“They protect the borders, not the people”

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The images are hard to bear. 79 bodies wash up on the beach of Steccato di Cutro, where tourists put up their umbrellas in the summer. Every third death is a child under the age of twelve. There are people on the run who waited for hours in vain for help on the night of February 26, 2023, just a few hundred meters from the coast of Calabria.

Although both Frontex and the Italian Coast Guard were aware of the acute distress at sea 24 hours before the tragic accident, none of the rescue vessels reached the fishing boat, which was hopelessly overcrowded with 180 people. Only when it falls apart and is cried for help all the way to the beach, the rescue at sea gets under way. Why didn’t the Coast Guard respond sooner? The culprit, according to the media, is a communication breakdown between Frontex and the Italian authorities.

More than 2400 missing refugees in the Mediterranean

Two weeks later, on Saturday, March 11, a plane belonging to the German NGO Sea Watch reported to Italy’s Sea Rescue Coordination Center that an overloaded dinghy was floating in heavy waves off the Libyan coast. The aid organization Alarmphone also forwards calls for help from castaways to Rome.

Again no rescue ship departs, although the Libyan authorities ask the Italians for support. On Sunday, a freighter finally approaches the overloaded boat. This capsizes. 17 people can still be pulled out of the water, 30 drown. The refugee boat was not in Italy’s search and rescue zones, thus the argument for the Italians’ inaction.

The figures show how dangerous it is to flee across the Mediterranean. More than 2,400 refugees disappeared while crossing to Italy last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This year there are already 350 dead and missing.

Most of Cutro’s victims were entitled to asylum

However, dying does not change the refugee policy of the right-wing populist government coalition led by Giorgia Meloni (46). NGOs find it difficult to save. Their ships are only allowed to call at Italian ports to a limited extent. Italy does not want refugees from the Mediterranean, according to the prime minister.

The deterrence policy has no impact on flight readiness, migration expert Christopher Hein tells Blick, “the only solution would be legal entry”. Most of Cutro’s victims came from Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. “90 percent of them were entitled to political asylum,” says Hein.

Penalties for smugglers have been drastically increased

“Italy is not alone in this policy,” says the former president of the Italian Refugee Council, “the same demand applies to the EU to keep boat people out as much as possible. They protect our external borders, not the people.” This is also the political model for the Italian Coast Guard. Italy ranks fourth in the EU in terms of the number of refugees, after Germany, France and Spain.

According to Giorgia Meloni, people should not even try to flee by sea. Rome therefore issued a decree last Thursday that drastically increased the penalties for people smugglers. In addition, Meloni promises, Italy wants to take in 500,000 legal migrants over the next three years who could work in Italy, for example in the fields. However, more help in rescuing castaways is not desired.

Source: Blick