Anti-racist demonstration after clashes between Casapound right-wing extremists who want a Red Cross-run refugee centre to be closed down and neighbourhood anti-fascists in Rome, Italy. September 16, 2017. Patrizia Cortellessa/ Press Association. All rights reserved.Since the EU-Turkey refugee deal, attention has shifted back to the North Africa-Italy route – and particularly the Libya-Italy Mediterranean route. This stretch of sea has for decades been among the deadliest for reaching Europe, and still is; the death rate among migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe has long ago reached the body count of a war. Refugees are still dying at a quicker rate in the Mediterranean.
Many still remember the tragedy that occurred on October 3, 2013 off the Lampedusa coasts, which cost the life of more than 350 men, women and children – mostly from Eritrea. Politicians paraded in front of the lined-up caskets in Lampedusa with the promise that they would take action to prevent such tragedies from happening again. The Italian government launched the Mare Nostrum humanitarian operation to ‘provide safety at sea’. But already in 2014, the rescue task was handed over to so-called Operation Triton, led by the Frontex EU agency.
This was simply not adequate; several NGOs and international organisations duly had to take action with their own vessels and manpower, to supply more than 40 pct. of the total search and rescue operations at sea. On the initiative of the Italian government with the support of the EU, most of the NGO search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean have now been severely downsized. In fact, almost put on hold. NGOs operating in the Mediterranean have furthermore been accused on several sides of acting as a ‘taxi service to Europe’, thereby facilitating smugglers’ activities and their illicit business on Libyan shores.
