Legal News

Italian officials, lawyers and aid groups working with refugees rescued under the Italian government’s Operation Mare Nostrum search and rescue scheme are warning that many more people will die at sea now the operation has ended.

The Guardian reports that so far this year 150,000 migrants have been rescued off the coasts of Libya and Italy, with the Sicilian coastline bearing the brunt of the influx of desperate refugees trying to reach the safety of Europe from war zones like Iraq and Syria.

Operation Mare Nostrum has been the principal means of search and rescue off the coastline of Italy, involving the Italian coastguard and Italy’s Navy.

From Saturday (01/11/14), the EU’s Border Agency Frontex will have a limited responsibility for patrolling the Mediterranean to find migrants who have got into difficulty making the cross from Libya. The new Triton operation will, however, cost just one-third of Operation Mare Nostrum and the Italian coastguard and Navy will patrol the shoreline within a limited 30-mile radius. This means refugees who get into difficulty further out in the Mediterranean may well drown.

The UK has been criticised for withdrawing funding from the search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean, but the Home Office has suggested that funding such patrols only encourages people traffickers to send more migrants across the Mediterranean, on the pretext that if they get into difficulty they will be rescued.

People traffickers often charge huge amounts of money to refugees who want to make the crossing – but often supply vessels which have been badly maintained or are overcrowded.

Italy’s coastline has witnessed one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Operation Mare Nostrum when 500 people drowned off the coast of the island of Lampedusa in 2013.

Operation Mare Nostrum cost £22.7 million a month to stage and patrols went as far as waters off the coastline of Libya looking for stricken craft.

The Mayor of Pozzallo on Sicily, Luigi Ammatuna, said that now Mare Nostrum has ended, it is clear more refugees will die at sea.

The port of Pozzallo accepted around 23,000 refugees in the first nine months of 2014 – more than one-quarter of the town’s population. However, Mr Ammatuna said:

“I want to be the mayor who welcomes people fleeing war and devastation, not the mayor who receives corpses.”

Mr Ammatuna was responsible for arranging the burial of 66 refugees who died at sea and has met countless others fleeing war.

Commenting on the suggestion that extensive search and rescue operations encourage traffickers to send more migrants to their deaths in the Mediterranean, Mr Ammatuna added:

“For sure, this is giving more motivation for people to start the trip across the sea – but this is not a reason to deny them help: it is a humanitarian imperative.”

Between 2000 and 2014, a total of 22,400 migrants have died trying to reach Europe by crossing land and sea, according to The Guardian report.

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