As the number of Syrians crossing the Mediterranean soars, top NGO calls on the EU to ensure legal avenues giving international protection

The number of Syrians crossing the Mediterranean illegally is rising dramatically, according to a children’s charity which is calling for legal means to grant migrants international protection.

The NGO Save the Children yesterday expressed concern that thousands of Syrian youngsters will this summer risk drowning when they flee their war-torn country and cross the sea by boat.

Urging EU leaders gathered for their summit at the end of the Greek presidency to ensure safer routes, the NGO said at least one sixth of those who attempt the sea journey to Italy are children.

About 6,700 of the 41,200 migrants that the Italian Navy rescued between January and May were in fact minors, with Eritrean and Syrian children making up the largest groups.

By the end of May Italian authorities had rescued over 3,800 children from the two countries. The average age of the Syrian children is five years.

Referring to asylum seekers in Malta, a UNHCR spokesman told this newspaper that last year Syria ranked third among the countries of origin of those arriving by sea (eight per cent of the total), after Somalia (50 per cent) and Eritrea (23 per cent).

In 2013, 166 Syrians were rescued at sea by the Maltese authorities. Of these, 33 were children, seven of whom were unaccompanied. This means that one fifth of those seeking refuge in Malta from the war in Syria were children.

“The journey that people undertake by sea to cross from Libya to Europe is very dangerous. Most of the time asylum seekers and migrants travel together on overcrowded dinghies or boats with little food and water for a number of days.

“In such circumstances the most vulnerable, like children, would be at a higher risk than others,” Fabrizio Ellul, from UNHCR Malta said. He recalled the capsizing of a boat carrying Syrian asylum seekers near Lampedusa in October as one of the most tragic events in the Mediterranean Sea in recent years.

“It was heartbreaking to hear families who had just lost their loved ones,” he added.

More than 50 – possibly up to 200 – people died on October 11 when a boat capsized 60 miles south of the Italian island. The Armed Forces of Malta rescued 143 migrants and 56 of them were taken ashore in Lampedusa.

Two children and a 25-year-old woman who died in the incident were buried soon after, while a toddler and a boy survived only by his younger brother were laid to rest at the Paola mosque in November.

Save the Children’s latest report, The boat is safe and other lies: why Syrian families are risking everything to reach Europe, tells the harrowing stories of families who survived the journey to Italy.

“There were about 200 of us on the boat, all on top of one another. When they decided to stop to burn all our extra clothes and personal belongings in order to lighten the load, we feared for our lives and the lives of the children.

We feared for our lives and the lives of the children

“They left us without any reminder of our beloved Syria. We’d never thought of making a similar journey,” Rama, a mother of one, recounted.

The number of Syrians crossing illegally into Italy started rising in July of last year, when more Syrians arrived than during the whole of 2012. This peaked in September, with more than 4,100 arrivals, of whom more than 1,400 were children.

While numbers declined during the winter, they have been going up consistently since April.

Save the Children said the smugglers charge families between $1,500 and $3,000 and the journey can take up to 15 days. It called on the EU to ensure there were other legal avenues to access international protection in the bloc, so that some of the most vulnerable and most at risk of violence and persecution could be considered for asylum without risking their lives.

The organisation also called for an end to the detention of children on immigration grounds and to strengthen the search-and-rescue capacity in the Mediterranean.

“EU States must ensure that Italy and Northern Mediterranean countries are not left to manage this burden alone,” it said.