SUMMER TIDES, 2017 - 2

Yesterday the UN and people around the world marked World Refugee Day. It followed a weekend during which 2,500 desperate souls were saved in the Mediterranean and fell the day after 1,096 of those rescued had been brought to Palermo and 495 to Pozzallo. These numbers are in no way unusual these days.

Among the migrants who disembarked at Palermo on Monday were the only four survivors of a dinghy which left Libya for Italy last Thursday with 126 - 130 people on board. Before long a group of people traffickers approached the dinghy and took the engine. Sudden movement among the migrants in the dinghy probably caused it to sink and the survivors were found clinging to the wreckage by Libyan fishermen, who deposited them on yet another migrant boat in the area. They were then rescued, for the second time, by the Italian Coast Guard.  The four survivors said that many women and children were among those who drowned.

Speaking on World Refugee Day, President Mattarella called for cooperation in finding long-term, rather than emergency, solutions to what he called a human tragedy to which Italy cannot be indifferent because migrant arrivals in the country are a daily, not an occasional, occurence.  He said that this would involve a commitment to preventing conflict in the regions most at risk, combatting climate change (which leads to "environmental migration") and making choices regarding the causes of conflict.  He emphasised that such action must involve the whole international community as the effects of migration are being experienced not only in the countries most involved but worldwide and because migration flows need to be managed on a global level.

UNHCR estimates that 2,000 lives have been lost on the Mediterranean migrant route since the beginning of this year. Of the 77,000 who have attempted this dangerous journey in 2017, 60,000 have reached Italy.

"This is not about sharing a burden. It is about sharing a global responsibility, based not only the broad idea of our common humanity but also on the very specific obligations of international law. The root problems are war and hatred, not people who flee; refugees are among the first victims of terrorism." 

- UN Secretary-General, António Guterres

SUMMER TIDES - 2017

Today, it is being reported that 2,500 people have been rescued in operations coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard in the Mediterranean and the weekend still has five hours to go.  UNHCR has expressed its deepest concern at the latest deaths on this migrant route, as should we all.  The organisation also reiterates, as has the Italian government many times, that "solutions cannot just be be in Italy."  IOM reports that from the beginning of this year to 7th June, there were 61,234 migrant arrivals in Italy.

Now, no one can be more aware than a Brit this week that the world's leaders have other things on their minds but their willingness to ignore the migration situation in the Mediterranean and let the Italians and NGOs get on with the rescue and recovery operations is nothing short of disgraceful. Where, I ask again, is our common humanity?

As if this were not bad enough, now a row has broken out in which the Libyan Coast Guard has accused NGOs who help in the rescues of being in contact with people traffickers on migrant boats and waiting for the boats in Libyan waters. Yesterday they ordered them out. This is not the first time that such an accusation has been made as the matter has been brought into question within Italy and an inquiry is in process. MSF says it carried out the rescues this weekend in the normal way with guidance from the Italians and MOAS says it has never received calls from people traffickers. Not being a journalist and therefore not having all the necessary sources at my fingertips, I will make only two comments on a matter which is sub judice in Italy: Today I have read, for the first time, articles referring to the migration "industry" and the change of terminology may be indicative. However, someone has to save the migrants' lives and that is what the NGOs, under Italian Coast Guard coordination, have been doing this weekend.

Four of these ships yesterday saved 1,129 people and recovered three bodies. Eight people were confirmed to have died in a deflated dinghy off the Libyan port of Garabulli but at least 52 have disappeared.

A total of 716 migrants are being brought to Palermo along with one body. Of the survivors, 53 are children and 31 of these are reported to be four to five years old. 

This is only the beginning of the summer season so the attempts to sail in more clement weather are not going to end any time soon. MSF has again called for safe corridors for migrants.  The UNHCR article says that 1,770 people are believed to have died trying to reach Italy on the Mediterranean route this year and many of these will have died long before they saw the sea, in the Sahara desert. Others will presumably have died in what amount to slave camps in Libya and today, as a Save the Chidren ship brought 219 migrants, of whom 25 were unaccompanied minors, to Trapani, delegates from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (already in the area) were at the quayside.

A WEEK OF CONTRASTS

Italian G7 Presidency 2017

Tortelli with basil and pecorino in a Sicilian red prawn sauce; sea bream with cherry tomatoes and a basket of steamed vegetables; cannolo, cassata and "seven veils" ice cream; ice cream and brioche for breakfast - these were just some of the sumptuous Sicilian dishes enjoyed by the G7 leaders, their first ladies and the first husband at Taormina last week. At the same time, a MSF ship carrying 1,446 migrants who had been saved from 12 inadequate boats in the Mediterranean was not permitted to dock in any Sicilian port because of security measures in place from 22nd - 28th May for the summit. This meant that the ship was at sea for 48 instead of 30 hours and ran out of food and water. As the situation became truly desperate and a hygiene emergency developed on board as a consequence, the ship was allowed to pick up supplies at Palermo but no one was able to disembark. The ship finally docked at Naples on 28th May.

