Latest editorial
Life jackets are strewn across a Mediterranean beach
THE civil refugee rescue fleet has denounced Europe’s border policies after a United Nations report published today found that the EU-funded Libyan coastguard has returned over half of the people who have tried to flee the war-torn country by sea so far this year.
According to the report, entitled Desperate Journeys, from UN refugee agency the UNHCR, some 637 people are believed to have died while trying to reach Europe by sea from Libya in 2019.
The study also finds that more than a quarter (28 per cent) of the refugees who arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean this year were children.
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
While much attention is focused on Israel’s aggression, we cannot ignore the conflicts in Africa, stoked by Western imperialism and greed for natural resources, if we’re to understand the full picture of geopolitics today, argues ROGER McKENZIE