The European Commission has called for “redouble efforts” to reform the right of asylum after this new tragedy which occurred on Sunday near the Italian city of Crotone.
Dramas follow and resemble each other in the Mediterranean. Sixty migrants perished on Sunday February 26 in the sinking of their boat in the Mediterranean near the Italian city of Crotone, in Calabria (south of the country). The European Commission has referred “a tragedy” and called to “redouble your efforts” to reform the right to asylum. This umpteenth shipwreck comes just days after the Italian parliament passed controversial new rules from the far-right-dominated government on rescuing migrants. Here’s what we know about this new drama.
The circumstances of the sinking
According to the Italian coast guard, the boat broke on Sunday on rocks a few meters from the coast when the weather was very bad.
Images from the Italian police and AFP show debris of wood scattered over a hundred meters of the beach where many rescuers and survivors were waiting for their transfer to a reception center.
Sixty victims, “including children”
The boat transported about 120 people according to the Italian coastguard, while the firefighters mentioned on their side “more than 200 people” on board. Sunday afternoon, the toll rose to sixty victims. “Until a few minutes ago, the number of confirmed victims was 59”, had thus announced the mayor of Crotone, Vincenzo Voce, to the news channel Sky TG-24. According to this Italian media, the bodies of 14 children were found, including a newborn baby a few months old. The survivors, 81 according to a latest assessment, were received in a center for asylum seekers while others were hospitalized.
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Italian President Sergio Mattarella lamented the shipwreck in which “dozens of people, including children, lost their lives”.
“A large number of these migrants came from Afghanistan and Iran, fleeing very difficult conditions“, added the Head of State, expressing the wish to“a strong commitment by the international community to eliminate the causes of migration: wars, persecutions, terrorism, poverty…”
The reaction of the Italian authorities
Sharing his “deep pain”the head of the far-right government, Giorgia Meloni, judged in a press release “criminal to put a boat barely 20 meters into the sea with 200 people on board and a bad weather forecast”. “The government is determined to prevent departures and with them this kind of tragedy, and will continue to do so, demanding above all the greatest collaboration of the States of departure and origin”, added Giorgia Meloni.
Far-right party leader Fratelli d’Italia, the latter had taken the head of a coalition executive in October after promising to reduce the number of migrants arriving in Italy. A new law obliges humanitarian ships to carry out only one rescue at a time, which critics say increases the risk of death in the central Mediterranean whose crossing is considered the most dangerous in the world for migrants.
The reaction of the European authorities
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for progress on the reform of the right of asylum in the European Union, after this “tragedy”. She claimed that it was necessary “redouble efforts on the Pact on Migration and the Right to Asylum, and on the Action Plan for the Central Mediterranean”.
The most delicate part of this Pact, which must be concluded before the end of the term of office of the European Parliament in 2024, concerns a better sharing of responsibilities in the reception of asylum seekers between EU countries, an issue which has divided them since the refugee crisis in 2015-2016.