EU toughens migration policies, while more die in sea crossings
19 bodies found on Tuesday near Tunisia’s coast
RABAT, Morocco — Children dead in the English Channel. Morgues full of migrants reaching capacity in Tunisia. Police in Cyprus patrolling off the island nation’s eastern coast to thwart boats loaded with Syrian refugees.
With pivotal June elections for the European Parliament getting closer, such scenes of despair and tragedy are complicating efforts to open a new chapter in Europe’s migration policy. As the European Union and countries across the 27member bloc adopt tougher measures on migrants, politicians largely focus their rhetoric on the need to police human trafficking and smuggling — rather than the human drama playing out at sea.
Human rights organizations have for years warned that tougher policies and police crackdowns are not deterring migration but driving desperate people to attempt lifethreatening journeys across treacherous waters. Thousands have paid with their lives.
On Tuesday, Tunisia’s Coast Guard recovered 19 bodies near a section of the country’s coastline known as a primary point of departure for boats taking off for Italy. Separately, five smugglers were arrested on human trafficking charges, authorities said. Tunisia has already intercepted about 21,000 migrants trying to cross the sea to Europe this year.
Human trafficking charges in Tunisia carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
In France, five people, including a 7-year-old child, died Tuesday while trying to cross the English Channel and reach the United Kingdom — just hours after the British government approved a law allowing the deportation of some migrants who entered the country illegally to Rwanda.
The disaster unfolded as French authorities spotted several boats packed with migrants off the coast of Pasde-Calais early on Tuesday morning. Some 25 minutes after taking off, an inflatable dinghy with 112 people ran into a sandbank, and French Navy ships were deployed to help.
They rescued 49 people from the doomed vessel and brought them ashore, along with the bodies of the five who perished. However, 58 refused to disembark.
The migrants still onboard managed to restart the engine and took off again, along with several other boats that sailed off the northern coast early Tuesday, followed by the French maritime gendarmerie patrol boat, according to a statement from the prefecture responsible for the north of France.
“The particularly large number of people crammed onto this boat highlights the dangerous methods of smugglers, who pack people on these vessels, overcrowding them, in complete disregard for lives, in order to make a profit,” it said.