On February 11, 300 migrants drown­ed at sea. Their flimsy rafts supplied by greedy smugglers fell apart in eight-foot waves. As the Italian Coast Guard dispatched ships from Lampedusa, the merchant ship monitoring the distressed dinghies couldn’t safely board passengers due to Force Seven wind and waves.

Once help arrived, the open boats offered little protection from the elements, and 29 people died from hypothermia on the way to shore. Despite the news of the disaster, smugglers continue to launch thousands more desperate migrants from war-torn Libya, making millions.

With just five aircraft and seven vessels, the Italian coastal patrol programme called Operation Triton is not even a search and rescue mission. It is a €2.9 million-a-month programme responsible for guarding the 7,600km-long coast a mere 30 miles from the shores of Italy.

Although aircraft are in the air, and Coast Guard and commercial ships are often pulled in to assist rescues, Operation Triton has failed. The migrants are coming sooner and in greater numbers, yet the European response is at its weakest. With 2015 promising to be the deadliest year on record for migrant drowning, we must do more.

The UNHCR says over 200,000 people receiv­ed help in the sea crossing in 2014. Over 3,200 didn’t make it. The International Organisation for Migration suggests this is only the beginning.

Last October, the effective Italian mission Mare Nostrum was cancelled due to the EU’s disinterest in continued funding and assertions by politicians that it encouraged more migrants to make the voyage. Last week’s incidents of over 3,000 migrants fleeing for Lampedusa knowing that Operation Triton would be hugging the shoreline crushed that mythical narrative.

This year, the number of migrant deaths has already risen by 1,481 per cent compared to the same period last year. It is clear that with the weak government response, the onus for rescue in 2015 has been shifted to the Mediterranean’s busy commercial ships and international sailors who are not prepared to handle mass rescues and the resultant casualties.

In 2013, when hundreds of desperate people were drowning crossing the Mediterranean, I knew I had to do something. There were charities helping migrants in Africa and helping landed migrants, but no NGOs for them during the most dangerous part, the sea crossing.

The Italian coastal patrol programme Operation Triton is not even a search and rescue mission

I did not want to get involved in the politics of irregular migration; I simply wanted to stop the deaths at sea while governments wrestled over solutions. So I and a group of professionals founded MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station), a rough-weather vessel, long-range drones and a top-notch search and rescue team.

Last year, MOAS rescued 3,000 migrants in distress. Men, women and children forced by humanitarian or economic reasons to cross the deadliest border in the world: the Mediterranean Sea. The idea many people had told me was ‘impossible’ turned out to be a success.

Taking the politics out of search and rescue helps all parties involved. It simplifies the rescue coordination process and guarantees disembarkation at the nearest safe port. It puts priority on helping people in distress, no matter where they come from. It takes pressure off the hundreds of commercial vessels that are forced to stop to repatriate migrants. The mariners could get back to business, leaving rescue operations to purpose-built operations like MOAS.

A private solution to a public problem is not new. Remember the recent scourge of maritime piracy off Somalia? From 2008 to 2010, pirates were raking in €7.3 billion a year from their criminal efforts. At its peak over 400 mariners were held hostage and dozens of vessels hijacked.

The maritime industry demanded action, the world got mad (90 per cent of global consumer goods spend time on a ship) and governments tried to take action. Countries combined naval patrols, companies trained their crews in evasive action and courts started throwing the book at pirates. It still did not end piracy.

Then when private industry came up with a solution (providing security on board ships in transit zones) piracy magically vanished. The combination of private industry and government action worked. The last successful Somali pirate action was in May 10, 2012.

Piracy was a threat to the shipping industry, but the disruption of critically-timed Mediterranean Sea traffic could be just as big a threat.

The expected increase in migrant rescues and the drastic curtailing of EU presence in the transit zones has increased the likelihood that private maritime industry will be called on to act as search and rescue operators when migrants call in for assistance.

The industry doesn’t yet know how much money commercial vessels collectively lose every year from delays, rerouting and costs of rescue but we know that in 2014 the UNHCR reported that over 600 merchant ships in the Mediterranean rescued 37,000 migrants.

If you have to stop your ship to pick up several hundred people, your ship will be delayed, your crew will be stressed and there is serious potential for loss of life from errors during rescue.

Expecting commercial vessels to fill the gaps is irresponsible and expensive. Sailors have basic search and rescue training, but they aren’t equipped to handle serious medical emergencies or dealing with hundreds of stressed victims.

In 2015, MOAS is looking to expand its rescue operations using only private donations. We have proven that we can respond, coordinate and assist in search and rescue to save lives and we do this because nobody deserves to die at sea.

We need your support to continue.

www.moas.eu

Christopher Catrambone is the founder of Migrant Offshore Aid Station.

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