Thousands of migrants remain unidentified, missing in Mediterranean

25 Sep 2023

Source: The Washington Post

Migrants sit in a life raft off the waters of Tunisia early Wednesday, May 25, 2022 (AP)

By Al Mayadeen English

A new report by the Washington Post sheds light on migrants who went missing in the Mediterranean with inadequate identification efforts, leaving families in anguish.

Over the past decade, the Mediterranean Sea, separating Europe from the MENA region, has transformed into a theater of mass tragedy. Of the over 2 million migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East who have undertaken the perilous journey, at least 28,000 remain missing.

A recent report by The Washington Post details the tragedies that irregular migration has claimed in the Mediterranean.

The first quarter of 2023 marked the deadliest period in the central Mediterranean since 2017, as reported by the International Organization for Migration. Director General António Vitorino expressed his deep concern that these deaths may have “been normalized”.

Read more: French authorities wary of migration influx: reports

Shockingly, of the known deceased, only 13 percent of the bodies are ever recovered by European authorities, as estimated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The vast majority of those who perish are never identified. The chances of a relative receiving confirmation of their missing loved one’s death are as slim as winning the lottery, as described by a humanitarian official. 

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“It’s certainly more challenging than, say, a domestic air crash, but with the right will, it can be done,” said Cristina Cattaneo, a professor of forensic pathology at the University of Milan, who works tirelessly to identify the bodies of migrants recovered by Italian authorities. 

However, Cattaneo’s Labanof laboratory receives no state funding. European governments allocate minimal resources for the recovery, preservation, and identification of human remains arriving on their shores.

Read more: Four Tunisians arrested for piracy over migrant boat engine thefts

“You collect all the information that you need and put it in your data,” she explains. “The difficult part is looking for the relative, but it’s not impossible.”

“People are voluntarily and consciously turning their heads from the problem,” remarks Cattaneo, highlighting the dire need for coordinated efforts to address the ongoing Mediterranean migrant crisis.

In Italy and Greece, limited coordination exists among different offices and regions handling cases of missing migrants.

An agreement from 2018 between Italy, Malta, Greece, and Cyprus to share forensic information with the European Commission has yet to be fully realized.

Read more: Over 870 migrants cross English Channel in 15 boats in one day

EU politicians summoned to The Hague over illegal pushback of refugees

December 1, 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

EU politicians are accused of conspiring with Libyan coastguards to push refugees back to Libya only to be placed in detention camps.

NGO rescuers at sea (via Twitter @CaoimheButterly)

German NGO European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) filed a formal complaint to The Hague accusing several high-ranking EU and Members of State officials of “atrocious crimes committed against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers,” an ECCHR executive summary of a Communication to the International Criminal Court reads.

The charges specifically involve EU politicians conspiring with Libyan coastguards by intercepting refugees and preventing them from reaching Europe by sea and forcing them to return to Libya only to be placed in detention camps.

According to the summary, the illegal pushbacks took place between 2018 and 2021 but initially began in February 2017 when the Italian government struck a deal with Libya to intercept refugees at sea.

Among the suspects include EU’s former foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the Italian Interior Minister at the time of the deal, Marco Minniti, as well as some co-conspirators, namely Matteo Salvini, the far-right leader who served as Interior Minister in 2018-2019 and his then chief of staff, and Matteo Piantedosi, who is now Interior Minister.

Former and current prime ministers of Malta are also included in the complaint, namely Malta’s current Prime Minister, Robert Abela, and his predecessor, Joseph Muscat.

The former executive director of European border agency Frontex Fabrice Leggeri is also listed.

Read more: UK coastguard failed to prevent migrant drowning disaster: Independent

According to The Guardian, Minniti said he had no idea about the complaint, adding that he will “evaluate it, like the other interior ministers from 2017 until today.”

“At the time, the agreement was signed by the Italian prime minister, [Paolo] Gentiloni, and his counterpart, [Fayez] al-Sarraj. So, from all the records, it appears that I am not the signatory,” he added.

The deal was successful at reducing 81% of migration in Italy’s southern shores during the first half of 2018 compared with the first half of 2017.

It was renewed in 2020 and again earlier in November for one year.

The renewal cost Italy a total of €13m.

“The Communication details 12 exemplary incidents of the interception of migrants and refugees at sea and their return to and detention in Libya between 2018 and 2021. The incidents present a particularly clear and detailed picture of the cooperation between European Union agencies (particularly the European Commission, EUNAVFOR MED, and Frontex) and Member States (including Italy and Malta) with Libyan actors, on both the policy and operational levels, with regard to the interception of migrants and refugees at sea for the purpose of their return to and detention in Libya,” the ECCHR summary reads. 

Christopher Hein, a professor of law and immigration policies at Luiss University in Rome, claimed that the “deal is totally in line with the policy of the EU.” 

“It is a bilateral agreement, but it is supported and co-financed by the EU,” Hein said, adding that “tens of thousands” of people had been intercepted and brought back to Libya since 2017, with 35,000 intercepted so far this year.

Read more: EU: New migrant plan approved after France-Italy spat

For years, Brussels has been struggling to agree on and implement a new policy for sharing responsibility for migrants and asylum seekers, but the row has brought the issue to the fore.

Italy’s new government under the far-right leader, Georgia Meloni, refused to allow earlier this month a Norwegian-flagged NGO ship with 234 migrants on board rescued from the Mediterranean to dock.

The Ocean Viking eventually arrived in France, where authorities reacted angrily to Rome’s stance, canceling an earlier agreement to accept 3,500 asylum seekers stranded in Italy.

The row jeopardized the EU’s stopgap interim solution, prompting Paris to convene an extraordinary meeting of interior ministers from the 27 member states on Friday.  “The Ocean Viking crisis was a bit of improvisation,” Schinas admitted, defending the new plan from his commission to better coordinate rescues and migrant and refugee arrivals.

