MALTESE WATERS AWASH WITH MIGRANTS

July 5, 2012

Coast guards have rescued 84 Somali "boat people" today as their dingy started to take in water. The patrol boat had been shadowing the overcrowded vessel and intervened once it became evident that the dingy had started to take in water. Only yesterday, another boat had been approached and three women and a baby were rescued, while the remaining 40 refugees chose to continue their perilous journey to Sicily. Last year alone, a total of 2,000 people are said to have drowned in the Mediterranean. Who knows how many others died without a trace!

The boat that picked up today's refugees

And the lucky ones? They probably wish they had drowned too.

Refugees, including children, are put into detention centres (prisons, really) and left to languish there for months on end. Children are abused and many people die within European borders. Is this civilisation?

Of course the problem is a difficult one. There are approximately 15,000,000 recognised refugees and a total on 42,500,000 internally displaced people in the world. In Europe the number of refugees rose by 15%, although in southern Europe the increase is closer to 90%!

Some would say: "If Europe were too welcoming, it too would sink! So what is the solution?

The very least would be to abide by the law. Malta has a decent enough Asylum Policy and yet people are detained there for up to a year. The situation in Cyprus, which has just taken over the European presidency, is even worse.

So could the Common Asylum System being worked on by the EU work?

It may not be looking very likely, but it has to. After that policymakers should start thinking creatively on how to give these people a decent chance. It would possibly be cheaper to buy a whole chunk of Somalia or Afghanistan, than pay for these people to be kept in these detention centres they loath. Why not create regenerative projects within these countries that would discourage them from making the journey in the first place? Where possible, work with national government.

Whatever you do, please don't let them drown in the Med's terrifying depths, or the murky depths of Europe's bureaucracy.


"Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them —

Ding-dong, bell."