Paragraphs 24 and 25 of the G7 comuniqué make interesting reading, as while all this was going on in the very sea that served as a backdrop for the leaders' jolly photos, they promised to uphold "the human rights of all migrants and refugees." It is worth remembering that this meeting took place two days after 34 people had died in the Mediterranean, including seven children.  

The leaders have returned to their homes now, but there is no end to the scenes of devastation for those who have no home:  Yesterday 252 migrants were brought to Pozzallo. Of these, 135 had been on an overcrowded migrant dinghy which had sailed from Libya.  The middle section of the boat began to break up and 25 migrants fell into the sea. Two were rescued but sadly died later. One people trafficker has been arrested by Italian police in connection with the tragedy and a second alleged trafficker from another boat is in hospital. All the survivors are said to be in reasonable conditions of health and are being transferred to reception centres in other parts of Italy.

Some good, it is to be hoped, came out of the G7 and of course Italy had to put on its best show. The leaders were filmed strolling through the streets of a Taormina that had been cleared of all except residents and security personnel and they even visited a few shops. None of them, to my knowledge, visited a migrant centre.

La Repubblica reports today that 1,720 migrants have drowned in the Central Mediterranean this year and that 60,000 have attempted the crossing. Last week alone the Italian Coast Guard and other operatives saved 9,500 migrants in the Mediterranean.

AN AWARD FOR A HUMANITARIAN

In the midst of so much tragedy and sorrow in the Mediterranean and when it so often seems that recognition that it is happening at all only comes from the wider world when politicians want to use the migration crisis for their own ends, an acknowledgement of Italy's humanitarian work with migrants and, in particular, the part played by one tiny island, is a welcome development. 

This week, Giusi Nicolini, Mayor of Lampedusa, was awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize or Félix Houphouët-Boigny Prize for the humanity and commitment with which she has managed the migration crisis as thousands of refugees - and, often, sadly, their bodies - have arrived on Lampedusa over the years.

In her acceptance speech, Giusi Nicolini said.

"At a time when there are those who want to close their borders and build walls to stop a non-existent invasion, the award of this prize gives us hope for a Europe of solidarity, which has not lost its humanity. It is upon these principles that Europe is built. If we ignore them we, too, risk drowning along with the refugees and migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean."

Giusi Nicolini dedicated the prize to "the migrants who didn't make it across the Mediterranean because they lie beneath it", to Gabriele Del Grande, an Italian journalist and human rights activist who has been imprisoned in Turkey since April 9th for interviewing refugees near the Syrian border and, of course, to the people of Lampedusa.

SOS Méditerranée was also awarded the UNESCO Peace Prize for saving lives in the Mediterranean.

Update, 25.4.17:  Gabriele Del Grande has been freed and is back in Italy.

You can find links to all my posts on migration in the Mediterranean since 2006 here.

AN IRONY AND AN INITIATIVE - A MIGRATION POST

If I have been absent from this blog again, it is because, just like most of you, I imagine, the news of the past week has found me glued to my television screen and not in any positive way. Millions of words have been written about the shocking events themselves but I have seen little acknowledgement of the irony of wringing our hands over the treatment of children in a war-torn country and the refusal of many of our own countries to take in those very children - which brings me, again, to the theme of migration in the Mediterranean and its subsequent tragedies, which can only increase given the current situation.

On Friday 7th April the SOS Méditeranée ship Aquarius brought 432 migrants, including 77 minors, six of whom were aged between one and four and 59 of whom were unaccompanied, to Catania. The migrants had been saved by Aquarius and other ships from four migrant boats which had got into trouble off the coast of Libya.  Later the Italian Coast Guard ship Dattilo brought 1,131 migrants, saved in eight operations, to Catania along with one body. 

The above figures represent only a proportion of the migrants rescued in the Mediterranean every day and it is not unusual for as many as 3,000 to be saved in just 24 hours.  To the Italian Coast Guard, Navy and NGOs such as SOS Méditerranée falls, too, the tragic task of recovering and bringing into port the bodies of those whose journey of hope brought them, not to their hoped-for destination, but to death and I have chronicled the sad numbers over the years.

There is, however, some good news for migrants in a world that doesn't seem to care about them and this news comes from Italy where, on 29th March, Parliament passed a law to protect unaccompanied child migrants: from now on their treatment should be consistent all over Italy, they cannot be deported, will be appointed individual, trained guardians and will have the same rights to healthcare, education and other services as Italian children. UNICEF has called it "a historic law" and you can read more about it here.  Well done, Italy, for shining a light amid so much darkness.

According to figures released by the Italian Ministry of the Interior, 25,845 unaccompanied child migrants reached Italy in 2016 and 4,000 have arrived here since the beginning of 2017. This article reports that in 2016 one person in every 113 in the world was a refugee, internally displaced or seeking asylum - not a figure we can be proud of in the 21st century.

