Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Rescue at Sea: Migrants in the Mediterranean



Why are authorities in Italy and Libya trying to stop NGO vessels from rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean sea?


As long as there is war, poverty and insecurity in Africa and the Middle East, migrants and refugees will try and seek a better life in Europe. For many years now, one of the principal transit routes has been the dangerous sea crossing over the Mediterranean between Libya and Italy.
Images of anxious people crammed into small and manifestly unsafe boats run by human traffickers have become sadly familiar around the world, as have the stories of sinkings and drownings that tragically are regularly attendant on these journeys.
As a result, and against a background of hardening anti-migrant sentiment in  Europe, the problem of how to best respond to and control this phenomenon - and reduce the number of fatalities - has become ever more hotly debated.

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