UN: 500 Migrants Adrift in Mediterranean

Facts

• On Thursday, the UN's International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that a Europe-bound vessel from Libya carrying approximately 500 migrants is in distress in the Mediterranean Sea, alleging that Italian and Maltese authorities have so far not responded to rescue calls.¹
• The IOM's warning echoes those of several non-profits, with Alarm Phone – an NGO that alerts authorities when migrant boats are in distress — first reporting the vessel's condition on Tuesday.¹
• The vessel has been at sea for several days, and there have been reports that it's experiencing engine failures.²
• According to the Italian-based humanitarian organization Emergency, Italian and Maltese authorities have traded responsibility for rescuing the boat. Alarm Phone announced its own rescue operation but lost contact with the vessel on Wednesday morning.³
• The news comes as several Italian coast guard missions have seen around 1.2K migrants rescued in the last 24 hours, with a vessel carrying 671 people due to reach the port of Reggio Calabria later on Thursday.¹
• Every year, tens of thousands of migrants cross the Mediterranean Sea on unsafe dinghies. As of Wednesday, nearly 50K people have reached the shores of Italy, compared with close to 18K people in the same period in 2022.⁴

Sources: ¹La Prensa Latina Media, ²Yahoo News, ³Al Jazeera, and ⁴CNN.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Ecre. Southern Europe is currently in the middle of a refugee crisis. The irregular border crossings into the EU across the Mediterranean have quadrupled in the first quarter of 2023 compared to last year. What are the authorities doing? Malta doesn't respond to distress calls, and Italy is pushing back boats to Libya. It's a deliberate hands-off policy that sees innocent people drown. This perpetual cycle of abuse must end.
• Right narrative, as provided by ECFR. The refugee and migration problem in the Mediterranean has exposed a solidarity crisis in the EU. There's no mechanism in place to share the responsibility for hosting migrants. As a consequence, the countries on the southern border are overburdened by an continual influx of migrants and forced to argue with the other nations in the north over which of them should host asylum seekers who reach Europe's shores. Italy and other southern nations can only rescue so many.