FFM Analysis: 1280-1480 People Dead in the Central Mediterranean since May 2014 (updated: 26.07.2014, 18.37h)
Since May 2014 news reports indicate that the Italian military operation Mare Nostrum repeatedly retreats from the Sea area of Libya, leaving ever-greater gaps that cannot be closed by the Italian coast guard responding to distress-calls. Several shipwrecks have occurred despite distress-calls launched by refugees. These reports only rarely gain media attention. Hereby FFM provides a round-up of all reports concerning drowned boat-people in the Central Mediterranean in the aforementioned period of time that appeared only briefly in a few news-outlets and that were nowhere systematically investigated and summarised. The Italian military operation Mare Nostrum and the governments of the EU and North-Africa do not count the dead.
The relation between the retreat of Mare Nostrum and the increase in shipwrecks is reported by Human Rights Watch in the beginning of June 2014:http://ffm-online.org/2014/06/05/this-summer-could-become-the-season-of-mass-drownings-in-the-mediterranean-hrw-ai/
The censorship-resembling silence concerning the shipwrecks relates to the method of rescuing: the boat-refugees who are rescued by the Italian operation Mare Nostrum or by cargo vessels usually have to hand-in their mobile phones. Only two or three days after they have been brought to land in Sicily or Calabria, direct communication to relatives and their community in Italy is enabled.
When relatives and community-members learn about distress-calls by refugees, they support them by calling the administration in charge. These, however, usually do not get back to them. In this way, days pass by in complete uncertainty and the investigation of shipwrecks becomes tremendously difficult.
Due to this situation, the investigations are extraordinarily inexact. It may be that some reports concerning one and the same event cannot be definitively allocated. It is probable that several other shipwrecks in the period of time were not noticed.
Additionally, the arrests of boat-people by Libyan or Egyptian administrations and their return to North-African camps where torture is practiced are not mentioned. The connection between the detection of refugee-boats by Mare Nostrum/Frontex and the deportation back to North-Africa is documentable in individual cases.
http://ffm-online.org/2014/07/19/libyen-sizilien-60-boat-people-ertrunken/
The full report:
http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/54
---
Helmut Dietrich
The relation between the retreat of Mare Nostrum and the increase in shipwrecks is reported by Human Rights Watch in the beginning of June 2014:http://ffm-online.org/2014/06/05/this-summer-could-become-the-season-of-mass-drownings-in-the-mediterranean-hrw-ai/
The censorship-resembling silence concerning the shipwrecks relates to the method of rescuing: the boat-refugees who are rescued by the Italian operation Mare Nostrum or by cargo vessels usually have to hand-in their mobile phones. Only two or three days after they have been brought to land in Sicily or Calabria, direct communication to relatives and their community in Italy is enabled.
When relatives and community-members learn about distress-calls by refugees, they support them by calling the administration in charge. These, however, usually do not get back to them. In this way, days pass by in complete uncertainty and the investigation of shipwrecks becomes tremendously difficult.
Due to this situation, the investigations are extraordinarily inexact. It may be that some reports concerning one and the same event cannot be definitively allocated. It is probable that several other shipwrecks in the period of time were not noticed.
Additionally, the arrests of boat-people by Libyan or Egyptian administrations and their return to North-African camps where torture is practiced are not mentioned. The connection between the detection of refugee-boats by Mare Nostrum/Frontex and the deportation back to North-Africa is documentable in individual cases.
http://ffm-online.org/2014/07/19/libyen-sizilien-60-boat-people-ertrunken/
The full report:
http://www.watchthemed.net/reports/view/54
---
Helmut Dietrich
