ON September 5 Al Jazeera reported that 60 refugees stranded in the Mediterranean, mostly from Lebanon and Syria, had not got any help from European coastguards despite distress calls and reports of children among them dying. Instead, they were being watched from a container ship.

They were were eventually rescued by the Greek coastgaurd and a four-year-old girl died on her way to hospital three days after activists alerted them to the boat being in distress.

Such reports of criminal insensitivity are not an aberration. Every year, thousands of people die from drowning or go missing in the Mediterranean while trying to cross over to Europe from conflict-ridden, poor and developing nations in Asia and Africa.  

The death of these people, most of them desperate to find safety and a better life given the social, economic and political distress in their own countries, can mainly be attributed to the illegal and inhuman immigration policies pursued by rich European countries that otherwise claim to be champions of human and refugee rights, like in the case of Ukraine.

However, the EU continues to deny its role and blames only the victims.  

Reacting to the EU’s migration policy, UN high commissioner for refugees Filippo Grandi recently said that he is not surprised.

He called the EU’s policy of deterring refugees through “restricted legislations, barbed wire and naval blockades,” while welcoming Ukrainians, racism.  

Violent pushbacks  

In 2020, a Guardian report held EU pushbacks as the reason for the death of over 2,000 refugees.

The report pointed to illegal tactics of violence and intimidation including excessive beating, sometimes with metal rods and physical abuse of “women and children” by the Frontex, the European border and coastguard agency.

In most of the cases, refugees remain stranded at sea in small overcrowded dinghies after violent pushbacks by the Frontex before dying due to drowning, dehydration and hunger.   

According to the UNHRC, the total number of refugee deaths in such cases reached over 3,000 in 2021.

The figure for this year is already over 750. All these people have died or “gone missing” while trying to cross the Mediterranean.  

According to the UNHCR, in 2021, 123,300 individual crossings were reported through the Mediterranean and north-west Atlantic and at least 3,232 people were reported missing or dead in the region.

Of these, 1,924 people were missing or dead in the central and western Mediterranean alone — the coasts between Libya, Italy and Monaco. 

According to the International Organisation for Migration’s Missing Migrant Project, the Mediterranean accounts for almost half of all missing and dead migrants in the world since 2014 when it started collecting such data.

Some 24,581 migrants (19,484 in the central Mediterranean alone) have died or are missing in the region, against the total dead or missing migrants figure of 50,087.  

Frontex is facing several investigations inside the EU for violations of its own laws relating to the treatment of asylum-seekers. However, as per Guardian reports, it continues to enjoy strong support from EU officials.

The EU has also supported and financed external agencies, like the Libyan coastguard, in order to prevent the flow of migrants, despite knowing their record of abuse and violations of basic human rights.  

The fact that Libyan authorities and informal militias have been involved in large-scale human-trafficking of migrants using the chaos created by the war in the country is well known.

Those who survive the pushback by EU authorities and end up in Libya often face torture, extortion of money from their families and even death during their detention there.  

It is clear that the abuses which migrants face cannot solely be blamed on Libyan coastguards or other smuggling groups.

In fact, European reluctance to take in the refugees makes them vulnerable to abuse by such elements who use the migrants to make easy money. The suffering of migrants can be directly linked to the EU’s policies.

Forced to migrate  

In 2020, at least 3.6 per cent of the global population or around 281 million people were living as international migrants — and the number of migrants reaching Europe through the Mediterranean has seen steady growth recently.  

The number increased to 116,573 in 2021 from 88,143 in 2020, a 20 per cent increase. This is still small when compared to migration within poorer countries and counters the myth and hype propagated by European countries of millions flooding their borders.  

Globally, over 100 million people were forced to flee their homes due to conflicts in 2021 alone. This was more than the 89.3m recorded in 2020.

However, only a small part of the entire migrant population has sought refuge in Europe — most still live in poorer countries in their home region.  

The reasons cited by global agencies for continued movement towards Europe from countries in Africa and Asia are political instability, armed conflict, persistent economic challenges and climate change.

European countries are directly or indirectly responsible for many of these crises. Most of the conflicts that drive refugee flows — like in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and sub-Saharan and northern Africa — have seen the direct or indirect involvement of European countries, and historically, the Western hand in the colonial looting of Africa and elsewhere is beyond doubt.

Instead of disengaging from imperialist aggression, wars and neocolonial looting of third world resources in order to reduce the burden on their governments and allow policies that can tackle popular distress, EU policy-makers indulge in racist and murderous anti-immigration policies.

Britain’s recent deal worth millions with Rwanda, designed to further deny relief to those who are seeking to escape suffering, is a case in point.

If it is really serious about its commitments to human rights, the EU needs to rethink “the concept of borders which is difficult to reconcile with the idea of universal human equality,” Laura Zanfrini, a professor of sociology at Catholic University in Milan, said in a UN conference last year.

As Grandi underlined, “fair and effective reception [of all migrants] is possible.”

This article appeared on peoplesdispatch.org.