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About 204 people have died in recent days after being crammed into dangerous boats by smugglers. 103 of them lost in a sinking Friday and more lost Sunday when a rubber boat capsized east of Tripoli with 41 survivors.
"There is an alarming increase in deaths at sea off the coast of Libya," said Othman Belbeisi, IOM's chief of mission in Libya. "Smugglers exploit the desperation of migrants to leave before other measures of repression are taken by Europe against the Mediterranean crossings."
The number of migrants has decreased since 2015, the number of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands. The other main road, from Turkey to Greece, used by more than a million people in 2015, was largely closed two years ago.
IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle said the surge in recent days could be due to factors such as the time and the end of Ramadan.
"But there is also recognition around the world that the European Union is starting to better manage the process, so maybe they're also trying to take advantage of what they're doing. smugglers will always put profit before safety. "
Despite the recent increase in deaths, the number of casualties lost at sea this year is less than half that recorded at that time. last year.
But the journey by land across the Sahara and then across the Mediterranean remains the deadliest flyway in the world and polarizes European politics.The right-wing anti-immigrant parties took power in Italy last month, they are now firmly anchored in the former communist states of Central Europe and have won seats in the German parliament for the first time since the 1940s last year.
Diman Germany's Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, has proposed to resign for immigration proposals brought back from Brussels by Chancellor Angela Merkel, questioning the survival of her fragile government.
Efforts to reduce trafficking in human beings have focused in part on the development of a Coast Guard for Libya that returns migrants captured off the coast.
However, there was controversy over the conditions of their treatment in Libya.
Between Friday and Sunday, nearly 1,000 migrants were returned to the Libyan coast by the Libyan coast guard. So far this year, the coast guard has returned to about 10,000 meters from the shore, where the Libyan authorities have transferred them to detention centers.
"Migrants sent back by the Coast Guard should not be automatically transferred to custody and we are deeply concerned that detention centers will again be overcrowded and that living conditions will deteriorate with the influx. recent migrants ".
IOM Chief William Lacy Swing said he would be traveling to Tripoli this week to see the conditions.
"IOM is committed to upholding the human rights of all migrants because together we are all making efforts to stop the smuggling of people, which exploits so much the migrants ", did he declare.
Swing will be replaced later this year by Antonio Vitorino. – Reuters
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