Alex Wynter
As many as 300 migrants are feared to have drowned earlier this week when the boat in which they were heading for Europe capsized off the Libyan coast, according to officials and news reports in several countries.
Libyan coastguards said they rescued more than 20 people from the vessel, but recovered only a similar number of bodies
Seven volunteers from the Tripoli branch of the Libyan Red Crescent Society (LRCS) were detailed to assist the authorities; others remained on standby late Tuesday.
Blankets, food and relief items from LRCS stocks were distributed to rescued migrants after they disembarked on the Tripoli quayside.
Libyan television showed a second boat carrying some 350 migrants arriving back in Tripoli after it broke down offshore and was taken in tow.
Reports say two other migrant boats left Libya over the weekend, probably heading for Italy, but they have not yet been located.
Trans-Mediterranean
Although the capsized vessel was caught in bad weather, the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere and calmer seas have historically seen an upsurge in the number of boat migrants in the Mediterranean region. Most try to reach Italy and Spain from North Africa, or the Spanish Canary Islands from north-west African countries like Senegal and Mauritania.
But some observers say there has been less of a winter lull this year amidst the global economic crisis.
Libya, which has long land borders with its neighbours, is regarded as a “transit country” for many thousands of African migrants seeking to reach Europe.
After this week’s disaster, LRCS Secretary General Solayman Elegmary reaffirmed his “concern at the increasing vulnerability of migrants, who in most cases are fleeing poverty and violence, and the dangers they face trying to reach Europe.”
Elegmary called for an “integrated global and trans-Mediterranean approach to migration issues, involving both Europe and Africa”.
Hypothermia
In the Canary islands most recently, a boat carrying more than 60 Africans landed safely at La Tejita beach, Tenerife, on Sunday. Two people were treated for hypothermia, but the others were said to be in good health.
Irregular migration has also confronted the Spanish Red Cross Society (SRCS) with one of its greatest peacetime humanitarian challenges, and it established a national standard for the work at the start of this decade.
The SRCS benefited from the experience of patrolling some 450 tourist beaches every summer and its volunteers in the Canary Islands know the archipelago’s coastal geography intimately. Working with the coastguard, they are often the first to meet boat migrants when they make landfall.
“It's clear the number of arrivals is on the increase in the period between May and October due to fine weather and calm seas,” according to Juan Antonio Corujo, who is responsible for the SRCS National Emergency Unit on the Canary Islands.
“Our response services are now on standby. We can activate a rapid response within a twenty-minute time frame and we can quickly address a number of potentially deadly situations encountered by migrants.”
The Spanish government said earlier this year the number of migrants reaching the Canary Islands dropped to 9,181 in 2008, from 12,478 in 2007 and 31,678 in 2006.
Boat migrants arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa, by contrast, which is closer to North Africa than Sicily, nearly tripled in 2008, according to the International Organization for Migration – up to some 31,000 last year from 12,000 the year before.
There is still not even an approximate figure for the number of migrants who have died in the attempt to reach Europe illegally by sea – no government or agency is collating data on deaths at sea and in the Sahara to produce a total for the entire region.
Experts who have studied the history of such migration, however, believe the death toll must be in the tens of thousands.
Vulnerable, misinformed
“This tragedy highlights the reason why work with migrants in transit countries is a priority for the International Federation,” said Thomas Linde, the IFRC secretary general’s special representative on migration.
“These migrants tend to be particularly vulnerable and often are misinformed about the risks inherent in the sea crossing.
“Whether to migrate or not is a personal decision, but sensitizing potential migrants about the risks can prevent human suffering.”
An authoritative report several years ago by the Migration Policy Institute said nearly 2,000 people were estimated to have died in 2004 alone attempting to cross from North Africa to Italy, mainly Lampedusa.
This, in all likelihood, was the route the Libyan boats that sank in the past 48 hours were attempting.
The UN high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, on Tuesday expressed “great sorrow at the tragic loss of life”, describing the incident off Libya as the latest example of a global phenomenon in which desperate people take desperate measures to escape conflict, persecution and poverty.
“In today's globalized world,” said Guterres, “money moves freely, goods tend to move more and more freely, but the obstacles to the movement of people are still in place and, to a certain extent, increasing.”