based violence among women making the journey – or being trafficked – appear common.
“Some women have told us they were subject to sexual slavery in Libya. We have also been seeing an increase in arrivals of unaccompanied children,” Spindler added.
Some of the first survivors mentioned departing from Subratha, Libya, aboard a big ship which was carrying more than 700 people on three levels. Among them were many women and children, a lot of whom stayed inside the hull of the ship.
When the passengers saw the rescuers approaching, they all moved to the same side of the boat and the sudden shift of weight caused the vessel to capsize abruptly. In the chaos that followed some swam for their lives but many remained trapped inside the ship.
Hamin*, a man in his 30s, told UNHCR staff how he managed to rescue two persons: “I am a good swimmer, I’ve always lived by the sea, so I am not afraid of water. I was swimming and all around me so many bodies. With my right arm I hugged a baby girl from Sudan, very young, probably only a six- or seven-month-old girl. And with my left arm I helped a Syrian lady. She was so scared, she didn’t know how to swim.”
They were then rescued by staff of the Italian navy ship Bettica and pulled aboard the vessel.
“I wanted to go back in the water, help other people but the Italian navy didn’t let me, they said it was too dangerous,” he continued.
Once safe on land at the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle, those rescued smiled with relief. But many also knew they had lost dear friends or family members.
A young man from Sudan told UNHCR staff that he had lost as many as 10 cousins and close friends. He was desperate to make a call. He showed a small piece of paper with a phone number on it and asked for a phone: “I only need to call one person, then he will pass on the terrible news to the relatives, I need to make this phone call, I owe them that,” he said sadly.
A young Libyan man added: “I don’t need a phone, I have no-one to call, I have lost everyone.”
As of now, UNHCR has not seen evidence of a significant diversion of Syrians, Afghans or Iraqis from the Turkey-Greece route to the Central Mediterranean one. The principal nationalities on the Libya to Italy route so far this year have been Nigerians and Gambians, although among countries more commonly associated with refugee movements nine per cent have been Somalis and eight per cent Eritreans.
*name changed for protection purposes-----
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/31/more-than-2500-refugees-and-migrants-have-died-trying-to-cross-t/
More than 2,500 refugees and migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe so far this year, UN reveals
By Nick Squires, rome
31 MAY 2016 • 4:25PM
The first five months of this year have been “particularly deadly” for migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, the United Nations said, as Libyan officials admitted that they were powerless to stop the tide of humanity leaving the country’s desert shores.
More than 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean in rubber dinghies and rusting fishing boats so far this year, the UN’s refugee agency said in a report released on Tuesday.
That number represents a significant increase compared with the same period last year, when 1,855 migrants lost their lives after their boats capsized and sank. In 2014, the figure for the same period was just 57.
While large numbers of migrants, including women and children, are dying at sea, tens of thousands of others successfully reach southern Europe, with around 204,000 making the journey to Italy and Greece since January.
Three-quarters of those landed on Greece’s eastern islands, before an accord between the EU and Ankara in March choked off the migrant route across the Aegean.
"2016 is proving to be particularly deadly," said William Spindler, a UNHCR spokesman.
He said that in the past week alone, at least 880 migrants had died in a series of shipwrecks – significantly higher than the 700 cited by other humanitarian agencies at the weekend. Even that figure was “a conservative estimate," he said.
The odds of dying on the route between Libya and Italy, which is longer and much more dangerous than the crossings across the Aegean, is now one in 23.
So far this year, nearly 47,000 migrants have reached Italy, the vast majority of them sub-Saharan Africans from countries like Senegal, Nigeria and Gambia, who are classed as economic migrants, as well as many from Eritrea and Somalia, who are more likely to be viewed as asylum seekers.
With smuggling gangs operating along the Libyan coast with apparent impunity, the country’s ambassador to Italy admitted that the country is, for now, powerless to stop them sending their human cargo across the Mediterranean.
Ahmed Safar, who was brought up in London and studied at Oxford, said the fledgling Libyan government of national accord (GNA) lacked a functioning coast guard, navy, police force, army and intelligence network to begin taking on the smuggling syndicates.
He said the GNA, which is based in Tripoli, did not have “full control over certain territories”, referring to the myriad rebel groups operating in the country, as well as the presence of Islamic State in the coastal city of Sirte.
It was impossible to say how many migrants were in Libya waiting to cross to Italy, the ambassador said. A fleet of five or six coastguard vessels is being re-fitted in Tunisia and would be delivered soon, but for now Libya has no functioning coast guard at all, Mr Safar conceded. “There are no vessels operating at the moment.”
Confronting the migration crisis would involve the challenging task of securing Libya’s southern desert borders, receiving help from the EU to re-establish the coast guard, and establishing facilities within the country where migrants would apply for asylum in Europe, without risking the dangerous passage by sea.
Islamic State is heavily involved in the smuggling business, working with local gangs to make money out of sending migrants across the Mediterranean in frequently unseaworthy boats, the ambassador said.
Libyan forces, allied with some rebel groups, had “surrounded” the IS stronghold of Sirte and had killed or captured around 600 IS fighters, the ambassador claimed – a figure likely to be greeted with skepticism by independent experts. “The battlefield is clearly in Sirte and progress has been evident in the last few days,” he said. Libyan regime forces were within 12 miles of the city centre.
“This is an important moment for Libya. The battle for Sirte has brought together the government and other armed groups.”
Libyans would “resent” any large-scale foreign military intervention, the ambassador said, but he tacitly acknowledged that small numbers of British, French and American special forces are operating in the country, referring to them as “international advisors”.
Islamic State took advantage of the security vacuum in Libya to seize control of Sirte last year, extending its presence along about 150 miles of coastline either side of the city.
The group is being gradually pushed back, the ambassador said, adding that he thought that reports of 6,000 to 8,000 IS fighters in Libya were wildly exaggerated. The UN’s special envoy to Libya said on Tuesday that the country would not be able to defeat IS unless the various military and militia groups joined forces.
A unity deal, struck in December, was supposed to end the divide between rival governments in Tripoli and Tobruk who have vied for control over the country and its oil resources since 2014.
The competing factions helped oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Martin Kobler, the envoy, said a united command structure was needed under control of Fayaz Seraj, the head of the UN-backed GNA, which arrived in Tripoli in late March and is still trying to establish its authority.
"One point must be very clear. The fight against Daesh must first be a Libyan fight and a united fight," said Mr Kobler, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. "Nobody acting alone will succeed. That's why it's important that all security actors in the west and east unite their forces.”
Received on Tue May 31 2016 - 13:00:51 EDT