Europe's migration policies in chaos as arrivals surge

 
As a boat carrying 400 migrants drifted, out of fuel, along a perilous migration route in the central Mediterranean last week, Italian authorities led a major rescue operation following the reported refusal of Maltese authorities to retrieve those on board.

Passengers' desperate pleas for aid went unheeded for nearly a week before they finally reached Italian shores on Wednesday, along with 800 migrants stranded for more than 10 days on another vessel. Many of the migrants fell to the ground once they climbed ashore, severely dehydrated and covered in vomit from the rough seas, witnesses said. Few were wearing life jackets.

NGOs operating in the area, including German organization Sea-Watch International, said they had repeatedly alerted Maltese authorities to the boat, only to be ignored.

"Malta rather takes the enormous risk of 400 people dying than care for these people themselves," Sea-Watch said. The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) told local media that no rescue was requested by people on board the ship, according to the Malta Independent. They did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

But the episode was yet another tussle between EU countries that sheds a fresh spotlight on the bloc's inability to negotiate who should accommodate a spike in migrant arrivals, something that critics say is only leading to further suffering and tragedy.

By the time the occupants of the first two boats finally reached safety, two more, both containing around 450 people, had been spotted at sea. Again, Sea-Watch International alerted both Italian and Maltese authorities, it confirmed to CNN, but no rescue was launched immediately by either country.
The number of undocumented people arriving on European shores by sea has skyrocketed so far this year due to conflict, global inequality and the climate crisis.

More than 36,000 migrants arrived in the Mediterranean region of Europe from January to March this year, nearly twice the number compared with the same period in 2022, according to the latest figures from the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR). It is the highest number since the refugee crisis that peaked in 2015 and continued into the first months of 2016, when the arrival of more than one million migrants on Europe's shores led EU solidarity to collapse into bickering and border chaos.

So far this year, more than 98% have arrived by sea, against 2% by land, the highest share since 2016, according to the UN. And an estimated 522 migrants have died or gone missing en route, the UN data shows, capturing the lack of safe and legal routes available to refugees and asylum seekers.
"People flee because they have to get away from these very difficult situations at home," said Jenny Phillimore, a professor of migration and superdiversity at the University of Birmingham in central England.

"Why are they taking these risks and getting into the boats? Because there are no safe and legal routes - they have no choice."

A lack of cooperation

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty risk treacherous routes to Europe in search of safety and better economic prospects.

But the lack of safe and legal migration corridors available to refugees and asylum seekers can lead to deadly consequences.
In March, at least 28 migrants died after their boats sank off the coast of Tunisia as they tried to cross the Mediterranean to Italy. The month prior, at least 93 people were killed after a wooden boat carrying migrants from Turkey crashed on the rocks off the coast of Calabria in southern Italy.
Further north, four people died in December after a small boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized in the English Channel, in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

In many cases, migrant vessels are overcrowded and unfit for the journey, and the need to expend resources to rescue those on board can lead to European countries shifting responsibility because authorities "don't want people landing on their shores," added Phillimore.

"Italy has long been one of the countries that (has) seen a larger proportion of arrivals across the Mediterranean, in comparison to northern European countries. Whilst the EU Commission has tried to instigate sharing and quotas, it really hasn't worked out," she said.

>>CNN