“We have twenty specific actions, we have an important political agreement, everyone is committed to working so as not to reproduce this kind of situation.”

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin stated that France has no reason to accept migrants relocated from Italy if Rome “does not accept the law of the sea.”

In addition, Darmanin’s Italian opposite number Matteo Piantedosi played down the Ocean Viking incident, saying the meeting was “not dealing with individual cases or operational management.” He stated that he had shaken hands with the French Minister and that there was a “convergence of positions” that would allow the ministers to resume discussions at their meeting on December 8.

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Europe Wants War

July 1, 2022

Source

By Declan Heyes

Though The European Union’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defence reads like Hitler penned it, the EU has recently formally approved this dangerous nonsense now that “we witness the return of war in Europe”, something the EU apparently did not witness when Serbia was put to NATO’s sword from 1992 to 1995.

Europe, these Eurocrats inform us, “needs to be able to protect its citizens and to contribute to international peace and security… following the unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as of major geopolitical shifts”, which are not explicitly stated but which the EU’s Army will tackle alongside its “partners to safeguard its values and interests”.

So, besides teaching Russia some bloody lessons, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta will also teach the wider world a thing or two about their shared values and interests, whatever they may be.

This is all good as a more assertive Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta “will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defence for its members. It will also intensify support for the global rules-based order, with the United Nations at its core”.

Even though Lithuania and Luxembourg are NATO’s muscle, Ireland and Malta are not parties to that criminal conspiracy and long may that continue. Furthermore, as the United Nations is a body, which the United States liaises with only when it suits their own selfish interests, the EU should either find a better fig leaf to sheathe its self serving hypocrisy with, or just say it wants to be America’s unthinking vassal.

Not that the EU’s finest would ever consider themselves anybody’s vassals. They intend to strengthen cooperation with strategic partners such as NATO, the UN and regional partners, including the OSCE, the African Union (AU) and ASEAN; develop more tailored bilateral partnerships with like-minded countries and strategic partners, such as the U.S., Canada, Norway, the UK, Japan and others; develop tailored partnerships in the Western Balkans, the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood, Africa, Asia and Latin America, including through enhancing dialogue and cooperation, promoting participation in CSDP missions and operations and supporting capacity-building.

To see what the EU’s headless chickens are up to, let’s look at these partners in some more detail. As the African Union includes every country in Africa, bar the former French and Spanish protectorate of Morocco, one has to wonder what further devilment France, Africa’s favorite gendarme, has in store not only for Morocco but for all of that long exploited continent, which the EU continues to happily ravish.

One must also wonder why Australia and New Zealand are not included in the EU’s wish list of military partners and if an EU task force is already on its way to liberate Australia’s kangaroos and koala bears from whatever Putin or Assad happens to be ruling the roost there.

Not that koala bears and kangaroos are alone in being legitimate targets. If the EU is forming alliances with Norway and Japan, then not only Moby Dick but whales everywhere are in for a rough time.

Still, if we are to gang up with Latin America (given the Munroe Doctrine, with Uncle Sam’s permission, of course), that might result in a higher standard of samba and tango dancing in Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta, and I’d be the last to object to that (and I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese but could do with a few samba pointers).

Still, outside of Russophones, that leaves us decidedly short of enemies; tiny Morocco hardly counts and we don’t want to hurt any kangaroos or koala bears.

But maybe panda bears are fair game as China is conspicuous by its absence on that list, as ASEAN is notable for being included on the list. The beauty of ASEAN, to me, is that it is composed of ten diverse South East Asian countries that are trying to plot a common future for themselves free from the economic, diplomatic and military meddling that are synonymous with the countries at the heart of the EU. All ten of those ASEAN countries live in the shadow of China and, though Vietnam in particular has had a chequered history with China, their future lies alongside China, not being used as an EU-NATO lever to upend China and themselves.

Stripped of its chaff, this is old European wine in new NATO bottles. It is to recreate the Wehrmacht with a gaggle of mini Napoleons to lead it and profit from it, along with whatever Irish, Lithuanian, Scottish and other satellite cheerleaders NATO have on the take.

Look at the Baltic pimple of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which is not content with oppressing its Russian speaking minority but is in a trade war with China and is hell bent on taking on Russia in a hot war because it thinks the EU, Ireland, Luxembourg and mighty Malta, in other words, has its back.

Ireland has nobody’s back, not even its own. Even as it howls to its Anglo American bosses that Russian ships passed within 500km of its coast, it allows British war ships moor in Cork, a city the British previously burned to the ground, and the Royal British Airforce violate its airspace on a daily base and even host air displays over its capital city.

Although the European peoples do indeed have some shared values, they are more benign than those their mercenary political class in pimple statelets like Ireland and Lithuania share. These satraps give China and Russia the finger because that is what their NATO masters require of them. Were those leaders adult, never mind independent, they would try to act as peace brokers and not pretend that their tiny, debt ravaged economies have anything more than a fig leaf to offer NATO’s war lords.

But that is not the Europe we have. Because ours is a continent beholden to NATO and its political puppets, we must all prepare for the deluge that is coming our way, and all because NATO’s Lithuanian satrap thinks she is a Moses, who can hold apart two parts of sovereign Russia to support the world’s richest clown who has NATO’s Kiev gig.

Europe, with its crocodile tears for kangaroos and koala bears, thinks those they target should forever stand beguiled by them, their French perfumes and their German colognes. Nothing stands still and China and the countries of ASEAN and the African Union do not. Europe should either holster its guns, sheathe its swords or prepare to use them and batten the hatches for the overwhelming incoming fire they, their French perfumes and their German colognes will get in return.