850 Migrants Dead in Mediterranean Boat Capsize

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On April 19th, 2015 yet another boat capsized in the Mediterranean. Tragically, only 28 people survived. UN officials have estimated that as many as 850 people may have been on board the severely overcrowded 20 foot long vessel. Tragically only 28 people survived. The rest, many of which were women and children trapped below deck, perished in the rolling sea. This makes it one of the worst maritime accidents the Mediterranean has seen since World War II.

The victims of the tragedy are of a class increasingly spotted in the Mediterranean. They are refugees fleeing their war torn countries. This particular boat was carrying desperate passengers out of Libya with a hope for a safer future in Europe. This capsizing brings the current estimated migrant death toll for April to well over 1,000. This makes it one of the worst months on record. Official estimates show April having three times as many migrants as the same time last year. They also estimate that as many as one million migrants have bottle necked in Libya from other war torn parts of the Middle East and Africa.

So just what is the world doing about this problem? Well the short answer is arguing. The closest country for many of the vessels is Italy. However, just this year Italy shut down their Mare Nostrum Search-and-Rescue Mission. It was replaced by Operation Triton, run by the EU’s border control agency, Frontex, which has a much narrower responsibility to patrol Italy’s territorial waters and a budget of less than a third that of Mare Nostrum. That combined with the increasing desperation of migrants to resettle in a safer continent has led to an increased death toll.

Sometimes other forces are called in to help. Just Monday, the Italian coastguard were called in to rescue a sinking fishing boat with 446 migrants aboard. All passengers — including 59 children and 95 women — were brought aboard an Italian Navy vessel.

The smugglers themselves are also seeing hard times in their operation. Rescue attempts have seen an increased number of smugglers forcibly take back their vessels when possible. This indicates that they are seeing a shortage of boats in which they can continue their operations. So in their thinking, the more people crammed on a boat, the larger the profit, but only if the boat is returned after the mission.

Just where these migrants will go once rescued remains to be seen. The people in charge have advocated for different plans anywhere from allowing the migrants to stay as refugees to sending them back to the danger they were trying to leave. The migrants’ future remains uncertain.

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