The landing in Valencia, as a symbol of a migration and reception policy that respects international law and is more humane, was just a mirage
On June 17, 2018, hundreds of accredited media in the port of Valencia narrated live the disembarkation of the 630 people rescued a week earlier in the central Mediterranean, after leaving the hell of Libya. Italy and Malta had denied safe harbor to the Aquarius, the search and rescue ship operated by Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranean. Given the refusal of these governments to comply with international law, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez offered to disembark in Valencia and thus, after days of unnecessary crossing, the 630 people finally set foot on solid ground.
The landing of the Aquarius was the first great gesture of the new Spanish Executive in migration issues and, for a moment, it seemed that it could promote a paradigm shift in migration and reception issues in Europe, confronting the policy of closed ports in Italy and Malta and the criminalization of migrants and the organizations that work to assist them. The facts did not take long to prevail and put an end to the hope of a change of course. The Aquarius as a symbol of a migration and reception policy that respects international law and is more humane was just a mirage.
Unfortunately, the situation we are facing in the central Mediterranean today is not new. On the one hand, people who decide to leave their homes, in many cases forced by situations of violence and who, after facing all kinds of widely documented atrocities in Libya, board precarious, overcrowded boats to face the deadliest migratory route of the world. At least 24,000 people have officially drowned or disappeared since 2014. The real number will be much higher. On the other hand, the strength of Europe and the decision of its Member States to turn their backs on international legislation: not to help people in danger at sea and not to assign a safe harbor as soon as possible. A few weeks ago, we watched in horror at the Maltese authorities’ inaction as nearly 100 lives hung in the balance in waters under their search and rescue responsibility, ignoring their legal obligation to provide or coordinate assistance. Unfortunately, it is not an exception.
Europe has decided to close its eyes and let people drown in the sea
Instead of creating safe, voluntary and legal alternatives to crossing the central Mediterranean, Europe has simply decided to turn a blind eye and let people drown in the sea. First, by withdrawing the search and rescue mechanisms, and financing the detention and return system of the Libyan authorities, a key actor in the system of exploitation of migrants. In 2021 alone, at least 32,000 people were intercepted at sea and forcibly returned to Libya where they are tortured and extorted in clandestine detention centers. Last November, the UN fact-finding mission in Libya determined that these violations constituted crimes against humanity. Even without coordinated rescue operations, thousands of people continue to flee Libya, confirming that there is no pull effect, but rather a flight effect.
Second, not letting us disembark easily and quickly. The closed port policy forced the diversion of the Aquarius to Spain and left other ships stranded off the European coast for days. Today Italy does not announce with great fanfare that it will not let us disembark, but we continue to wait for days, begging for a port as if it were a favor and not an obligation of each coastal State that has signed the international conventions of the sea. In the last rotation of our ship, the Geo Barents, we had to wait seven days until the disembarkation of the 471 rescued people was completed. On the sixth day, several desperate people jumped into the sea to try to reach land on their own.
We have been saying for years that if Europe wants to, it has the capacity to give an adequate response to this situation and that, in accordance with its founding values, it cannot remain impassive in the face of so much human suffering, much less promote and sponsor it. The facts have proved us right. Faced with the terrible war in Ukraine, which has forced more than six million people to flee their homes in search of safety, the European Union has implemented a temporary protection directive to accommodate displaced people. Finally, the EU responds quickly and forcefully to a drama at its doorstep and we celebrate it. But this same directive is not being applied to people fleeing from the same situations of war and persecution, from contexts such as Yemen, Syria, Mali or Congo, and trying to cross the central Mediterranean. We cannot allow different standards of refugee rights.
It is incomprehensible that, after all these years of deadly migratory crossings in the central Mediterranean, private organizations like us should assume the greatest burden of saving lives at sea. The recent capacity that the EU has shown to activate mechanisms that allow it to support millions of Ukrainians show that there is also another way to lead what happens on its southern border. A change of direction in European migration policy is essential.
#Aquarius #years