(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Crotone disaster a year on: EU still making the same mistakes [1] [] Date: 2024-02 A year ago today, at least 95 people perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Crotone, a small port city in southeast Italy. They had set off from İzmir, Turkey, sailing more than 1000 kilometres to get around Greece before trying to land in bad weather. The boat broke up on the rocks, killing around half the people on board. Questions were asked in the aftermath, most notably whether Frontex, Europe’s border agency, and the Italian authorities could have done more to prevent the tragedy. These questions intensified when it emerged they had been aware the overcrowded boat was heading into rough seas hours before it crashed. Another question hung in the air. Why would people who were presumably trying to reach the EU from Turkey set sail for Italy, when Greece is right there? There is a simple answer to this question, and a complex one. The simple but unsatisfying answer is: because the border with Greece is closed. The more complex answer requires some background. Crackdown after disaster 2023 was a year of tragedy across Europe’s borders. Just a few months after Crotone, as many as 600 people perished in similar circumstances off the Greek coast. Again, Frontex and the Greek coast guard were accused of allowing it to happen. Over 3000 people seeking shelter in Europe died in shipwrecks in the Mediterranean in 2023. It was death at a scale that has not been seen since the “migrant crisis” nearly a decade ago. As this was happening, European governments introduced a raft of anti-migrant policies to keep people from trying to get to Europe. These were designed to either physically prevent migrants from arriving, or to make their welcome so hostile that they wouldn’t want to come. The Italian government introduced a law penalising NGOs engaged in migrant rescue on the Mediterranean, and unveiled a scheme to “offshore” new arrivals to neighbouring Albania. The UK government doggedly tried to get its scheme for offshoring to Rwanda off the ground. And Frontex supplied material such as boats to the Libyan Coast Guard, a nebulous entity comprising various militias and criminal groups, so they can more effectively stop people leaving Libya. Finally, the European Council hailed a breakthrough in a common asylum and migration plan. It agreed on certain “crisis regulations”, allowing under certain conditions, for instance, summary detention of new arrivals for up to a month. These regulations are likely to deprive asylum seekers of basic rights and protections. Does migration deterrence work? However, there is no good evidence demonstrating that migration deterrence is actually effective. Instead, migration researchers have shown that such policies above all else push people to take more dangerous routes. Politicians routinely refuse to acknowledge this. When the Crotone disaster happened, I had just returned from a month onboard the charity rescue ship Ocean Viking, operated by IFRC and SOS Mediterranée. Onboard at various times were hundreds of rescuees, mostly from West Africa but a few from further afield, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Italian anti-NGO law had just been enacted, and was high on the crew’s mind. The law forces NGO boats to spend far more time travelling to distant disembarkation ports than patrolling the “rescue zone” in the waters above Libya. It effectively limits how many people the NGOs can rescue, without violating maritime law. “They found the perfect way to fuck us,” one crew member told me. Speaking to the rescuees onboard, it became clear they had little knowledge of, or interest in, European migration politics. They listened intently as IFRC crew explained the asylum procedure in Italy (the IFRC state they do not assist people in making claims, they simply explain the process). But they did not know or care about such deterrence schemes as Rwanda. From their point of view, the odds still looked better in Europe than what they had been experiencing in their home countries, or the extreme abuse they had faced in Libya. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/crotone-disaster-migrant-shipwreck-italy-a-year-on-eu-still-making-same-mistakes/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/