I ask again and I direct my question to the men and women in power:  how can the world express horror at what is happening to civilians in a war zone and, at the same time, attempt to push them back when they flee for their lives?

AUTUMN TIDES, 2016 - 4

Over the past few days, whilst the tide of rhetoric across the Atlantic grew ever stronger and I, like most of you, was glued to my TV screen, autumn tides brought to Pozzallo two children who, having seen their mother die on a migrant boat, had watched over her body until the dinghy on which they were travelling from Libya split in two.

The 300 migrants on board were rescued by the Italian Navy and then transferred to a Save the Children ship.  The woman, who was probably from Mali, had been crushed to death while trying to protect her children from the same fate by shielding them with her body in the overcrowded prow of the boat. When the other migrants near the woman discovered that she was dead, a people trafficker tried to make them throw her body overboard but they refused. They told the two children, a girl aged nine and a boy aged six, that their mother was sleeping but they understood that she was dead.

These sad children are now in the care of nuns in Ragusa and what looks like a mobile phone number written on the girl's trousers may be the only hope of finding other family members. It is thought that they have an uncle somewhere in Europe.

The alleged people trafficker has been identified and arrested.

This is but one tragedy among so many, of course, but it is none the less shocking for that.

With regard to the historic events of the past 24 hours I have only the following to say:

On this day a great nation founded on migration chose a leader who wants to build a wall. Yet we are all migrants. Let us hope that humanity will prevail, both there and in the rest of the world.

All human progress has been made because someone, somewhere, had a dream.  Who are we to tell those who dream of a better life that they are wrong to do so?

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2016

As thousands continue to die in the Mediterranean trying to flee war, working for peace is more important than ever.

Thank you, Mimi Lenox, for inspiring #blog4peace and for all that you do.

AUTUMN TIDES 2016 - 3

It is with great sorrow that I write, tonight, about yet another large-scale migrant tragedy in the Mediterranean. Although it is being reported internationally, events elsewhere are grabbing the headlines  and the deaths of at least 239 people on their tragic journey to what they hoped would be a life, if not a better one - for few of them would have been naive - have  received scant attention in the English language news bulletins I have watched today [Thursday].

As often happens in these cases, definite numbers are not, and may never be, available and details of what happened are being pieced together from what the survivors are able to tell their rescuers. What seems to have happened is as follows:

Two inadequate dinghies, one carrying 138 migrants and the other 140, left Libya in the early hours of Wednesday. The migrants knew that the boats were flimsy and would be overcrowded but were forced by people traffickers, who killed a man in front of them as a "lesson" in obedience - to embark. It wasn't long before the boats capsized in a rough sea about 25 miles off the Libyan coast. In a rescue operation involving five ships and coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard, 29 people were saved and taken to Lampedusa. Two were subsequently transferred to hospital in Palermo. So far 12 bodies, three of which are those of babies, have been recovered. Survivors think that the number of people missing could be 249.

If, as UNHCR estimates, the number is 239, that brings the death toll of migrants seeking safety in Europe this year to 4,220 - a staggering figure in a "civilised" world. Both the Mayor of Lampedusa, Giusy Nicolini, and UNHCR have today again called for safe corridors for migrants.

In other sad news today we learned that Fatim Jawara, the Gambian goalkeeper who played in the Women's Under 17 World Cup in Azerbaijan in 2012,  has died on a migrant crossing.  Her dream was to reach Europe and play for a major club here.  Instead, her body is thought to be among those of 97 migrants who died on the night of 27th October.  She was 19 years old.

Flavio di Giacomo of the IOM said today that people traffickers are telling migrants that Europe is training the Libyan Coast Guard to carry out rescue missions so that those saved can be taken back to Libya rather than European ports such as Lampedusa. This may explain the present rush to board the boats, whatever the risk.

On Thursday a further 766 migrants were rescued in the Mediterranean in seven operations led by the Rome Coast Guard.

AUTUMN TIDES 2016 - 2

With the eyes of the world very much on events in Calais this week, the plight of migrants attempting the Mediterranean crossing to reach Europe has once again been largely forgotten by the international media. Yet it goes on, changing weather conditions render it even more dangerous and someone, somewhere, it seems, always profits from tragedy.

On Wednesday - Thursday night 51 people died in the Sicilian Channel because, according to survivors, a rough sea had caused the inadequate dinghies they were travelling on to capsize. Of the 339 survivors brought to Augusta, 25 were women and 31 were unaccompanied minors. Some were taken to hospital with burns caused by leaking fuel and two suspected people traffickers have been arrested.

On Tuesday a Médecins sans Frontières boat saved 107 people from a dinghy off the Libyan coast but their operatives found the bodies of 29 people lying in a mixture of fuel and seawater on board. These poor souls had died from their burns, from suffocation or from drowning.

