G.N. Chapp-Jumbo
Spain’s two enclaves in Morocco–Ceuta and Melilla have been favoured entry points into Europe for African migrants who either clamber over their border wire fences or swim across their coastline. After thousands crossed in 2014 and 2015, Spain stepped up security by raising the security fences and since then, Libya has become a common departure point cum staging post for African migrants who attempt the perilous crossing to Italy in rickety and dilapidated boats and dinghies that are most times not sea worthy and often break down at sea. Many African migrants have died in their attempts to cross the gargantuan Mediterranean sea. The deaths and the attempted crossings are a part of a sustained bid by thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans in Libya and other North African countries including Morocco to reach Spain and Italy. Some have made it to their dream land while the unfortunate ones have met their untimely death.
The fishing port of Lampedusa in Italy has been a major migration corridor for African migrants as it is only 128 nautical miles from Libya as the crow flies. The EU countries of Spain, Italy and France all have maritime frontiers temptingly nearer poorer countries on the African continent. The EU has discovered that all the measures put in place to stem the tide of illegal migration across the Mediterranean Sea have not deterred the would-be migrants from embarking on the tortuous and hazardous trip to Europe. Just like a ballon that is tied in one place only to expand in another, they can’t cope with the ever increasing influx of illegal immigrants from Sub-Sahara Africa. They have reasoned that no number of Spanish, Italian and French warships on patrol and surveillance in the Mediterranean sea is likely to reverse this natural law of migration – human beings have always wanted to escape poverty and misery and today many Africans see Europe as their Eldorado.
In 2015, Europe was under siege as it could not contain the surge of migration from Syria as a result of the Syrian crisis. Turkey was used as a launching pad for the migration that made world headlines. The receiving countries of Europe such as Greece, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany and Austria had to cry out as their facilities were overstretched beyond their elastic limits. There were television footages of bodies of immigrants being washed ashore on most of Turkey’s coasts and beaches. Most of these migrants viewed Europe as a peaceful, tolerant place where the state has many generous social welfare programmes. Europe has become a strong social welfare outfit that receives millions of refugees while it is finding it extremely difficult to take care of refugees due to dwindling funding sources. At the peak of the mass influx of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey to Europe in 2015, the brasshats at the EU headquarters in Brussels entered into a deal with Turkey whereby Ankara agreed to accept the return of migrants living in Greece in exchange for economic benefits including aid and visa free travel for Turkish citizens.
The flow of migrants later slowed to a trickle since the deal was struck and consummated in March 2016. It has been alleged that negligence on the part of EU member states was to blame for the repeated drowning of migrants in the Mediterranean sea with the Italian Coast guard left alone to handle this arduous and daunting task. The EU at their emergency meeting in April, 2016 agreed to tackle the human traffickers/smugglers pernicious business model at its very roots. According to them, it will involve the destruction of boats used by the traffickers and smugglers.
This will involve identifying, seizing and destroying boats before they are deployed to the sea by human smugglers. The EU later sought for UN mandate authorizing the use of Military force against illegal migrants seeking to enter Europe through the Mediterranean sea. This plan is modeled after the EU’s anti-piracy operation Atlanta off the horn of Africa. How feasible is this plan?. According to International Law, naval ships are not legally allowed to capture and destroy such boats. Libya is already a failed state with no central government in power and this is likely to make it impossible for the EU to secure permission for a military intervention.
In several African countries and in the Middle East there is a bad combination of poverty, lack of economic opportunities, disease, political chaos and bloody religious and ethnic conflicts. All these trigger the urge to peregrinate to safer climes. Europe is usually the destination of choice of most African migrants because of geographic proximity and historic ties. The general belief and perception among would be African migrants is that once you get to Europe, there are cash to be picked on the streets of Europe. The hard fact is that most of the European nations do not have such money. Invariably most migrants end up living at the margin of society with limited access to education, health care and paid employment.
According to the UNHCR- the UN Refuge agency, Europe received about 300,000 refugees who arrived after crossing the Mediterranean sea from North Africa in 2015. In 2014, the number was 219,000. The number keeps increasing on a yearly basis and there seems to be no end in sight. People escape from poverty, war, civil strife, persecution and famine. Unless drastic changes occur in their various countries, they will continue to flee in their droves. 19 year old Gambian goal keeper of the country’s women’s football team drowned in the Mediterranean sea in 2017 trying to reach Europe. Fatima Jawara represented her country- the Gambia in the 2012 under 17 world cup in Azerbajan. It is an irony that a footballer that left the shores of her country legally to represent her country in an international football competition will years later drown in the Mediterranean sea while trying to reach Europe this time through the back door.
Libya has become a hub for illegal migration towards Europe. It lacks proper border controls and has been plunged into chaos following the death of Muammar Ghaddafi. The existence of war lords controlling their spheres of influence in different parts of the country and the lack of a functional central government has fuelled the illegal crossings along the Mediterranean sea. The UN refugee agency reports that on the Libya- Italy route, the main countries of origin of migrants are: Nigeria (15%) Gambia (10%), Somalia (9%) Eritrea and Guinea (8% each) and Senegal (7%). There are presently thousands of African migrants stranded in Libya with their fate hanging in the balance. Most of them have been sold off as slaves and living in bondage. The International Organization for migration (IOM) has come to the aid of some of these unfortunate stranded migrants by profiling and transporting them back to their countries of origin. These stranded migrants on arrival have tales of woes to tell about their ordeal in Libya. Most of them narrated how they were lured to travel with promises of better life in Europe. The Nigerian migrants among the returnees narrated how they were ferried through the vast Sahara desert in overloaded four wheel drives and their harrowing experiences on the trips. There is equally a group of Nigerian migrants stranded in Mali. They got stuck there on their way to North Africa. Most of them are into prostitution and other vices and they have rebuffed efforts by the Government to bring them back home.
The EU has presented a new aid plan to curb the influx of African migrants via Libya by building on the deal it reached with Turkey in March, 2016. The EU aims to build partnership with nine (9) countries in the Middle East and Africa including Jordan, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria. More than a million refugees and economic migrants entered the EU through the Mediterranean sea in 2017, many of them fleeing chaos and civil war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. At a Malta summit in November 2015, the EU agreed to put 1.5 billion Euros into an Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. The aim is to combat human trafficking gangs and reduce the incentives for Sub-Saharan Africans to make the perilous journeys to Europe via the Mediterranean sea.
This includes creating jobs and tackling extreme poverty in the various African home countries. The package will also include provision of border surveillance equipment, police training and other technical support to stop migrants heading to Europe. The EU also plans to reactivate its blue card scheme launched in 2012 as a way for the EU to attract skilled Professionals from non-EU countries. However, the scheme has not made much progress since its inception with only 13,852 blue card work permits issued so far. All the incentives highlighted herein are bound to stimulate the economies of the sending countries thereby creating jobs and deterring the youths from embarking on the perilous journeys across the Mediterranean sea.
Chapp-jumbo is the Comptroller of Immigration Service (Training Institutions), Nigeria Immigration Service Headquarters, Abuja.
The post Illegal migration across the mediterranean sea appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.