EU Referendum


Immigration: synchronised drowning


15/09/2014



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Almost by default, it seems, we have hit upon the optimum, cost-effective policy for dealing with migrants with dark skins: they escape together, so they can drown together - synchronised drowning, so to speak.

This is certainly one interpretation of the inertia that confronts the growing humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean as, last night, scores of African migrants trying to reach Europe were feared dead after their boat sank off the Libyan coast.

According to Libyan navy spokesman, Ayub Qassem, only 26 of 250 on the latest wreck had been rescued. The boat had sunk near Tajoura, east of the capital, Tripoli, with Qassem remarking: "There are so many dead bodies floating in the sea".

Libya, as we all know and have known for some time, is a major departure point for migrants leaving Africa, often for Italy. We also know that the use of unseaworthy, overcrowded boats has resulted in several thousand deaths.

The latest incident comes just weeks after another wooden boat heading for Italy sank half a mile off the Libyan coast, killing 100 people. More than 100,000 have survived the journey so far this year, according to the Italian government.

In the face of the mounting death toll, Qassem tells us another thing we know already, that the Libyan coastguard is underequipped to deal with the scale of the problem and had few resources to search for survivors. The agency mainly exists on paper and relies on fishing boats and tugs it borrows from the oil ministry.

Faced with the problems and increasing expense of dealing with the survivors, Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister, is once again calling on the EU to take responsibility for rescuing migrants attempting the sea crossing. He also wants the UN to help curb the flow of refugees from Libya.

For the UK, distant from the front line, we know that a goodly proportion of those who do survive the crossing will end up in Calais, waiting for an opportunity to slip into Britain – even though many more end up in Germany and even Sweden (which has just lost its prime minister).

An intelligent and humanitarian response would be to address the "push" factors which motivate desperate people to take such terrible risks, but it is much easier to sit back and let a policy vacuum develop, blame the EU for our own inertia and let the darkies drown.

Because it is a long way away, and there is no direct link between our inertia and lives being snuffed out in the waters of the Mediterranean, we can ignore any responsibility for the crisis, and leave others to deal with it. It's nothing to do with us – humanitarian issues do not concern us in any way. We are British, after all. Let the "Europeans" sort it out.

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