Calais is not the only place where there have been ugly scenes this week as residents of Goro [Ferrara] protested against the planned arrival at a hostel there of 12 migrants by setting up road blocks. [I should point out that many migrant hostels are overcrowded and short of resources in Italy.] As one of the women was pregnant, a decision was made to take the group elsewhere but Interior Minister Angelino Alfano was quick to point out that this incident is not representative of Italy. The country, he said, is characterised by the young people who go to the quayside at Lampedusa to help with new migrant arrivals or Dr Bartolo of Lampedusa [who works tirelessly for both the inhabitants of Lampedusa and the migrants who arrive there].

Prime Minister Renzi, meanwhile, has said that, though it is clear that Europe cannot open its doors to all, EU states that build walls to keep out migrants should expect no funding from Italy.  He said EU states should work together to solve the migration crisis rather than playing on hatred and intolerance.

Pope Francis, as usual, put it simply and succinctly but managed to show that he understands the reasons for hardening attitudes.  In St Peter's Square on Wednesday he said,

"Today, the context of economic crises unfortunately fosters the emergence of attitudes that are closed and unwelcoming. In some parts of the world, walls and barricades are being erected. Closure [of borders] is not a solution as it ends up encouraging trafficking. The only path towards a solution is that of solidarity.”

AUTUMN TIDES 2016

On Monday, the Day of Memory for Migrants, I wrote that over 6,000 had been saved in Italian-led operations in the Mediterranean on that day.  In the two days since, a further 11,000 desperate people have been saved in 72 operations coordinated by the Rome Coast Guard.  Sadly, 28 bodies were also recovered, 22 of them from an inadequate boat crammed with 1,000 migrants.

Some of the migrants were transferred to the Coast Guard ship Dattilo, on which three babies were safely born. All are said to be healthy.  

Today 1,020 of the rescued migrants were brought to Palermo but almost all will shortly be taken to centres in other regions. How awful it must be to make that perilous sea crossing in terrible conditions, then not even know if you will be allowed to stay in Europe as your fate is held totally in the hands of others. I am ashamed to say that migrants can now expect even less help from my own country, which has lurched dangerously to the right, and the mood has obviously hardened in several other European countries obsessed with building walls.

President of the Italian Senate Pietro Grasso said this week,

"Per ogni singola vita perduta, muore la nostra umanità - For every single life that is lost, our humanity dies."

"EVERY MAN WHO IS A MAN"

On the third anniversary of this tragedy in the Mediterranean, at least 6,000 migrants have been saved by the Italian Coast Guard, Navy and ships belonging to international non-governmental organisations. The Coast Guard reports that there were 18 rescue operations involving 39 migrant boats. Sadly, nine bodies have also been recovered in the Sicilian Channel. On one dinghy a man was found dead and several migrants had burns and other wounds caused by leaking fuel. Two children and a woman with serious burns were rushed to hospital.

The surge of boats again heading for Italy from Libya is due to calmer weather conditions after a week or so of rough seas and no one expects them to stop coming. Laura Boldrini, the Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, again asked the rest of the EU to take their share of responsibility for migrants, reminding these countries that they do not hesitate to take their share of incoming EU resources.  It is with little optimism that I express my hope that her words will be heeded this time.

To mark this Day of Memory for Migrants, Rai 3 tonight showed the film Fuocoammare, directed by Gianfranco Rosi. I wrote about this film some months ago but had not seen it before tonight. The director spent 18 months on Lampedusa, filming a migrant boat trying to reach Italy, the rescue and recovery operation,  the processing of the migrants once they reach the island and the daily life of the islanders, including that of ER medic Dr Pietro Bartoli. Prior to tonight's screening, Gianfranco Rosi told Panorama magazine that on Lampedusa he found a much more complex and multi-layered story than he had expected . He said,

"It is not a political film but we cannot let the Mediterranean be the tomb of people fleeing war, hunger and desperation...  It is useless to erect barriers as walls have been toppled throughout history...  People fleeing desperation and death have no choice."

Fuocoammare is to be Italy's entry for Best Picture in the 2017 Oscars but its nomination has given rise to controversy. Paolo Sorrentino, director of La Grande Bellezza, has raised an objection not because he doubts the film's merits but because he believes it should be entered in the documentary section. Others do not think the film is sufficiently commercial. I have an opionion but will leave those of you who intend to see it  - and I hope many of you do - to make up your own minds.  I will say that I couldn't speak for at least half an hour after watching it and twitter revealed that many Italians felt the same. It is my belief that the film should be compulsory viewing for all would-be builders of border walls.

I  would also like to say that I am very proud of Italy tonight and will close with a quote from Dr Bartolo:

"È dovere di ogni uomo che sia un uomo aiutare queste persone - It is the duty of every man who is a man to help these people."

SUMMER TIDES, 2016 - 5

Yesterday, while my own country continued to argue about free movement of people and where the Anglo-French border should be now that we are leaving the EU, I watched, unbelievingly, the television images I imagine all of you have seen too:  off the coast of Libya an Italian rescue boat approaches an inadequate fishing boat crammed full of migrants; there are so many people on board that some have to sit with their legs dangling over the side.  The rescue boat takes babies and children off first and as it backs away migrants start jumping into the sea, such is their desperation to be saved. Again I ask the question: would anyone do that if their lives in their countries of origin or in countries subsequently reached had not been in danger?

