Italy Rescues 1,500 Migrants
Italian navy and coast guard ships rescued around 1,500 migrants aboard five boats in the southern Mediterranean in less than 24 hours, officials said on Sunday.
All of the migrants were rescued on Saturday by two coast guard ships and one navy ship in five separate operations, the coast guard said in a statement.
Three of the migrants' boats were in difficulty and sent rescue requests via satellite phones while they were off the coast of Libya. The Italian vessels spotted the other two while heading for the others.
The migrants were all transboarded onto the Italian ships and were being taken to either the island of Lampedusa or ports in Sicily, the statement said.
About 170,000 migrants entered the European Union through Italy last year by way of the dangerous sea crossing organized by human traffickers, most departing from Libya. More than 3,000 perished.
During the first two months of this year, arrivals were up 43 percent versus the same period of 2014, officials have said.
United Nations Boosts Coordination
United Nations agencies met in March at IMO and agreed to establish a mechanism to enhance existing inter-agency communication about the flood of migrants taking to sea in their attempt to leave Africa.
The agencies are concerned about the loss of life, injury, trauma and serious human rights violations affecting migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. Building on the ‘Joint Statement on Protection at Sea in the Twenty-First Century’, that was agreed during the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Dialogue on Protection Challenges, held in Geneva on 10 December 2014, it was agreed to establish an interim, informal mechanism for enhancing inter-agency communication that would facilitate operational-level communication.
Although precise details of the mechanism are yet to be finalized, it was envisaged that it might, for example, consider: the establishment of joint databases to share and collate information and statistics on irregular movements and suspect vessels; quantifying the effects of irregular and unsafe crossings on the shipping industry and improving maritime situational awareness.
Situation Intolerable
Speaking at the meeting, IMO Secretary-General Koji Sekimizu said “The issue of mixed migration by sea, including irregular migration, has been a serious concern for decades – if not longer. But, in recent years, it has reached epidemic proportions, to the extent where the whole system for coping with such migrants is being stretched up to, and sometimes beyond, its breaking point,” and he called for a collective effort to bring about a solution to the problem of thousands of lives being placed in danger at sea.
Sekimizu has also called for more concerted action to address the issue of criminals who organize illegal and unregulated sea passage by migrants, putting thousands of lives at risk.
“We do not seek to prevent migration. People have the human right to migrate. But it is time to stop illegal, unregulated passage arranged by people smugglers. Not only do they put the lives of the migrants in danger, they also endanger the rescue services and merchant shipping which take part in the rescue operations. Something needs to be done against the smugglers or the situation will not improve. It is placing an intolerable strain on rescue services and on merchant vessels,” Sekimizu said.
“This is a serious issue for IMO and a humanitarian tragedy. There is a strong tradition of search and rescue at sea and this will continue, but the search and rescue services provided by a number of countries are overstretched. Even with the contribution of the Italian Navy and Italian Coast Guard, more than 600 merchant ships were diverted last year to go to the support of persons in distress at sea. This is beyond acceptable limits and without the Italian efforts many more would have died. The efforts of Italian rescuers – and others – are greatly appreciated but we have reached the point where we need to focus more effort on the prevention side.”