The death rate in the Mediterranean sea now triples the one reached at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, even though the number of people attempting to cross is now 93 percent lower, according to a new UNHCR report released on Monday.
More than a thousand people have died in the Mediterranean between January and June of 2018 on their way to Spain, Greece and Italy, which amounts to one death per every 18 arrivals. A total of 72,100 migrants have arrived to those three countries in this specific period, according to the UNHCR data.
The fatalities increased dramatically during last summer after Matteo Salvini, Italy’s far-right Minister of the Interior, began to turn away rescue vessels working mainly near the Libyan coast. In June, Salvini denied port access to a humanitarian rescue boat with 629 migrants run by Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranean, which triggered a diplomatic crisis in the EU (the boat eventually docked in Spain). Ever since, several boats carrying migrants have been turned away after entering Italian waters. Salvini’s radical no-entry policy was followed by a spike in shipwrecks.
The UNHCR report states that since Italian rescue boats have stopped operating near Libyan waters, the only authority left to assist the migrants is the poorly trained, understaffed Libyan Coast Guard.
“A major factor contributing to the increased death rate is the decreased search and rescue capacity off the Libyan coast this year compared to the same period last year,” the report states.
Photo: A rescue boat in the Mediterranean, July 29, 2016. Source: Flickr. Filed under CC.
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