This was only one of 40 operations coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard yesterday, in which 6,500 migrants were saved, it was reported last night.  The Coast Guard were joined in the operations by the Italian Navy, non-governmental organisations, Frontex and EUNAVFOR MED [Operazione Sofia]. Today the Italian Ministry of Defence has updated the figures to 7,000 migrants saved and 47 operations in which the Italian Navy took part. The Navy alone rescued 2,500 people. Between Friday and Monday morning 10,000 migrants were saved in this stretch of sea.  

La Repubblica reports that a further 300 migrants, including 38 women and 68 children, were rescued by a British ship and brought to Porto Empodocle last night. Of these, 133 have scabies. A further 1,273 migrants, saved in the Sicilian Channel, are expected in Palermo today.  

One migrant with gunshot wounds has been transferred from Lampedusa to hospital in Palermo and newborn twins, suffering from dehydration and respiratory problems, have also been airlifted to the Sicilian capital. Their mother is now in hospital too.  

So many people and so much suffering but to some, they are just statistics. "No one wants them", commented a press reviewer on Sky News last night. "Do you know how it feels to be unwanted?" I ask a person who cannot hear me. "Do you know how it feels to leave your country, to have all choices taken away from you?" "Can you watch those pictures and not be moved?"  The answer to the last question would, I fear, be "Yes" and if that is the case, what has become of our common humanity? How will history judge "civilised" Europe on the way it behaved during the great migration crisis of the early 21st century?

Update at 22.17 pm CET:  ONUItalia [Italy at the UN] has just tweeted that 3,000 migrants have been saved in the Sicilian Channel today.

SUMMER TIDES, 2016 - 4

If, like me, you follow the Italian Marina Militare , various migration organisations and most of the Italian newspapers on twitter, you sometimes won't believe the figures that you see before your eyes, for they are very grim indeed:

To give you an idea of what is happening, let us take the period from last Friday to Sunday, when 5,500 migrants were saved in the Mediterranean. Rescuers also watched, horrified, on Sunday as five males threw themselves. or were pushed, into the sea, and died from drowning despite the rescuers' best efforts to revive them.   

On Monday 1,800 people were saved in 16 rescue operations coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard, helped by the Italian Navy, German Navy, a MSF ship and a Rettet ship. Yesterday 385 migrants were brought to Catania, along with four bodies.  Among migrants brought to Pozzallo was a Libyan man who had been shot in the thigh. No further details of his story or condition are available.

On the A18 motorway a 12-year-old Eritrean migrant was found walking after absconding from a youth facility in Acireale. When he was stopped by police he said that he was only trying to reach the other boys who had disembarked with him at Pozzallo. Can you imagine his desperation and loneliness? At the end of 2015 there were estimated to have been 6,135 unaccompanied minors like him, all of them untraceable now. 

Meanwhile 12 people have been arrested in Sicily today on suspicion of people trafficking and the Mayor of Pozzallo is so disgusted by the lack of promised help for his city from central government that he says he will no longer allow Prime Minister Renzi or Interior Minister Angelino Alfano to enter the town hall there.

Figures released yesterday by the IOM show that there have been 4,027 migrant deaths in 2016, of which 3,120 were in the Mediterranean.  [These are, of course, only the ones that we know about.] From 29th July to 1st August 17,923 migrants were rescued at sea. From 1st January to 1st August this year migrant arrivals in Italy totalled 96,000.

Each one is human, each one has a story and each one has a dream. What ocean can absorb so many tears and what hearts can hold so much sadness?

AND STILL THEY DIE

"The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."

- Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, 1914

It seems much like that now, given the events of the past ten days, and one could be forgiven for thinking that the lamps are going out all over the world, as the extreme right closes ranks and even reasonable people blame the easiest, most identifiable scapegoat, the migrant or immigrant, for their woes.

Meanwhile on the "forgotten" migrant route in the Mediterranean people continue to die. I have not seen one report on this in the past week in the British media so here are the facts:

On 20th July Médecins Sans Frontières doctors on board the SOS Mediterranee ship Aquarius went to the aid of a migrant boat in trouble off the coast of Libya. What they found was horrific: bodies were lying at the bottom of the boat in a pool of fuel and it was obvious that these people had died an awful death, crushed or suffiocated, as they had been, in the crowded and inadequate dinghy. Survivors, who had been on board with the bodies for many hours, were stretching their hands out in desperation towards the rescuers and are unsurprisingly said to be still traumatised.  Of the 22 bodies found, 20 were those of women and this tragic event is being called the strage di donne [massacre of women] in the Italian press.  In all, 209 people were saved.

