A “cemetery for children”. Three times as many migrants died or disappeared this summer while trying to cross the Mediterranean, UNICEF warned on Friday, in the midst of diplomatic negotiations on the European side on the migration issue.
Between June and August, at least 990 people were shipwrecked in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous maritime route in the world linking North Africa to Europe, three times more than the 334 migrants who lost their lives on the same route. period in 2022, according to a count by the UN children’s agency.
Since January 2023, at least 289 children have died during these crossings, Nicolo dell’Arciprete, UNICEF coordinator for Italy, said on Friday at a press conference in Rome.
The agency told AFP in Paris that 11,600 “unaccompanied minors” had attempted to travel to Italy between January and mid-September 2023 aboard makeshift boats, or 60% more than on the same day. period last year (7200).
“The Mediterranean has become a cemetery for children and their future. The tragic toll of children dying in search of asylum and safety in Europe is the result of political choices and a failing migration system,” said Regina De Dominicis, who coordinates the subject at UNICEF.
In total, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees summarized Thursday during a meeting of the Security Council devoted to the crisis in the Mediterranean, this brings to more than 2,500 migrants dead or missing between January 1 and September 24, 2023, up 50% year-on-year.
Determine age
The spectacular images of arrivals in mid-September on the small Italian island of Lampedusa have brought back into focus the burning issue of European cooperation in the management of migratory flows.
With 8,500 people who landed on the island in three days, more than its total population, the arrivals sparked a local crisis in Lampedusa and a political storm in Italy, which has been increasing emergency and firm measures ever since.
Latest example to date: the government of Giorgia Meloni, at the head of a right-wing and far-right coalition, approved Wednesday evening in the Council of Ministers a draft decree which opens the possibility of placing unaccompanied minors in more of 16 years in adult structures and to have them undergo medical examinations to determine their age.
While the project must still be approved by Parliament, where the ultraconservative government has an absolute majority, the text authorizes “anthropometric measurements” and examinations such as x-rays to determine the age of young migrants. Objective: “It will no longer be possible to lie about your true age” to avoid possible expulsion, warned Giorgia Meloni on her Facebook page.
A “worrying” provision, the spokesperson for UNICEF in Italy, Andrea Iacomini, expressed alarm to AFP.
War, violence, poverty
On the European scene, the situation in the Mediterranean has relaunched discussions in Brussels around the migration pact, mired in dissension since its presentation in 2020 by the European Commission.
The European reform project provides in particular for a strengthening of external borders or even a solidarity mechanism between the Twenty-Seven in the care of asylum seekers.
The leaders of the nine Mediterranean countries of the EU are still due to meet this Friday in Malta to agree their positions on this issue.
“Adopting a European-wide response to support children and families” is “absolutely necessary to prevent more children from suffering,” said Regina De Dominicis of UNICEF.
According to the UN agency, it is “war, conflict, violence and poverty” that push children “to flee their country of origin alone”.
After the risks of “exploitation and abuse at every stage” of exile, of shipwreck at sea, those who reach European shores are first “detained” in centers before being transferred to shelter structures. reception “generally closed”, deplores UNICEF. The agency counts 21,700 unaccompanied children in these centers in Italy, compared to 17,700 a year ago.
In this regard, the latest Italian turn of the screw is particularly worrying: “We cannot put them with adults,” warns Andrea Iacomini in Italy.