Migrants have been dying in the Mediterranean since at least 1995.
No human being really knows the total number of people who perished in the past 20 years while trying to cross from the Middle East and North Africa to the European dream. Known cases amount to over 20,000 persons during the last 12 years, that is since the Mediterranean migration phenomenon exploded in 2002.
At first, migrants used to organise the trips themselves. Then, money-hungry people realised that coordinating trips for Mediterranean crossings could be a lucrative business and set themselves to work. It could be that, today, the human traffickers also include terrorists seeking all sorts of income to sustain their plans.
Not many people give any thought to the push factors in their country of origin as well as in the countries they travel to in their desperate effort to escape persecution, conflicts and economic hardships.
Migrants trying to cross to Europe from the current crisis in Libya at present probably also include people of working age who travelled to Libya on a contract basis, meaning that their trip was organised and paid for by an agent under the agreement that they would pay back a substantial part of their earnings until they reach a specified amount. Unless the international community organises itself well enough to effectively solve the push factors in the countries of origin and elsewhere, these will remain and continue to be exploited by those who put money before people’s lives.
Rescue missions raise the debatable question of whether they would turn out to also be pull factors. This is true. Yet, if the push factors are not contained at their source, and/or human traffickers continue to operate uncontrolled, states cannot turn a blind eye to their paramount duty to do their utmost, hand in hand, to truly and honestly strive to save lives at risk.
Following the enormous tragedy of some 950 migrants last weekend, where men, women and children were packed on two decks of a vessel, with those with the least money to pay perhaps crammed in the hold, the international community cannot continue to be indifferent.
Indifference in such circumstances is inexcusable. For Europe, in particular, this is a moment of truth.
(The author served as Malta’s first refugee commissioner from 2001 to 2007.)