On the same day, over 1,000 more migrants were saved in the Mediterranean in eight operations coordinated by the Italian Coast Guard and 1,146 migrants who had been rescued previously were brought to Palermo. Of these, 23 were pregnant women and 63 were unaccompanied minors. The next day a Spanish naval vessel brought 841 migrants and one body to Catania and a MSF ship brought 628 rescued migrants to Pozzallo. Among these were a 73-year-old man and a baby aged seven months. Does anyone really believe that a man of this age, the mother of this baby and others like them would undertake such a hazardous journey if they were not fleeing for their lives?

Rescues and arrivals continued over the weekend, when 375 migrants, including six children and a newborn baby, were brought to Messina.  Two suspected people-traffickers were arrested in Vibo Valentia [Calabria] and are thought to have been involved in bringing a migrant boat containing 16 bodies in the engine room into Italian waters. The bodies of 41 migrants were discovered on a Libyan beach, also over the weekend. These poor souls had drowned five or six days ago trying to reach Italy

UNHCR has tweeted  that 3,000 lives have been lost in the Mediterranean since January.

Now it seems to me that we either accept migration as a fact of our era, stop drawing pretty useless and difficult to prove distinctions between "economic" migrants and those seeking asylum and see that safe corridors are created for them or we accept an ever darkening world.

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. "

- Martin Luther King Jr.

Let's keep those lamps lit, ladies and gentlemen.

SUMMER TIDES, 2016 - 2

I have just commented on twitter that the "migration season" so often referred to by the media has never actually stopped for Italy, but even I did not think that I would be writing about another migration tragedy 24 hours after this one.

Today's sad event happened 35 miles off the Libyan coast when an inadequate fishing boat carrying migrants capsized.  La Repubblica is reporting that 96 have been saved but 20 - 30 could be dead.  A five-year-old boy whose parents died in the tragedy has been airlifted to hospital in Palermo and he is in a poorly condition.

The number of survivors from the migrant boat that capsized yesterday is 562 and these have been brought to Porto Empedocle. Among them are a couple who lost their six-year-old son at sea.

Meanwhile, the nine-month-old girl whose mother died on a migrant boat from which the baby was saved on Tuesday has been taken from Lampedusa to a specialist facility in Agrigento. There, says, Dr Pietro Bartolo, Lampedusa's ER doctor, she will find no lack of potential mothers but, should she need a father, he is ready to adopt her himself.  He and others who have looked after the baby on Lampedusa have given her the name "Favour".

The Italian Coast Guard have coordinated 22 operations in which 4,100 migrants have been saved in the past 24 hours. The Italian Navy, Frontex and Eunavformed vessels, plus tow boats and commercial vessels have also been involved in the rescues.

I am not going to comment further tonight - the figures speak for themselves.

SUMMER TIDES, 2016

Will there ever again, I wonder, be a good time to be a migrant? Once we [for I regard myself as one, albeit from choice] were needed, wanted and even welcomed, but no more.  These lines come to mind:

"Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,"

- Emma Lazarus

How different from today's world, with police on the Greek - Macedonian border, clearances at Calais and Idomeni and now 80 Austrian police on the Brenner Pass, much to the understandable concern of Italy, which relies on the Brenner to keep its trade moving. Migrants are unlikely to receive any help from the referendum-obsessed UK in the near future, either.  Perhaps the only ray of hope comes from Mrs Merkel, who at least seems to be trying to create a positive environment .

Although a tragedy in the Mediterranean has featured in international headlines today [Wednesday] - Sky News UK are covering the story as I write - I have a feeling that it will soon disappear and few people outside Italy will realise that the Italian Navy and Coast Guard also saved 3,000 people from 23 boats in the Mediterranean yesterday and that this is by no means an unusual occurence.

The pictures of today's migrant tragedy have now gone around the world and we should all bear in mind that it could have been much worse had it not been for the swift action of the Italian Navy:  Two of its ships hurried to the scene 18 miles off the Libyan coast after a satellite SOS had been received and  the boat, carrying an estimated 600 migrants,  capsized as they approached.  This was because of the sheer number of people on board and its resultant instability.  Naval operatives managed to save not only people from the sea and  the deck, but migrants who had been trapped below deck too.  It is estimated that 550 people were rescued and five deaths have been confirmed. The number of fatalities should, however, be treated with caution, as it is impossible to know exactly how many people were on board and the figure may rise.

In another development yesterday a 17-year-old Moroccan who was "captaining" the boat on which 52 people died of asphyxiation on 26th August last year was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by an Italian court. He was found guilty of aiding illegal immigration and will be tried separately for homicide, as will nine other alleged people traffickers involved in the tragedy.  Italy has a good record of bringing people traffickers to justice, though this is seldom mentioned by the international media.

Headlines, politics, a UK referendum whose result could depend on migrant scare stories, the Italians continuing to save lives and deal with the situation as best they can whilst their European "partners" largely ignore their plight - it is easy to forget the individual, human aspect of what is happening. My thoughts tonight are with all migrants but particularly with a baby girl aged nine months, now being cared for on Lampedusa, who lost her mother on a migrant boat yesterday.

