Piquing Europe's conscience: demonstrators in Brussels earlier this week wore white masks to represent those who had drowned in the Mediterranean. Demotix / Frederik Sadones. All rights reserved.
The Mediterranean Sea has for centuries been the cradle of modern European civilisation. It has today become a huge graveyard, as thousands of migrants continue to drown under Europe’s distracted look. When in October 2013 a shipwreck off the Italian island of Lampedusa took the lives of 300 migrants, European leaders were unanimous in declaring ‘no more deaths’. Yet, 18 months and some 5,000 deaths later, we see these tragedies again and again.
Since last weekend more than 1,000 people have drowned off the coast of Libya and another 600 died during journeys to Europe earlier this year. In the first four months of 2015 we have already mourned half the number of people who died in 2014. As meteorological conditions improve, the season of death has just begun.
