The Mediterranean has claimed more than 2,200 migrants in 2024. Here’s why it could be worse this year
More than 2,200 people died or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea last year, the The UN says. With more European countries supporting the success of far-right policies aimed at locking up migrantsexperts warn even more lives could be lost in 2025 without real change.
As revelers rang in the new year around the globe, dire news emerged from the Mediterranean: A small boat traveling from Libya had sunk near the Italian island of Lampedusa, leaving only seven survivors, including an eight-year-old boy whose mother was among the more than 20 people who went missing.
It is an all too common story in the region, where countless ships carrying migrants attempt to cross the waters to Europe. Many never finish their journey. Almost 1,700 people were killed or missing in 2024 along the central Mediterranean route, which stretches from North Africa to Italy and Malta.
The deaths come after a year of increasing repression of civilian lifeboats in the Mediterranean, as well as an attempt by Italy’s far-right government. to transfer asylum seekers to Albania.
Michael Gordon, a research fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont., said non-governmental organizations that conduct search and rescue operations have become “an easy scapegoat” for authorities frustrated by the surplus of migrants.
“The result of this criminalization (is) … there are fewer assets at sea helping migrants in distress. And as a result, people will continue to die,” he said in an interview with CBC News.
More than 31,000 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.
The death toll in 2024 includes “hundreds of children, who make up one in five of all people migrating across the Mediterranean,” Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF regional director for Europe and Central Asia and special coordinator for the response of refugees and migrants in 2024. Europe, said in a statement last week. “The majority are fleeing violent conflict and poverty.”
“Widespread criminality” of civilian lifeboats
Growing anti-immigration sentiment is making these crossings more dangerous, according to experts and human rights groups.
In 2023, Italy made it illegal for search and rescue NGOs to carry out more than one rescue per voyage, meaning ships would have to ignore any other distress calls they received, or risk massive fines and have their ships arrested.
In November, the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch presented a criminal complaint against Italian authorities over a September shipwreck that killed 21 people, claiming he had alerted the Italian coast guard to an emergency boat but that a rescue vessel was not dispatched for two days.
Italian authorities also regularly assign distant ports for NGO rescue ships. Last month, SOS Méditerranée, an international rescue organization, shared on social media that it was forced to travel more than 1,600 miles over several days to rescue 162 survivors after Italian authorities ignored pleas for a closer port of entry.
“We have been sanctioned for merely fulfilling our legal duty to save lives,” said Juan Matias Gil, a representative of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. a statement after his rescue vessel was issued a 60-day detention order in August.
This “widespread criminalization” of civilian rescue operations unnecessarily puts lives at risk, said researcher Gordon, who also works with Wilfrid Laurier University’s Center for International Migration Research.
“I think this is also very much related to the rise of far-right governments in Europe.”
Migrant arrivals fall dramatically in Italy
The policy of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was elected in 2022 on an anti-immigration platform, brought results for his government in 2024. Just over 66,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat this year past, about 60 percent of the 157,000 people. which arrived in 2023, the country Reports of the Ministry of the Interior.
The recorded number of deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean – already a low estimate, since many boats disappear without a trace during the crossing – fell by about 28 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to IOM data.
“The fact that we have fewer arrivals does not mean that we have fewer risks,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, UNICEF’s country coordinator of migration and refugee response in Italy, told CBC News.
Dell’Arciprete worked with children fleeing war, extreme poverty or political upheavals. Many arrive without parents or guardians.
“They’re really running from nightmares,” he said. “The factors that drive people to Europe haven’t really changed.”
Minimizing migrant deaths requires more investment in reception centers, contingency plans for periods of high arrivals, safer and legal routes for immigration and enhanced search and rescue operations, Dell’Arciprete said, adding that the the question is whether there is “political will to advance along these lines”.
This year, European countries will evaluate their regulations to plan the implementation of the new one European Union Pact on Asylum and Migration. The pact, the first update to Europe’s asylum laws in two decades, was agreed in 2024 but will not see full implementation until 2026.
EU pays countries to control migrants
Italy and the EU have largely focused on countries of origin to control migrants. The EU gave 10 million euros of aid Tunisia in 2023 to strengthen border control and prevent migrant boats from leaving its shores, and wrote a 7.4 billion euros ($11 billion Cdn) to strengthen “stability” in Egypt, with a focus on migration control.
Meloni played a key role in securing the Tunisia deal, which is now widely attributed to the drop in migrant arrivals in 2024, with a similar deal that Italy made with Libya in 2017 .
Human rights groups have said that returning migrants found at sea in Libya are exposing them to torture and abuse under arbitrary detention.
However, Italy’s immigration policies have received praise from other European leaders, such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who in September combined The “remarkable progress” of Italy.
Italy’s latest tactic to reduce migrants fell flat last fall, when Meloni struck a deal with Albania that would see up to 36,000 asylum seekers sent directly to the country outside of the EU every year to await deportation, only for the Italian courts to refuse to do so. validate the transfer of migrants.
The plan is now stalled over disagreements about what constitutes a safe country, although Meloni promised in December to continue the project.
Experts say that without significant change, tragedies in the Mediterranean will continue.
“Until we strengthen search and rescue operations, until we create safe and legal pathways for children to travel to Europe, we are going to see more people die,” said Dell’Arciprete. “And that is a simple fact.”
At least 59 migrants have died after a boat capsized off the coast of Italy with up to 200 people on board. Many of the dead were children. The crash brought the issue of irregular and dangerous migrant crossings back into focus.
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2025-01-08 09:00:00
