The EU agreements with Meloni push more dinghies to the Canary Islands

BarcelonaThe NGO Open Arms rescued 374 people in the Mediterranean in just four days last week. It is the second mission the organization has carried out in the central Mediterranean this year, after rescuing 9 more people in January, in an operation where the ship was anchored and without navigation permits for 20 days. The spokesperson for Open Arms in Italy, Valentina Brinis, explains that in this mission, the 111th, they rescued "many families and children". The youngest were two babies: one a month old and the other twelve weeks old.

This is the positive side of a reality, that of boats trying to cross to the other side of the sea, which do not always have a happy ending. In the last three years, the number of people who have died in the Mediterranean waters has not stopped increasing. Since the beginning of 2024, at least 1,315 migrants have lost their lives, according to calculations by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which warns that the real figure is much higher because many shipwrecks go unnoticed.

The data indicates a change in trend in migratory routes. According to the latest report from Frontex, the European agency that manages borders, there have been 113,400 attempts to cross into Europe irregularly in the first seven months of 2024. That's 36% less than in the same months last year. The route that has fallen the most has been the central Mediterranean route, which goes from Tunisia and Libya to the islands of Lampedusa and Sicily, in Italy. Although this is still the main maritime entry route for migrants to Europe, with 32,239 people since the beginning of the year, the report indicates that this year a "decrease" has been registered which "can be mainly attributed to the preventive measures of the Tunisian and Libyan authorities to interrupt the activities of smugglers". The policies of the European Union, complicit with the Italian government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, have led to a reduction in arrivals in the migratory corridor that leads to Italy. But, as a consequence, the migratory flow has skyrocketed on other routes.

"If you close one route, people will open another"

The spokesperson for Open Arms in Italy recalls that in the last year the Meloni government, with the support of the European Union, signed an agreement with Libya and Tunisia for them to act as a brake on migrants wanting to reach Europe, with the objective that "migrants no longer board ships". In July of last year, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, promised Tunisia 1 billion in exchange for preventing the departure of migrants. As a consequence, according to data from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, arrivals in the country have been reduced by 62.5% in just one year.

But, as Brinis warns, "if you close one route, people will open another." In the same period, the West African corridor – stretching from the African continent to the Canary Islands – recorded an unprecedented number of arrivals. According to Frontex, this route increased its flow by 154% year-on-year, surpassing 21,600 people.

The International Organization for Migration confirms this trend: in the first three months of 2024, 13,115 migrants arrived irregularly in the Canary Islands from the coasts of West Africa, five times more than those who crossed during the same period in 2023. Of the 201 boats that arrived in the Canary Islands between January and March, at least 12 capsized. The other main entry route to the European Union, the one connecting Turkey with Greece, has also seen a 54% increase in passers-by with almost 29,700 people.

Taking into account that, every year, in September and October, irregular arrivals by boat to Europe increase because the good weather window ends, the coming months will be decisive to check if the trend is confirmed. On the other hand, lifeguards have recently noticed that the boats migrants travel on are more precarious: "Lately, we have seen many people coming in iron boats with fiberglass," says Brinis, who describes these boats as "a death trap".

Violations in third countries

Regarding the Frontex report, Brinis assures that the data showing a reduction in arrivals in Italy "are not positive". "We know what happens to these people who are stopped in Libya and Tunisia: they are victims of human trafficking, rape..." In addition to the ease with which third countries can use immigration to blackmail Brussels, as has happened with Turkey, Morocco or Libya, many organizations have repeatedly warned of the human rights violations committed by the authorities of Libya and Tunisia against asylum seekers who wait at their borders. In May, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International's regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, denounced illegal collective deportations and arbitrary detentions of NGO workers for providing aid to asylum seekers: "The European Union should urgently review its cooperation agreements with Tunisia to ensure that it is not complicit in human rights violations against migrants and refugees nor in the repression of media, lawyers, migrants and activists," she lamented. On the other hand, in Libya, a failed state where human trafficking has become a normalized practice, it is common for migrants to spend months or years held by mafias.For Brinis, "the problem is at the beginning: we must ensure that people can move safely." Therefore, she argues that the "solution" is to "increase the number of visas that European states give to citizens of African countries." "We only see the people who arrive from African countries irregularly, but not the asylum applications we reject," she deplores.

The most common nationalities among people who have tried to cross the border are Syria, Afghanistan, and Mali. This data shows, once again, that the majority of people who risk their lives at sea in precarious boats to reach Europe are fleeing armed conflicts or violence imposed by the regimes governing their countries.