Wednesday

29th Mar 2023

EU after Lampedusa tragedy: More border surveillance

  • Discarded clothes on migrant boat: Lampedusa has seen a steady inflow of migrants from Africa (Photo: noborder network)

Up to 300 migrants are feared dead after a boat caught fire near Lampedusa and the Italian coast guard failed to spot it in time.

Italy is holding a day of mourning on Friday (4 October) after more than a hundred bodies were found in the sea and rescuers are still searching for over 200 migrants who are still missing.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Around 150 people managed to survive the shipwreck and are being taken care of on the small Italian island, which in the past few years has become the main entry point for migrants looking for a better life in Europe.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, most of the migrants were from Eritrea and Somalia.

The survivors told rescuers that they set fire to a blanket to attract the attention of coast guards after the overcrowded boat started sinking. The fire spread making people panic start jumping in the water, even though many were unable to swim.

Raffaele Colapinto, a local fisherman who was among the first on the scene, told AFP: "We saw a sea of heads. We took as many as we could on board."

A 35-year old Tunisian, who was steering the boat, was arrested. "He had been deported from Italy in April," said Italian interior minister Angelino Alfano.

"This is not an Italian tragedy, this is a European tragedy," he said, calling for more help from fellow EU nations in coping with migrants who try to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.

The matter will be discussed at the next meeting of EU interior ministers, on Monday (7 October).

EU home affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said this tragedy shows the need for Europe to "become better at identifying and rescuing vessels at risk."

"We also need to intensify our efforts to fight criminal networks exploiting human despair so that they cannot continue to put people's lives at risk in small, overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels," she said in a press release.

A new border surveillance system, Eurosur, will become operational in December this year and will help countries better coordinate and use "improved surveillance technology" to track and rescue small ships, she added.

"We expect all member states to support the adoption and implementation of Eurosur quickly and to use it at national level as soon as possible," Malmstrom said.

According to the International Organisation for Migration, over 25,000 people drowned in the Mediterranean in the last 20 years trying to reach Europe. Of these, almost 4,000 died only in the past two years, mostly off the coast of Lampedusa.

Francois Crepeau, a UN rapporteur on the rights of migrants, told AFP that the "criminalisation of irregular immigration" had played a role in the Lampedusa tragedy.

"Treating irregular migrants only by repressive measures would create these tragedies," Crepeau said.

He warned that by closing their borders, EU countries will only give even more power to traffickers. Instead, Europe should increase the opportunities for legal immigration, he said.

Italy and EU trade barbs on Lampedusa migrants

Italy on Wednesday accused the EU of "inertia" in helping to relocate the north African migrants currently overcrowding its tiny island of Lampedusa, where premier Berlusconi made populist promises of swift evacuations and nominated the island for the Nobel peace prize.

First Libyan refugees arrive in Lampedusa

The first boats carrying hundreds of African refugees from Libya have arrived on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, already overcrowded by Tunisian migrants who have left their country in search for a better life in Europe.

Exclusive

Sweden waters down EU press-freedom law

Press-freedom groups from Paris to New York have voiced dismay at Sweden's proposal to weaken a landmark EU law against corporate and political bullies.

Opinion

Why can't we stop marches glorifying Nazism on EU streets?

Every year, neo-Nazis come together to pay tribute to Nazi war criminals and their collaborators, from Benito Mussolini to Rudolf Hess, Ante Pavelić, Hristo Lukov, and of course Adolf Hitler, in events that have become rituals on the extreme-right calendar.

Latest News

  1. The overlooked 'crimes against children' ICC arrest warrant
  2. EU approves 2035 phaseout of polluting cars and vans
  3. New measures to shield the EU against money laundering
  4. What does China really want? Perhaps we could try asking
  5. Dear EU, the science is clear: burning wood for energy is bad
  6. Biden's 'democracy summit' poses questions for EU identity
  7. Finnish elections and Hungary's Nato vote in focus This WEEK
  8. EU's new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. InformaConnecting Expert Industry-Leaders, Top Suppliers, and Inquiring Buyers all in one space - visit Battery Show Europe.
  2. EFBWWEFBWW and FIEC do not agree to any exemptions to mandatory prior notifications in construction
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic and Baltic ways to prevent gender-based violence
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Economic gender equality now! Nordic ways to close the pension gap
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: Pushing back the push-back - Nordic solutions to online gender-based violence
  6. Nordic Council of MinistersCSW67: The Nordics are ready to push for gender equality

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us