Finally, it is good to know that one politician has not forgotten: President Mattarella will visit Lampedusa on June 3rd for the opening of the Museo di Fiducia e Dialogo which is to be dedicated to migrating peoples. A Caravaggio, on loan from the Uffizi, will be among the exhibits and this is in memory of Aylan.

May those of us who sleep in our own beds give thanks this night, whilst 28 nations, whose history should cause them to know better and whose collective indifference could have unimaginable consequences, fail to cry,

"Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,"

Ibid.

TWO SIMPLE QUESTIONS

Ten days after news came in of a migrant tragedy in the Mediterranean in which up to 500 people may have died, the world has lost interest and I wish I could say I am surprised.  But when all that most countries care about is keeping migrants off their own territory, politicians cannot stop bickering for long enough to even ascertain what has happened. For the record, and according to information pieced together by UNHCR in interviews with survivors, it appears to be this:

In Libya, human traffickers put 100 - 200 migrants onto an inadequate, 30-metre-long boat then tried to transfer them, somewhere between Libya and Italy, onto a larger boat which was already carrying 100 people. This boat suddenly capsized and sank. Most of the 41 survivors managed to swim back to the first boat which was then left adrift in the Mediterranean for at least three days before help arrived on 16th April. No further confirmation of the numbers involved in the disaster seems to be available and, as I have said, few people in a position to change things are interested.

There has really been some shameful political posturing over the past week, with Austria threatening to build a barrier at the Brenner and the German Interior Minister having the gall to tell Italy that it is a country "far from being overwhelmed by asylum seekers." That's right, Mr de Maizière - overwhelmed she is not but Italy continues to save thousands of migrants every day, processes them, provides the medical care required and, despite some isolated ugly incidents, generally treats arrivals with kindness and humanity.  In the last five days of March alone, Italy saved 3,700 migrants.  The barrier at the Brenner - which Italy correctly says would be against EU rules - is off the cards for now but only for now.  Austria has said that it will be erected "when needed" and is putting in place more border checks at the Pass.

In other developments, Italy is ready to contribute 50 Carabinieri and army personnel to a possible UN force of 250 which would help Libya protect its oil wells and refineries. Minister of the Interior Angelino Alfano is asking for an agreement with Libya on migration so that most migrants would be prevented from leaving in the first place and others would be sent back under a scheme similar to the one agreed by the EU and Turkey.  Here in Sicily, Frontex [the European External Borders Agency] has set up its Italian headquarters in Catania.

Meanwhile, my own country continues to make me ashamed, having refused to admit 3,000 Syrian refugee children who are in dire need of a safe haven.

One of the saddest stories that has come to my attention this week is that of a three-year-old Somali girl who, two weeks ago, survived a Mediterranean migrant crossing with her mother, brother and uncle.  She was taken to the migrant hotspot of Taranto [Puglia] and was waiting in the long queue to be processed when the Mayor of Taranto, Ippazio Stefàno, a pediatrician who helps out in the medical facility at the hotspot, realised that she was extremely unwell.  He got her family to the front of the queue, examined the little girl and had her transferred to hospital.  At first all seemed to be going well but sadly the child died on 25th April.

I now have two simple questions for all politicians involved in this sorry mess: How many children have to die before Europe comes to its collective senses and what do you think the effects of such tragedies will be on the siblings of the victims?  Governments, take a look at history.

AUTUMN TIDES 2015

In the past week I have seen much coverage of interrupted Eurotunnel services as desperate people who only want a decent life again surge towards the trains, coverage of politicians threatening to close borders and many reports of Sunday's European Leaders' Summit on the Western Balkans Refugee Route. The press release for the latter is here and it does not make very jolly reading. The states represented, we learn, will "refrain from taking unilateral decisions whose effects are inevitably borne by others", a reference, presumably, to the practice of closing your border and bussing those refugees who had previously got through along to someone else's.  The only solution, we are told, is to "stop the flow" but, apart from sharing information more efficiently, we are not told how the EU proposes to do this.There is no mention of saving human life in the whole release.

Well, Italy [not represented at this summit] does not have the luxury of being able to close its Mediterranean entry points and, although the world has forgotten the Libya-Italy route, thousands of people continue to use it and tragic results continue to ensue: on 19th October Italian naval personnel found seven women and one man dead on an overcrowded migrant dinghy off Libya. The causes of death are thought to have been asphyxia and exhaustion. The other 113 passengers were saved by the naval ship  The previous weekend 1,300 people were saved by the Italian Navy and Coast Guard in the Mediterranean.

As I've mentioned before, Italy has a good record in bringing people traffickers to justice but receives little international credit for it, although politicians from other countries huff and puff about stopping this despicable trade. Surely it would make sense for these leaders to cooperate more closely with the front-line nation which is already expert in this area?

According to figures released by the Italian Red Cross today, 130,000 migrants have been helped by their staff and volunteers in Italian ports since January.  The Port of Augusta has seen the most arrivals and Sicily, with a total of 85,000 arrivals, is the Italian region which has been the most active in providing a response to the situation [in terms of reception and help].

