The UN counts around 280 million migrants, a consequence of political, economic and climatic upheavals. Nothing stops people in distress or in danger. The number of people crossing the seas illegally has exploded: more than 33,000 in 2021, or 3 times more than in 2020 and 14 times more than in 2019.
Faced with this scourge, boats chartered by NGOs, such as SOS Méditerranée, are trying to save these desperate people. Boats like the Aquarius or the Ocean Viking, which have already rescued 34,000 people, are replacing to the resigning states. However, this vital assistance is often denounced as contributing to the multiplication of candidates for travel, which is refuted by Fabienne Lasalle, deputy director of SOS Méditerranée.
“The figures prove it: whether there are ships present in the Mediterranean to provide assistance or there are none, the crossings continue. It would be a bit like criticizing the existence of ambulances which would be responsible for the accidents. ”
Fabienne Lasalle, Deputy Director of SOS Méditerranéeto franceinfo
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She also stresses that NGOs are the only ones to respect international maritime law. The latter stipulates that the people collected must be disembarked in a “safe port”. However, the European states have signed an agreement with the Libyan coast guard, once again throwing refugees into the hell of this country.
In addition, it is necessary to be able to locate boats in distress, to report them to surrounding boats. This is why strategic support is provided by NGOs such as the one created by José Benavente: Les Pilotes Volontaires. A former official of the International Red Cross, he invested his savings in the purchase of a small single-engine tourist plane. For 4 years, he has flown over the seas, locating and communicating the position of boats in distress, in order to save lives before it is too late.
“Tragedies literally occurred before our eyes, where inflatable boats began to deflate. People fell into the water and drowned. We know that unfortunately, when they spend more than 24 to 48 hours at sea, we start counting the dead, and children and women go first. ”
Jose benaventeto franceinfo
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Yesterday in the central Mediterranean, the deadliest sea route in the world, with 1,300 dead in 2021, today in the Canaries, these volunteer pilots carried out 200 observation flights and spotted more than 250 boats. In total, they were able to report some 13,000 people in distress. And, as such, José Benavente adds:
“The sea is no longer a cemetery, but a mass grave, where the anonymous missing remain so forever.”
José Benavente, founder of the Volunteer Pilotsto franceinfo
For the most part, it is obviously not by choice that these migrants risk their lives, like Reza Rezai, an Afghan of the Hazara ethnicity, who was imprisoned and tortured before managing to escape, and cross 10 countries. to reach France.
He traveled in containers, freight trains, car trunks, on foot in the mountains to cross borders. often captured, put in camps, escaped, embarked on makeshift boats, dependent on unscrupulous smugglers. He ended up arriving in France, after 6 months of a journey to the end of hell. Surviving by force of will, he speaks 6 languages and is now perfectly inserted.
He recounts his journey in a book, Faced with exile. An article is dedicated to him, to tell about his crazy race.
For these legal migrants, the IOM (International Organization for Migration) calls on NGOs such as Aviation Without Borders to support them, facilitate administrative procedures, etc. Thus more than 4,000 migrants each year are accompanied in flight by volunteers, most of them flight crew from airlines.
And solidarity takes on its full meaning when viewed from space, as Thomas Pesquet, the sponsor of Aviation Without Borders, puts it so well.