The Star’s view:
Europe’s moral test
The Mediterranean “drowning season” is off to a ghastly start. And it is putting the European Union’s humanity to the test. As Europe shrinks from a flood of migrants by sea from North Africa and the Middle East — 200,000 last year — its inward-looking policies are consigning more to watery graves.
The United Nations refugee agency fears that as many as 700 asylum seekers perished Saturday night in what may prove to be the worst tragedy yet, when an overloaded smuggler’s ship foundered off the coast of Libya. Last year 3,500 people died trying to cross the Mediterranean to safe haven, chiefly in Italy, Greece and Malta. This year the death toll may already have passed 1,500. Saturday’s was the second major loss of life in nine days.
As Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told the BBC, the boat people crisis is rapidly reaching “epic proportions” as migrants flee sub-Saharan Africa, Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and other troubled areas. If Europe doesn’t act to avert these tragedies “history will judge it very badly,” he warned.
The latest calamity has left Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi calling migrant trafficking “a plague on our continent.” European officials worry that hundreds of thousands more migrants are in Libya, trying to negotiate passage. As Renzi says, the ships “must be stopped from leaving.” But that is easier said than done.
Gunboats can’t be the answer. The EU as a group should follow the generous example of members Germany and Sweden, and pool the burden of taking in more refugees. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan are sheltering millions of Syrians. But most EU states have shown little interest in opening their doors. Many can do better.
Greater EU coordination is needed, as well, to target and disrupt the highly-organized smuggling chains that exploit Libya’s political chaos and uncontrolled frontiers.
And rescue must play a bigger role. Italy’s laudable $200-million Mare Nostrum naval and aerial patrol program rescued 130,000 people last year. But it has been replaced by a pared-down EUfunded effort called Triton that patrols only the European coast. While the Italian navy and coast guard still respond to crises off Libya’s shores, they are stretched thin.
Instead of wringing their hands, Europe’s leaders need to dig into their pockets, and resurrect the Mare Nostrum program or something like it, before more lives are lost. Above all, compassion needs to prevail.
Europe has a moral duty to rescue Libyan boat people