DOCTORS Without Borders (MSF) says the EU cannot continue to ignore a refugee tragedy of growing proportions, and must assume the urgent need to start providing a safe-passage mechanism.
This follows more than 4 200 deaths this year in the Mediterranean Sea. October has been a "merciless" month, according to MSF search-and-rescue teams working in the Mediterranean Sea to help hundreds of people seeking a safe passage to Europe.
MSF says the year has now become the deadliest since records began in terms of casualties of people seeking refuge via this maritime route.
Since April 2, when MSF’s search-and-rescue operations restarted, teams on board the Dignity I, Bourbon Argos and Aquarius have rescued a total of 18 000 people. About 333 000 people, many of them from Liberia, Mali and Nigeria, have arrived by sea to Europe.
Nicholas Papachrysostomou, co-ordinator of the Dignity I search-and-rescue boat, recounted a harrowing day aboard the ship last month.
“We were called for a new rescue of a rubber boat that was not very far from our position, so we arrived pretty fast with two semi-rigid inflatable boats without knowing very well what we would find. It surpassed our worst nightmares. When we reached there, the distressed boat was full of dozens of people in panic.
“Their eagerness to be saved was such that they couldn’t wait, they wouldn’t listen. They were a mixture of people from Liberia to Mali, among many other places – men, women and children,” he said.
Before the rescuers decided how to react, people started jumping into the water.
“They screamed and grabbed our inflatable boats. We began taking them on board but when the others saw that, they thought it was a safe way to go, and more people started jumping in. In a matter of minutes, there was a multitude in the sea and the teams were working non-stop to get them on board.”
Many of them were unconscious, burnt and nearly drowned. Rescuers put in place a medical evacuation with the support of a speed boat from the Italian Coast Guard.
As this was happening, they pushed the distressed boat alongside the Dignity I and realised the magnitude of the tragedy: there were nine dead bodies inside.
“It had cracked from within, and children and women – who normally sit in the middle – had been trampled. They suffocated swimming in a mixture of fuel and sea water.
“My colleagues tied the floating cemetery alongside so we wouldn’t lose it, and we let other vessels know about the situation so that the bodies could be collected. In about eight hours, we conducted a total of eight rescues,” Papachrysostomou said.
The rescue teams did not have enough space for all and were limited to giving out life jackets, securing their vessels and encouraging the refugees until they were to be picked up.
Dignity I ended up with about 668 people aboard that day, a huge number that needed to be cleaned of fuel, fed and given information about the loved ones they had lost.
“It was altogether very tough for us to assimilate. Unfortunately, these kinds of images have become so habitual that it seems difficult to raise any more awareness about the suffering people are going through.”
These were the teams concluding operations last month, which ended up becoming the most difficult operation month of the year, partially because of the deteriorating weather conditions, with gale-force winds and big waves as winter in those parts approaches quickly.
“Rather than focusing on deterrence measures and externalisation agreements, Europe should invest much more in reception according to EU standards, and develop an approach designed to address the medical, humanitarian and protection needs of people arriving at its borders,” Papachrysostomou said.