Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/670480
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 24 APRIL 2016 12 News MATTHEW VELLA IN cutting back State-led search and rescue (SAR) operations, EU policymakers, agencies and mem- ber states – Italy in particular – created the conditions that led to massive loss of migrant lives in the Mediterranean, including the more than 1,200 deaths caused by the 12 and 18 April 2015 shipwrecks. An investigation by Goldsmiths university's department of foren- sic oceanography used previously unreleased operational documents and minutes of political meetings, to produce strong evidence that decisions to terminate the Italian Navy's Mare Nostrum operation and replace it with the severely limited Frontex-led Triton opera- tion, "were taken in all knowledge of their deadly consequences, by policy makers who prioritized de- terrence over human lives." The report, 'Death By Rescue', said that the end of Mare Nostrum shifted the burden of extremely dangerous search and rescue op- erations onto large merchant ships, which are ill-fitted to conduct them. "This ultimately led assistance to become deadly… as demonstrated by spatial and statistical analysis, the deadly effects of this policy be- gan to manifest themselves already in the first months of 2015, when a peak in the mortality rate of mi- grants' crossings was reached due to the gap in SAR capabilities. Nei- ther these signals nor the calls that followed each case of death at sea were heeded." A key actor in the planning that led to this deadly policy shift, the report states, was Frontex, the Eu- ropean border agency. According to testimonies col- lected by Amnesty International in the Safi migrant detention cen- tre in Malta, on 15 January, 2015, a small rubber boat carrying some 122 people left the shores of Gara- bouli in Libya. After a few days, fuel ran out and they started to drift. The dinghy started taking in water and they had no buckets to empty it out. The passengers became ex- tremely cold, thirsty and hungry. A survivor described people "losing their minds" and jumping into the water. Others drank seawater. In its summary of the case, Amnesty describes the detection of the mi- grants' boat as follows: "Their boat had been drifting for around eight days before a fishing boat spotted them some 2.5 nm east of Maltese shores at 7:00am. Within 30 min- utes, two Armed Forces of Malta patrol boats, one of which operat- ing under Triton, reached the boat in distress." Neither the Maltese authorities nor Triton assets had been able to detect the boat despite it entering Malta's territorial waters and al- most reaching the country's shores. Up to 34 people died. 88 young men from Sub-Saharan Africa were saved, but one died in hospital shortly after the rescue. Frontex has a key role in provid- ing intelligence on developments at the EU's external borders, and supporting EU member states in planning and conducting joint op- erations. "While the information on the increased risk that the ending of Mare Nostrum would entail for mi- grants was available to the agency, Frontex officials did not underline these risks to its official partners, nor did they propose operational changes to respond to this in- creased risk. The internal and ex- ternal dynamics of Frontex in lead- ing to this policy should thus be granted particular attention," the Goldsmiths report said. In the period January-March 2016 arrivals have increased sig- nificantly compared to 2015, and 343 deaths have been reported al- ready this year by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). "The fact that on 12 April 2016, one year after the start of the Black Week, 2,154 people were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard during 17 different SAR operations, to which a commercial ship has also contributed, shows that the condi- tions leading to migrants' deaths at sea are still in place." In a reaction to the recent trag- edy, Home Affairs Minister Car- melo Abela told MaltaToday that the massacre at sea was "yet an- other horrific blemish on Europe's collective conscience." "It reinforces Malta's repeated calls for more concrete EU and in- ternational action in the Mediter- ranean. Europe must move beyond crisis control towards a compre- hensive approach. There needs to be a truly common European asy- lum system beginning with reform of the Dublin Regulation." Home Affairs ministers have met in Luxembourg to discuss, once again, the disproportionate re- sponsibility for asylum claims on member states at the EU's external borders brought upon by the Dub- lin system. "We require a system which pre- vents disproportionate pressure on any one member state in favour of a fair distribution of responsibili- ty," Abela said. Malta will prioritise the reform, as well as legal migra- tion channels, during its Council presidency in 2017. Sea of death In its annual report, Frontex, the EU's border agency, said search and rescue operations were crucial in saving the lives of an unprec- edented number of migrants. "Nevertheless, they also contrib- uted to the enrichment of smug- glers who could cut on travel costs and advertised to susceptible mi- grants that rescue operations make the journey safer, thus increasing the demand for crossings. IOM estimates that around 3,770 peo- ple died or went missing at sea in 2015." In 2015, there were 153,946 crossings on the Central Mediter- ranean route, representing a 10% decrease compared to 2014. The decrease is due to a fall in Syrians (about 40,000 in 2014, but fewer than 7,500 in 2015) after a shift to- wards the Eastern Mediterranean route. However, the number of East and West Africans steadily increased from below 80,000 in 2014 to more than 108,000 in 2015 (+42%). This increase indicates that this route also faces very strong pressures and migrants continue to arrive in Libya, where smugglers have estab- lished a strong foothold. Smugglers typically make use of frail, overcrowded boats, with a limited fuel supply to maxim- ise their profits, putting migrants' lives at considerable risk. Frontex said that on several occa- sions, smugglers threatened border guards and rescue teams to be able to recover the rubber or wooden boats. Frontex said that the IMO's esti- mates of deaths at sea confirm that the Central Mediterranean is the most dangerous migration route. It also said that even with more vessels now engaged in rescue op- erations "it is simply impossible to effectively rescue everyone, as there are often multiple simultane- ous rescue operations over a large sea area, requiring a high level of coordination." Frontex, EU states blamed for deaths caused by termination of Mare Nostrum Migrant resettlement over two years While Malta has committed itself to resettle 131 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece under plans hammered out by the European Commission and the Council of ministers, the asylum seekers only have to be relocated over a period of two years. So far only 21 have been relocated. A further 17 are expected to be relocated during the month of May. As agreed on a European level between member states, all the asylum seekers in question have to be relocated within these two years, by September 2017. Asylum seekers are relocated from Italy and Greece to member states on the basis of whether it is considered probable that they would be recognised in need of international protection. In fact, only those asylum seekers originating from countries such as Eritrea, Syria and Iraq and a number of others are being considered for relocation, as over 75% of such asylum seekers are recognised as in need of protection in the member states. The home affairs ministry said that asylum seekers relocated to Malta are selected by Italy or Greece but that Malta may refuse to relocate an asylum seeker on the basis of security and public order considerations. Asylum seekers are offered accommodation at an open centre following initial accommodation for seven working days or less. During this period medical screening is conducted, along with administrative processing. A key actor in the planning that led to this deadly policy shift, the report states, was Frontex, the European border agency