More Migrant Misery

360 refugees (which included included 54 women, several pregnant, and 74 children) on the rust bucket ship, the Ezadeen, previously used to transport animals, were rescued by Icelandic coastguards,  part of their contribution to Operation Triton, mounted by the European Union’s border control agency, Frontex, at Italy’s request. Admiral Giovanni Pettorino, the operational commander of the Italian coastguard, said this was “the third case we have recorded in this last few weeks of a ship abandoned to its fate with hundreds of people aboard”. The traffickers used “merchant vessels at the end of their life bought for $100,000-$150,000 and then filled with hundreds of ‘migrants’, mostly Syrians, who pay up to $6,000 each for the crossing”. The Ezadeen would have brought in earnings of around $1.8m. So, as the admiral said, the smugglers “have no compunction in abandoning the ship, given the profit margin”.

Wars, repression, and instability across much of the world have all contributed to the displacement of around 16.7 million refugees worldwide. A further 33.3 million people are “internally displaced” within their countries.

“These numbers are unprecedented,” said Leonard Doyle, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration. “In terms of refugees and migrants, nothing has been seen like this since world war two…” 

European politicians believe they can discourage migrants from crossing the Mediterranean simply by reducing rescue operations. But refugees say that the scale of unrest, including in the countries in which they initially sought sanctuary, leaves them with no option but to take their chances at sea. Risking life to cross the Mediterranean in the distant hope of a better life in Europe is the lesser evil.

In Egypt, up to 300,000 refugees from the Syrian war were initially welcomed with open arms. But after Cairo’s sudden regime change in summer 2013, the atmosphere turned drastically, leading to rampant xenophobia against Syrians and increased arrests and detentions of those who, for understandable reasons, did not carry the correct residency paperwork.

The situation is even worse in Jordan and in Lebanon, which now houses more than 1 million Syrian refugees – more than a fifth of the country’s total population.

Their presence has created an unprecedented strain on national resources, leading to the Lebanese government tightening restrictions last week on Syrians entering the country. And while Turkey has simultaneously moved to strengthen refugees’ rights, Turkish shores are likely to remain a popular launch pad for migrants looking to reach Europe because of both the comparatively high cost of living, as well as rising xenophobia, particularly in the country’s south.

Libya, another major point on the migration route from the Middle East and north Africa, is also no longer a safe haven after a civil war erupted there last year. The plight of refugees there, as well as across the region, makes a mockery of those who suggest the wave of migration is caused simply by economic migrants.

“If they’re economic migrants,” asked Doyle, “then how do we explain that after every outbreak of violence and repression we get a new wave of people from the area that’s just had that outbreak? Why was it that, in the huge September disaster in the Mediterranean, the people who drowned were Palestinians, just a couple of weeks after the war between Gaza and Israel? And why is it that since last year there has been a steady flow of people from Eritrea, when we know there are serious problems in that country?”

But such arguments have yet to convince the British government, which refused last October to help Mediterranean rescue operations, and which by last June had admitted fewer than 150 Syrian refugees.