2023-09-22 14:00:05
Pope Francis, upon his arrival on the island of Lampedusa, July 8, 2013. MARCELLO PATERNOSTRO / AFP
Ten years have passed since Pope Francis visited Lampedusa in 2013 to denounce the” indifference “ of the world to the fate of migrants. Ten years, and Lampedusa is once again the symbol of a Europe which is struggling politically with the flow of arrivals in the Mediterranean. Friday September 22, it was in Marseille that the sovereign pontiff was to raise a prayer to the migrants missing at sea: 30,000 have lost their lives there since 2014, according to incomplete data from the International Organization for Migration.
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“We have heard a lot of “never again”, but the dramas will continue, to the extent that the sea becomes the only space without clear borders”, predicted, fatalistically, Vincent Cochetel, special envoy of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the Western and Central Mediterranean. While the European Union (EU) has announced a plan to help Italy with the current influx on its coasts, responses remain focused on stemming arrivals, contributing to the displacement of roads around the basin for ten years Mediterranean.
Depending on the political and economic contexts in the countries of origin and transit, the scale of movements has also varied, with a peak of more than a million arrivals in 2015 (including 850,000 people disembarking in Greece), fallout from 2016 to 360,000 (distributed between Greece and Italy), then to less than 100,000 in 2019, and which, for Italy alone, has reached 130,000 since January. It was in turn Syrians, Afghans, but also Tunisians, Nigerians, Egyptians and Guineans who were the first to take to the sea. Faced with these complex dynamics, “the European Union has a short-term objective of closure, regrets Flavio Di Giacomo, spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration for the Mediterranean. We need more balanced and open policies”.
Irregular migrants detected Dead or missing migrants
Sources : Frontex ; OIM, Missing Migrants Projetc
Infographics The world : Victor Simonnet and Eric Dedier
Initiative des « hotspots »
The French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, affirmed on September 19 that sub-Saharan migrants arriving in Lampedusa do not qualify for asylum. “Many people suffer violations in transit countries, and this undermines the distinction between economic migrant and refugee”points out M. Di Giacomo.
“Many people have lived for months, even years, in Tunisia and no longer feel safe there. There have always been mixed movements towards Europe, underlines Mr. Cochetel. We will give more money to Tunisia to block departures, but the flows are dynamic. In addition, the war in Sudan is causing massive population displacements. Chad has received more than 400,000 refugees since mid-April. In Niger, trafficking in goods and people has restarted since the coup d’état. In Mali, fighting resumes. We must not believe – even if the majority of migrations take place between Southern countries – that all these crises will not affect Europe. There is a need to share the welcome of those in need of protection. »
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