Migrant ship wrecked. Mediterranean Sea, near Greece. 59 dead, later revised to 78. Also 104 people rescued. All male, predominantly from Syria, Egypt, Pakistan and Palestine. Unfortunately, these are messages that pass in review more often; because of the way in which European migration policy is set up, migrants simply resort to boats on the Mediterranean Sea, with all the associated risks.
But then it becomes clear that this disaster, which happened on Wednesday, is much bigger. The migrant ship had an as yet unknown number of people on board – estimates range from 400 to 750. Many of the many hundreds of people missing are said to have been women and, at least according to the BBC, about a hundred children.
The tragedy provoked obvious reactions of horror. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was deeply moved by the large number of deaths. Athens declared three days of national mourning. Still, there is less outrage than before, according to migration experts. In 2013, then Commission President Barroso flew to Lampedusa shortly after a disaster, and in 2015 Prime Minister Renzi of Italy convened the European heads of government.
Normalization
Europe is being numbed by the constant recurrence of fatal accidents, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration told news site Politics. In the first quarter of this year alone, this UN organization registered more than four hundred deaths at sea. “A certain normalization is occurring,” notes MEP Tineke Strik (GroenLinks) “We have experienced this so many times.” The response is now much less than previous disasters that sometimes shocked Europe, she says.
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The reactions are not only more moderate, but often point in the direction of the smugglers. Strik: ‘In the EU and the member states there is a strong tendency to point the finger at the smugglers alone and not to look at the responsibility of the authorities. It is the human rights organizations on Twitter who insist that this is a huge disaster, which is also the result of the lack of legal ways to immigrate.”
For example, Human Rights Watch spokesman Andrew Stroehlein compared the shipping disasters to many deaths in the Mediterranean with the mass shootings in the United States. “It happens over and over again. And every time politicians act like they care. And each time they stick to the policies that underlie the problem. And it’s happening again.”
The reaction in Brussels was indeed remarkably unanimous. “It is a reminder that we must put an end to the unscrupulous trade of smugglers,” Council President Charles Michel tweeted, promising the issue would also be discussed at the upcoming EU summit. Migration Commissioner Ylva Johansson said the greed and inhumanity of smugglers who overload boats to the point of capsizing is beyond comprehension.
A Greek Coast Guard rope would have caused the boat to tip over
According to Strik, the conversation should not only be about smugglers, but also, for example, about the fact that rescue operations in the Mediterranean are still not in order. The United Nations has often pointed this out, but the Commission is at best half-hearted about it, says Strik.
It is also striking, she says, that countries on the Mediterranean Sea are not addressed by other countries. She suspects that this has to do with the political discussion about migration. Non-border countries agreed last week in a political agreement with the countries on the EU’s external border that they will come to the rescue, but that they are not obliged to take in migrants. “So they know what they will hear when they address Greece or Italy.” It is similar to the discussion about pushbacks. Greece has been getting away with illegally pushing back migrants for years, even though the practice is often documented.
The disaster will not lead to a new political turn or an impulse in the European debate, thinks Strik. “I don’t expect much good to come of it.”
Tweet
In the Netherlands, the latest disaster does not seem to cause much commotion either. Neither Prime Minister Mark Rutte nor Minister Eric van der Burg (Migration, VVD) said anything about it. A spokesman for Van der Burg calls it “incredibly tragic” what happened. “But what are you doing with a tweet?” In the previous major shipping disaster, in February off the coast of Italy, Rutte did post a tweet, which was retweeted by Van der Burg. “In this case, it was not decided to draw extra attention to the disaster via a tweet,” said the spokesperson.
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When asked on Friday afternoon, Rutte said that the cabinet had considered the “terrible news” from Greece during the Council of Ministers. Van der Burg thought it was “extremely intense”, he said. “If one, two or ten people die, it is also terrible for those people. But when you see that it seems to be about hundreds, where you also visualize it, the young men on the deck, the women with children below in the hold who cannot get away: horrific.”
Rutte, Van der Burg and their fellow party member Ruben Brekelmans, migration spokesperson for the VVD in the House of Representatives, all discussed what they believe should be done: make deals with Europe’s neighboring countries to keep migrants there.
Meanwhile, criticism of the role of the Greek coastguard in the disaster is mounting. As early as Wednesday evening, the same day the disaster took place, Nawal Soufi posted on Facebook a record of telephone conversations she had with people on board. The activist manages an emergency number with which she is in regular contact with those on board migrant ships. Soufi says he had thirteen hours of continuous contact with one of the crew members before the ship sank.
In Soufi’s account a remarkable detail surfaced. According to her interlocutor on board, another ship approached the boat on Tuesday, tied ropes at the two ends and threw bottles of water on board. From the report: “Migrants felt they were in extreme danger, fearing that the ropes could capsize the boat and that fighting over the bottled water could cause a shipwreck.” The migrants, Soufi said, were confused and did not understand whether this was a rescue operation, “or a way to further endanger their lives.”
Coast Guard caused disaster
Survivors of the disaster have also said, in conversation with some Greek politicians, that the Greek coastguard is said to have caused the shipwreck. The coast guard would have asked the ship to follow her, but they couldn’t. “The Coast Guard then threw a rope, but because they didn’t know how to pull the rope, the ship began to heel to the right and to the left.” Eventually it would have capsized and sunk by this action.
The Greek authorities deny the reports. “No attempt was made to tow the boat,” a Coast Guard spokesman told the public radio and TV station. Ellinikí Radiofonía Tileórasi. But a government spokesman later confirmed that a rope was used after all as the Coast Guard approached the fishing boat. A few hours before the boat sank, this spokesman said, the Coast Guard used a rope “to balance themselves, to get closer, to see if they wanted help.”
Direct testimonials from survivors are scarce, as the Greeks lock them up without access to a telephone or internet. To the dissatisfaction of founder Tommy Olsen of the Norwegian NGO Aegean Boat Report, which monitors and shares data on people’s movements in Greek waters. “The public has a right to know what happened.”
With his organization, Olsen has often demonstrated that the Greek coastguard tows migrant boats to international waters: a pushback. This practice, illegal under international law, ensures that Greece does not have to take in the migrants. “It’s a very systematic approach,” says Olsen. Just last month, near the island of Samos: what started as a rescue became a pushback. In that case, the migrants were picked up by Turkey.
The boss of the EU coastguard agency Frontex, the Dutchman Hans Leijtens, traveled to the Greek coastal town of Kalamata on Friday, where the survivors were initially taken care of. He told the assembled press that his “Hellenic colleagues have done their utmost to save lives.”
With the participation of Wafa Al Ali and Eppo König
Also read this report: This is how the crew of a lifeboat works
A version of this article also appeared in the June 17, 2023 newspaper.