Europe’s moral duty

The tragedy of migrants in a single boat carrying hundreds drowning over the weekend in the Mediterranean Sea off Libya has pricked the collective conscience of Europe. The representatives of 28 countries of the European Union are meeting to formulate a strategic response to the issue as a three-month death toll may have been doubled by the weekend sinking. Italy, the front-runner in a humane response to the issue of despairing people trying to escape war or a disturbed civil situation in many countries in West Asia and Saharan Africa, has been crying out for collective action plus some way to share the burden of the euro 9 million it is said to spend annually on search-and-rescue missions, besides the thousands of migrants it already hosts.

Most countries see this great movement of people across frontiers as an illegal immigration problem rather than a humanitarian issue even as people are fleeing conflict zones in the full knowledge that they may die on the escape route. The human tragedy is people beginning to believe that death is preferable to life without hope. The kind of response being planned can be gauged from the fact that a naval blockade of Libya is being talked of to contain the business of a criminal network of human-traffickers of Africa. While the EU talks of a moral duty, European governments, led by the likes of Germany, are certain to be reluctant to relax immigration policies as parties espousing anti-immigrant postures are thriving in Europe. There is no easy solution unless the United Nations steps in and virtually creates spaces to take care of the hapless migrants.