The Arab Spring has not
radically changed patterns of migration in the Mediterranean, and the
"migration crisis" label does not capture a composite and stratified
reality. Ever since the emergence of popular uprisings in North Africa and the
Middle East, European media and politicians have worried about the prospect of
a "tidal wave" of North Africans on Europe. These sensationalist
predictions have no scientific basis though !
Migration, in its various
forms, has nevertheless played a determining role in the uprisings that have
spread across these regions. The lines of vehicles fleeing the besieged cities
and villages in Libya, the emigrant workers awaiting repatriation to the
detention centers in Egypt and Tunisia, the boats that are stranded on the
island of Lampedusa and in which are piled Tunisians and sub-Saharan Africans
seeking to cross the Mediterranean Sea, and the return to Cairo of many
emigrants and university students who want to join the demonstrations on Tahrir
Square, are just a few examples to show how this intersection between human
mobility took place and events in North Africa. Some recent migration phenomena
cannot be reduced to a simple side effect of revolutions. The potential links
between, on the one hand, the reduction of migration possibilities from North
Africa to Europe (due to the economic crisis and the intensification of border
controls), which is accompanied by disadvantaged young people and deprived of
rights of a feeling of exclusion and discontent, and on the other hand, street
protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Morocco deserve closer
examination.
The largest
flow of modern African migration funnels through a single country — Libya. Coming
from the south, migrants flee the vestiges of wars that have left entire
nations in ruin. From the east, they escape a life of indefinite military
servitude and violent conflict. From the west, they evade destitution and
governments that arbitrarily jail whomever they please. Some arrive by choice,
others by force. But Libya is the purgatory where most migrants prepare to face
the deadliest stretch of the Mediterranean Sea.
To understand the reality of Libya's escalating migration crisis, one
must weave together the threads of instability left behind by a toppled
dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, and the power vacuum filled by rivaling factions
vying to take his place. The chaos allowed smuggling networks to thrive,
suddenly opening up a lucrative market designed to profit off trading humans
like other goods and commodities. The country's 1,100-mile coastline has
effectively become an open border without government forces to monitor who
comes and who goes. Smugglers have filled the void, willing to tightly pack
hundreds of migrants at a time into flimsy vessels and shuttle them to Italy.
Migrant crossings through
the central Mediterranean jumped by more than four-fold after 2013. Unlike the millions of people forcibly
displaced by Syria's brutal five-year civil war, migrants that pass through
Libya do so amid a complex web of forces that have uprooted entire generations.
For years, broad regions of sub-Saharan Africa have been swallowed by squalor
and extreme poverty, crushed under the rule of oppressive governments or caught
in the crosshairs of deadly groups that thrive on terror. ~ but it is never a safe
passage !
The EU recently approved a plan to launch a military operation in the
Mediterranean aimed at crippling the
movement of the human-trafficking networks. “This attempt has the goal of
limiting the torrents of the illegal immigrants that influx to the EU countries
via the Mediterranean on rickety boats and ships, which in most cases have sent
them to the bottom of the sea.” An EU source stated. The source added that this
military operation will later involve steps that allow it to intercept the smugglers’
boats and ships; however, the EU is still awaiting to be granted the do-so from
Libyan authorities.
Nothing more
concrete than this .. .. Italy's interior minister has refused to let a rescue
boat with 224 migrants on board dock in Italy, saying those on board 'will only
see Italy on a postcard'. Matteo Salvini's latest move to clamp
down on arrivals from the Mediterranean comes a week after he turned away
another foreign ship, the Aquarius, which was carrying 630 migrants and had to
reroute to Spain. Salvini said the latest
ship, operated by German aid group Mission Lifeline, had loaded the migrants in
Libyan waters against the instructions of Italy's coast guard.
Mission Lifeline denied
Salvini's claims, saying it conducted the rescue in international waters and
asked for a safe port, which had not been assigned. The interior minister, who is urging Malta to
take in the Dutch-flagged ship as he pressures European partners to share the
burden, said today: 'We cannot take in one more person. On the contrary: We
want to send away a few.' Salvini added:
'For the safety of the crew and those rescued we humanly and politically ask
Malta to finally open one of its ports, and then seize the ship and its crew.' He categorically said: 'Italian ports are no longer at the
disposal of traffickers.
The Aquarius, operated by
SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, took the migrants to Spain,
travelling an additional 932 miles, after Italy and Malta refused to let them
land. Salvini has likened such rescue ships to taxi services that finish the
job for migrant smugglers. He also has
pointed out the failure of other European Union nations to take their share of
migrants headed for Europe, a point that Italy will press in forthcoming EU
meetings. Salvini has threatened that
Italy will withhold its payments to the EU if it does not get more help on the
migrant issue. Italy's transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, said the Lifeline
remained in Libyan waters and would be seized by Italian authorities if it
arrived in Italy. Matteo Salvini has questioned whether the deeply divided EU
will survive the events of the coming year. The new populist government in Rome
accuses fellow EU members of abandoning Italy as it tries to cope with migrants
making the perilous journey from Africa across the Mediterranean.
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, facing domestic pressure on immigration, is seeking deals to send back
to Italy and other frontline countries arriving asylum seekers already
registered there. Salvini, leader of the right-wing League party, has been
leading efforts to reduce arrivals from migrants rescued in the
Mediterranean. Some 640,000 migrants have landed in Italy
since 2014. The numbers are down dramatically this year, to some 14,500, more
than 80 per cent lower than in 2017. An
SWG poll this week showed two-thirds of Italians agree humanitarian boats
should not be allowed in the country's ports. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis
said today his country was ready to start turning away migrants if Berlin and
Vienna do so, as Germany's interior minister proposed earlier this week.
Matteo Salvini was named interior minister after his party
struck a deal to form a government with the populist Five Star Movement. Since Salvini took over the League, nearly
700,000 people have landed in Italy after crossing the Mediterranean, sparking
a sense of resentment among many Italians who feel Europe has abandoned them.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
22nd June 2o18.
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