Sea deaths highlight plight of desperate refugees

ROME — The death of at least 64 refugees off the coast of southern Italy on Sunday is the latest in a long series of tragedies for many of the world's poorest and most desperate seeking to reach Europe's shores.

An overcrowded vessel that set out from Turkiye broke apart when, in rough seas, it hit rocks near the coast of the southern Italian region of Calabria.

One of the deadliest migrant boat disasters occurred in April 2015, when at least 800 people drowned as a vessel en route to Italy sank off the coast of Libya.

However, information on migrant deaths at sea is notoriously unreliable, said Ferruccio Pastore, director of Fieri, an Italian think tank focused on immigration issues.

"Migrant arrivals are relatively easy to calculate because each country keeps close track. But deaths at sea? A boat could go under with no formal record of it. Even when we're aware of it, we don't always know how many people were on board."

What is clear, analysts said, is that the number of people fleeing their countries due to conflict, poverty and other factors is rising, as is the number of those who die doing so.

Federico Fossi, a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said there are three main routes potential refugees take to arrive in Europe: from Morocco to Spain, from Turkiye to Greece or Italy, and from Libya or Tunisia to Italy or Malta. The deadliest by far, Fossi said, is the last of these, accounting for about two-thirds of all arrivals and more than 80 percent of all deaths.

"The central route is the most treacherous because it exposes refugees to open seas and harsh weather and it often forces smugglers to use more unseaworthy vessels to escape detection," Fossi told Xinhua.

Sunday's accident involved a vessel from Turkiye boarded by passengers mainly from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

This year about 12,000 of the 17,000 migrant arrivals to Europe took the central route, with most landing in Italy, Fossi said. Adding some arrivals from the eastern route, Italy has been the landing point for the vast majority of Europe-bound refugees, consistent with most previous years.

That fact has sparked anti-migrant backlashes in Italy. In 2018, the then-government temporarily closed the country's ports to migrant arrivals, and the government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has tightened restrictions and called for stronger collaboration on migrants with other European Union member states.

Last month Meloni lobbied other EU leaders to agree to a united burden-sharing agreement on migration, but a consensus was not reached.

Prosecutor Giuseppe Capoccia, who is conducting investigations into the shipwreck, told La Repubblica newspaper that a lack of coordination may have contributed to the accident. "We are certainly seeing a system with gaps, where, probably in perfectly good faith, everyone does their own thing, but which in the end results in a 'you go, no you go' situation that can lead to tragic situations like this one," he said.

Italy's government has elicited criticism after Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi blamed potential refugees for taking undue risks.

Addressing Parliament on Tuesday, Piantedosi blamed traffickers for the tragedies, saying Europe should stop migrants from turning to unscrupulous figures for help.

Pastore of Fieri said the key to helping curb the influx of refugees is investing in the stability and economic development of poor countries.

"Nobody wants to take such a dangerous step, but they feel they have no choice."

Xinhua - Agencies