HOW DOWE STOP THIS?
As an unprecedented wave of migrants makes the desperate journey across the Mediterranean, Europe is faced with a dilemma:
The bet was sealed last November, when the European Union let the clock run out on serious search and rescue in the Mediterranean.
Out went Mare Nostrum, the Italian-led operation credited with saving some 150,000 undocumented souls in a single year. And in came the EU’s Operation Triton — an undertaking, roughly onethird the cost of its predecessor, that would keep close to the coast, eliminating active search-and-rescue in the world’s busiest migrant waters.
The argument went that the expansive reach of the bigger operation provided a “pull factor” for migrants: unbuild it, and they will stop coming. Throughout the EU, migration experts insisted otherwise, warning the “push factor” — war, famine, economic desperation — would continue driving record numbers into the boats, no matter what.
The tragic EU wager went colossally wrong. And the price now is drownings at sea on a scale that challenges living memory — at least a 1,500 per cent increase over this time last year, going by Monday’s confirmed numbers.
Last week, 400 or more, many of them women and children sheltering below deck, perished in a capsize off Libya. On Sunday, as many as 900 more lost in a single shipwreck. And on Monday, as the contingent agonized over what to do now, came heartbreaking shoreline-view footage of a sinking off the coast of Greek island of Rhodes.
Europe’s bad bet now is expected to be reversed quickly by the EU, which will meet Thursday in crisis mode, when it is expected to redouble formal search-and-rescue operations. Its efforts will be joined by a raft of aid groups attempting to bring global resources to bear.
“The world needs to react with the conviction with which it eliminated piracy off the coast of Somalia a few years ago,” said William Lacy Swing, director-general of the International Organization for Migrants (IOM).
“All of us, especially the EU and the world’s powers can no longer sit on the sidelines watching while this tragedy unfolds in slow motion and well over 1,500 have drowned since the beginning of January.”
Blame is flying everywhere, with feverish political overtones. In Britain, the leader of the anti-immigration UKIP blamed Prime Minister David Cameron for stripping Libya of Moammar Gadhafi and leaving a lawless migrant-launching power vacuum in his wake. In America, the Republican National Committee levelled a similar charge at presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton Monday, citing her “signature achievement” in Libya.
“It is a very dark day for Europe,” said Cameron, who diverted all blame to those who engage in human trafficking.
In a stop-gap meeting Monday in Luxembourg, the European Commission tabled a 10-point plan that sketched various solutions — some immediate, others longer term — as a precursor to a comprehensive migration plan expected in May.
But as urgency mounts, other organizations are moving ahead with their own plans. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has partnered with the crowd-funded NGO Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) with a plan to launch a vessel from Malta in the coming days.
MSF is planning to launch additional vessels on its own. At least one Canadian doctor, Simon Bryant of Canmore, Alta., was en route to Malta Monday to assist in the effort.
Nobody expects the rescue efforts now ramping up to serve as anything more than a stop-gap. EU tensions that sparked the 2014 downsizing of Mare Nostrum remain. And within Monday’s interim action plan, the EC pledge to mount a “systematic effort to capture and destroy vessels used by the smugglers” provoked far more questions than it answered. What would that mean, exactly – the elimination of every vessel on the Med?
But as the crisis deepened, agencies involved in the broader effort reminded us Europe is far from alone in this. Canada, let us not forget, was more than a little involved in Libya and now, more than a little involved in the madness that is Syria.
“Let us be mindful of the history of how these conflicts came about — from that perspective alone it’s only fair to call for a sharing of responsibility,” Francis Markus, spokesperson at the International Committee of the Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, told the Star.