Fears are now being expressed that migrants will begin using the Albania - Italy route if more European states close their borders. This is not a new route but it has largely fallen into disuse. When will the world understand that people fleeing for their lives will do so in any way they can or - as we have so often seen while "caring" countries stand by - die in the attempt?

The autumn tides of 2015 are expected to bring with them many more refugees, as people rush to try to reach Europe before atrocious weather sets in.

WORDS ON MIGRATION

In the week in which the EU made the best of a botched job while the world's attention has continued to be focused on events in Hungary, Croatia, Germany and Austria, over 4,000 migrants were rescued in the largely forgotten Sicilian Channel in one day [Sunday].  Most of these were initially brought to Sicily and Calabria before being taken to other regions of Italy. The unsung heroes of the Italian Navy and Coast Guard carry out large-scale rescues every single day and night and, whilst facilities for migrants here are far from perfect, reception is organised, medical checks are carried out and people are treated with humanity.

It seems to me that few people outside the "front line" countries in the Mediterranean migration crisis [Greece and Italy] will know that EUNAVFORMED, the joint EU military operation launched in the Mediterranean at the end of June to identify people traffickers' boats and bring their owners to justice, will, from 7th October, begin its second phase. This will allow operatives to destroy such boats in international waters once the migrants travelling on them have been transferred to authorised vessels. [There are, as you might expect, some worries about migrant safety in these circumstances.] Federica Mogherini, former Italian Foreign Minister and now High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has proposed that the operation be renamed Sofia, after the baby recently born to a migrant mother on a German rescue vessel.  Whether this is appropriate for such a potentially dangerous operation I will leave you to decide. [Any phase three of the operation would involve intervening in Libyan waters and on that country's coast and would require UN Security Council authorisation.]

While people are being marked, abused, treated like animals and shunted about like lorry-loads of old fridges, the argument about differentiating between economic migrants and refugees still rages and I would like to ask what is wrong with seeking a better life and where we would all be now if our ancestors had not done so.

It is unsurprising, then. that a lot of words have been spoken about migration during this sad and disturbing  week.  Here are some of those that have impressed me:

"Il ne faut pas oublier tout ce que les immigrés ont apporté à ce pays, les Picasso, Béart, Cioran... C'est une chance extraordinaire pour la France. Il y a peut-être parmi eux de futurs Aznavour, qui sait ?"  "We should not forget what immigrants have brought to this country - Picasso, Béart, Cioran...  It's an enormous opportunity for France. Perhaps there are some future Aznavours among them - who knows?"

- Charles Aznavour, singer

"I think, from space, borders are absurd."

- Yanis Varoufakis, politician

"If we're not able to tackle this issue, if we're not able to find sustainable solutions, you'll see a surge of the extreme right across the European continent".

- Frans Timmermans, Vice- President, European Commission

"I want a world where children can grow up safe from violence, free from poverty and protected from preventable diseases........ The images [of refugee children] have been so powerful over the last few weeks and unfortunately they're images that no one wants to see. No one wants to see children suffering the way they're suffering, I'm not a politician - politics is definitely not my strong point - but what I am is a father. Images like this are definitely something we never want to see."

- David Beckham, footballer and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador

"Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us."

- Pope Francis, Address to the Joint Session of the United States Congress

SUMMER SHAME

"What will it take", I have often asked in my migration posts,"for the rest of the world to notice what has been happening in the Mediterranean?"  The answer in April was an appalling tragedy and now that the crisis has spread to the land in other parts of Europe, it has taken a heart-breaking image to wake the world up

Looking at reactions to the crisis in my own country, I must admit that I have despaired over the past week and have been wondering just when we lost our ability to empathise. As a country the British have often made grave errors but we have also often done "the right thing" instinctively rather than waiting to be shamed into it, as our Prime Minister was today. I have hesitated to make the following point because I do not want to be accused of taking a cheap shot but after today's events I feel I must: David Cameron is a man who knows the pain of losing a child so it should not have taken a whole 24 hours for him to react to the image that has so profoundly shaken those he claims to represent. As even his own Members of Parliament began to criticise him earlier today, did he wait for his spin doctors to tell him what to do? 

I am well aware that, as one who no longer lives in the UK, I coud be accused of not really having my finger on its pulse any more but I do pay taxes there, still have voting rights and I care very much what happens to my country and how it is seen internationally. But more than that I care about its humanity.

Meanwhile in the Sicilian Channel 838 people were saved yesterday and were brought to Pozzallo this evening. This morning a further 105 were saved by the Italian Coast Guard off the coast of Libya. Premier Renzi of Italy and  Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of Malta were right to remind the world, in a joint press conference this evening, that the publication of images such as the one that has upset us all is an almost weekly occurence in their two countries. Premier Renzi also had this to say:

"Europe must not just be moved - as some leaders are more than others; it must act."

Count your blessings if your children have been playing safely in the sea today.