Date: Thursday, 22 June 2017
Summer offers perfect conditions for migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe. Aid organizations are trying to prevent them from drowning, but the EU has partnered with Libya to stop them.
It is a peaceful morning on the Mediterranean. The sky is deep blue and gentle waves roll out to the horizon - a perfect summer's day.
The image, though, is ruined by the gray patrol boat, double-barreled cannon sitting near the bow with heavy machine guns positioned further back. The Kifah (Battle) is the only ship fit for the high seas in the Libyan Coast Guard's possession.
The ship left the Libyan capital of Tripoli early in the morning. Its job is to combat human traffickers and to intercept the floating death traps that the heavily armed gangs use to send migrants northward by the thousands. At the helm is Captain Abujella Abdul-Bari, 49, a stocky man with four golden stripes on the sleeve of his uniform who hails from a family of fishermen and has spent 30 years in the Navy.
At around 7:30 a.m., central command radios him the coordinates where a boat full of refugees is apparently to be found. Abdul-Bari accelerates to 20 knots, yet shortly before the Kifah reaches the spot, where a wooden boat with hundreds of migrants onboard is indeed motoring through the waves, a third ship pulls up on the starboard side, the Sea Watch 2, operated by the Berlin-based aid organization Sea Watch.
The Kifah's engines rev up to top speed as Abdul-Bari curses the Germans: "They are trying to get to the refugee boat before us." The Kifah and the Sea Watch 2 are on a collision course.
This scene, filmed by a SPIEGEL TV team onboard the Kifah, is symptomatic of the vast Mediterranean tragedy - and of the deadly dilemma that European governments have been unable to solve. (A German trailer for the film can be seen here. The full-length, German-language documentary will air on German broadcaster RTL on Sunday, June 26 at 10:30 p.m.) Now in summer when the sea is calm, tens of thousands of migrants will again try to reach the EU via the so-called central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy.
Attracting Refugees Like a Magnet
The EU does not want these people. The refugee problem is politically explosive for the Union, in part because Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic do not want to take any in, leaving Italy to deal with the problem alone. As a result, the European Commission initiated proceedings against those three countries last week.
But Europe can't hold the refugees back either. While more than 181,000 migrants made it to Italy last year, over 4,500 died on the way. So far this year, many more than 40,000 have already made it with over 1,000 thought to have drowned trying.
Graphic: Intercepted migrant boats off the Libyan coast
The figures are at least 30 percent higher than during the same period in 2016, a function of the land route through the Balkans having been largely blocked. Another factor, critics say, is that the dozen or so rescue boats from Western countries positioned directly off the African coast attract refugees like magnets. Operated by relief organizations, the boats take a majority of the migrants from the refugee vessels and shuttle them to Italy.
There are women, children and babies among them; not so many Syrians, but mainly young men from African countries like Ghana, Nigeria or Senegal. They are fleeing poverty, hopelessness and in some places, hunger.
The result has been a quarrel between relief organizations on the one hand, and politicians and border control agencies on the other, about how to deal with these people. One side wants to do all they can to prevent more from dying. The other wants to deter people from trying: They want the Libyans to intercept the boats and bring them back to the mainland. The African mainland.
To that end, the EU has provided 200 million euros to support the Libyan Coast Guard and Libya has recently requested armed ships and equipment from Brussels. Abujella Abdul-Bari has become Europe's man on Africa's shores: He does the Europeans' dirty work for them.
'A Taxi Service for Refugees'
The experienced sailor doesn't veer off course and the Kifah just misses the bow of the Sea Watch 2 as it reaches the refugees' boat, avoiding a catastrophe by just a few meters.
On the ship's bridge on this day in mid-May, Abdul-Bari complains about the aid workers from Germany and other countries who, in his opinion, do the traffickers' work for them. The migrants used to have to overcome the 160 nautical miles to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Today, they only need to get out of Libya's 12-mile territorial zone and into the 12-mile contiguous zone, where help is waiting. "Everyone who makes it to Italy will call their family and tell them that Sea Watch is only 12 miles away from the coast. You can come." It's a "taxi service for refugees," says Abdul-Bari.
An analysis for the EU border protection agency Frontex echoes these sentiments: The migrants will risk the dangerous crossing because they know they can rely on humanitarian assistance," the report concludes.
