Libyan rescuers have been recovering bodies washed up on the beaches of Tripoli as spring turns into an unprecedented crisis of migrants crossing from Africa to Europe.
Times of Malta is today publishing shocking photos of these bodies because they bring home, as no words do, the grim reality unfolding in the Mediterranean.
One of the pictures shows the body of a little boy, not more than two years old, found washed up on a beach in Garabulli, east of Tripoli, according to sources in Libya.
The other shows rescuers recovering a body from a beach in Tripoli. Other unpublished pictures show cadavers strewn on beaches in Zawiya.
“We’ve removed several bodies from the beaches in the past days,” a senior coastguard officer said yesterday.
“I cannot say if they are from a capsized boat, because sometimes if someone dies the body is thrown overboard, but we get this all the time.
9,991
– the number of migrants rescued by Italy since Friday
“We cannot cope and the situation in Libya makes it even worse for us right now… when you get the children, it’s the worst,” he said.
His comments come after migrants from a group of 144 rescued by an Italian military vessel on Tuesday said their boat was carrying some 550 people before it capsized, raising the spectre of this year’s biggest single fatality at sea with more than 400 people unaccounted for.
Michele Prosperi from the NGO Save the Children, which spoke to the migrants in Sicily, yesterday told this newspaper that the surviving minors were in shock.
“They said their boat capsized about 24 hours after they left Libya.”
Between Friday and yesterday, Italian rescuers, with the help of several merchant vessels, an Icelandic military ship and the Armed Forces of Malta rescued just under 10,000 people in some 50 rescue operations that have stretched the EU’s Triton mission beyond its limits.
In fact, as predicted by many stakeholders, Triton – the operation run by EU border agency Frontex, under which these rescues are being conducted – is no match for the Mare Nostrum mission which was stopped by Italy in November.
Rome found it difficult to sustain the €9 million-a-month operation on its own and eventually called it quits after some attempts to get the EU to pay for it.
The difference between the two operations is not just size (Triton costs about €3 million a month) but scope, because Mare Nostrum operated just outside Libyan waters and was able to assist migrants right where most dinghies tend to start sinking.
Frontex officials had complained Mare Nostrum was creating a pull factor and that a smaller operation closer to shore, as is the present Triton mission, would attract fewer people and therefore possibly mean fewer deaths.
However, statistics so far contradict that forecast on both counts. With Tuesday’s tragedy, the number of deaths this year has reached 970, compared with just 47 during the same period in 2014.
Moreover, so far 31,500 migrants have made the crossing and the ‘peak season’ has not even started.
‘Let migrants travel legally’
Tragedies like Tuesday’s could be prevented if migrants were able to travel to Europe legally, 13 local NGOs said.
“Once again, we urgently call on the EU and member states to prevent such incidents by doing their utmost to secure safe and legal access to Europe.”
The NGOs, among them Aditus, Jesuit Refugee Service, Emigrants’ Commission and SOS Malta, reminded Italy and Malta of the responsibility to do “everything within their power” to save lives.
They thanked those who manned the rescue operations, as their relentless efforts prevented more deaths.
“It might be easy for Malta to look at the small number of arrivals last year and believe that these tragedies are a thing of the past or that they do not require our individual and collective concern.
“Such a short-sighted approach not only fails to appreciate the human dimension of such tragedies but also leads us to believe that Malta has no legal and moral responsibilities in their regard,” they said.
The UNHCR and Amnesty International appealed for a more robust rescue capacity, with AI saying European governments’ negligence contributed to the rise in deaths.