EU to restore rescue operations
Outrage over spike in migrant deaths prompts reversal
BRUSSELS — European Union leaders who decided last year to halt the rescue of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean are expected to reverse their decision today at a summit hastily convened after nearly 2,000 people died at sea.
Public outrage over the deaths peaked this week after up to 900 migrants died Sunday when their boat sank on its way to Europe from Libya.
That has raised the death toll to around 1,800 so far this year, compared with fewer than 100 who died before the end of April last year, when a similar number attempted the journey.
Italy shut down the mission that saved the lives of more than 100,000 migrants last year because other EU countries refused to pay for it. It was replaced with a smaller EU program whose main focus is to patrol the bloc’s borders, after countries argued that saving migrants encouraged more to come.
The peak migration season of late spring and summer has barely begun, with international organizations estimating tens of thousands of African and Asian migrants likely to attempt the journey per month, mostly from Libya. Last year the death toll eventually reached 3,200.
The leaders are likely to agree in Brussels to double the cash and equipment available to two EU border patrol missions in the Mediterranean, a senior EU diplomat said.
Their area of operations, while at the discretion of commanders on the ground, would also probably be extended closer to the North African coast, not just waters near EU shores. Once patrolling in the area, maritime law obliges vessels to rescue people in trouble.
“On Thursday our overriding priority is to prevent more people from dying at sea,” European Council President Donald Tusk said in his invitation letter to the leaders.
In Valetta, capital of Malta, a memorial service was held for the 24 bodies recovered from Sunday’s disaster, when a triple-deck fishing boat capsized and sank near Libya with hundreds of people trapped in its hold.
Only 28 people were rescued. The vast majority were locked below decks, their bodies never found. The captain has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of multiple homicide, people smuggling and causing a shipwreck.
A room in Valetta’s Mater Dei Hospital morgue was blanketed with flowers sent mostly by local residents.
The EU has struggled for years to forge an effective joint strategy to handle migrants fleeing war and turmoil in Africa and the Middle East.
Many European politicians have acknowledged this week that last year's decision not to replace the Italian search and rescue operation was a mistake.
“There was a view that the presence of rescue ships encouraged people to risk the crossing,” British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg wrote in the Guardian newspaper on Wednesday. “That judgment now looks to have been wrong.”
On Wednesday, Italy’s coast guard said it had rescued 220 migrants taken from two large rubber boats about 40 miles from the Libyan coast.
Another 545, most of them without even a pair of shoes, were taken to Salerno, just south of Naples. A further 446, mostly of Egyptian, Syrian, Sudanese, Somali and Eritrean origin, arrived in eastern Sicily after being rescued from a fishing boat.