Increasing number of deaths at sea, lack of legal channels, no identification procedure: the nightmarish journey of refugees, migrants, asylum seekers: continues until their death.
Two month after the shipwreck off the coast of Zarzis in Tunisia and almost five months after the massacre at the crossing point between Nador and Melilla in Morocco, the shipwrecks and loss of life off the coast of the Mediterranean continue unabated. The impunity of the countries and actors responsible for these tragedies is flagrant. The signatory organizations are sounding the alarm and denouncing this hecatomb at the external borders of the European Union.
Since 2021, the number of deaths continues to rise
According to a recent report by the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project, 5684 men, women and children have lost their lives on the migration routes to and within Europe since the beginning of 2021. Since 2014, 29,000 people have lost their lives at sea. These figures are unfortunately incomplete due to the large number of “invisible shipwrecks” on both the Central Mediterranean and Atlantic routes.
Behind these numbers are whole lives, stories, families, siblings, children and friends, who have the right to know how their loved ones lost their lives, to recover and identify their bodies, to give them a burial and a dignified mourning.
According to the report of Caminando Fronteras, on the migratory routes to Spain, 978 people, including 41 minors, died in the first six months of 2022. On the Canary Islands route, 800 people lost their lives. In total, 18 boats disappeared with all the people on board. Almost 90% of the victims disappear at sea and their bodies are never found.
In July 2022 alone, 300 people died trying to reach the Canary Islands from Senegal. In mid-August 2022, 18 people, including a baby, died off the coast of Tarfaya in Morocco. They had been waiting for 8 hours for a rescue operation. n. On October 1, 2022, a merchant ship rescued a man in an inflatable boat in the Atlantic. In the boat, there were also 4 dead people and the man reported that 29 others were missing. On October 28, 2022, the bodies of 34 people washed ashore south of Dakhla. In early August, a boat with 14 people disappeared after leaving Tipazza, Algeria. These numbers are just a few examples in a sea of despair.
Multiple reasons that can easily be improved
This increased violence against migrants and the increase in deaths is a direct consequence of the EU and member states’ outsourcing migration policies aimed at greater control and security of the North African states’ maritime borders. These measures have resulted in the displacement of migration routes to increasingly dangerous routes and thus an increase in deaths.
Instead of opening legal and safe routes and establishing search and rescue mechanisms at sea, the EU and its Member States continue to pursue security and deadly migration policies.
The Spanish government’s approval of sending an additional 30 million euros to Morocco for migration control is a glaring example. . Since 2019, Morocco has received 123 million euros from Spain for migration control, in four separate payments. At the same time, the EU has provided 346 million euros to Morocco in the same period and will send another 500 million euros until 2027. Tunisia is not left out, with Italy sending 19 million euros for border control between 2020 and 2021.
In this context, the outrage and violence against migrants continues even after death, as evidenced by the lack of identification procedures from Libya to Tunisia, from Algeria to Morocco. A situation denounced by the signatory organizations for a long time.
Forgotten in death: lack of identification procedures denounced
The outrage for missing persons often continues into death. The policies regarding the identification of bodies on the part of the authorities of the Maghreb and Mediterranean countries are not very strict. These policies often consist of burying bodies found on beaches after shipwrecks without any DNA testing or any other summary identification procedure. re. The latest example of this lack of procedure occurred in early October 2022 when the bodies of 18 young people found in Zarzis (including families, women and children), were buried without any form of identification. This event caused strong protests and indignation from families and civil society who demanded that the bodies of those who died in shipwrecks be recovered, identified and buried with dignity.
The same lack of identification and search procedures for missing persons is found on the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean routes. The practice of unidentified burial has also been documented at land borders, such as at the border between Nador and Melilla after the tragedy of June 24, 2022, where at least 37 migrants died while trying to cross the border. According to the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH), 77 people are still missing, but the final number of dead and missing will never be known. . Immediately after the June 24 tragedy, AMDH Nador noted that the authorities wanted to bury the bodies without making the necessary investigations and without identifying the bodies. It was only thanks to the intervention of the AMDH that the authorities stopped this summary burial.
According to a recent BBC investigation, on June 24, lifeless bodies were dragged by Moroccan police into an area that, according to the BBC, was under Spanish control. At the same time, the Spanish Interior Ministry denies dragging the bodies from Melilla to the Moroccan border, while it is also accused of withholding crucial CCTV evidence from official investigations.
On October 31, 2022, UN experts denounced the lack of accountability in Spain and Morocco and called for a “thorough investigation, reparations to the victims and their families, and guarantees that this will not be repeated.” The multiplication of deaths at sea and the outrage that constitutes the mistreatment of bodies in death can no longer be tolerated in the Mediterranean. The signatory organisations therefore issue a series of recommendations for the European Union, the Member States and the States of the southern shore to put an end to these practices.
Signatories:
- EuroMed rights
- Association Marocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH)
- L’Organisation Marocaine Des Droits Humains (OMDH)
- Association Aides Aux Migrants En Situation Vulnerable (ASMV)
- Réseau Marocain des Journalistes des Migrations (RMJM)
- Association Collectif des Communautés Subsahariennes au Maroc (CCSM)
- ASSOCIAZIONE RICREATIVA CULTURALE ITALIANA (ARCI)
- Milano senza Frontiere
- Borderline Sicilia
- Mem.Med -Mémoire Méditerranée
- Association enfant de la lune (Tunisie)
- Association pour le Leadership & le Développement en Afrique (ALDA)
- Association des Etudiants et Stagiaires Africains en Tunisie (AESAT)
- Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme (LTDH)
- Avocat Sans frontière (ASF)
- Afrique Intelligence
- Ligue Algérienne des Droits de l’Homme (LADDH)
- Centre National de Coopération au Développement (CNCD-11.11.11)
- Anti-Racism Movement (Lebanon)
- Greek Refugee Council (GCR)
- Ligue des Droits Humain (LDH) France
- Citizens Assembly of Turkey
- Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
- مركز القاهرة لدراسات حقوق الإنسان – Institut du Caire pour les Études des Droits de l’Homme (ICEDH)
- منظمة الأمان لمناهضة التمييز العنصري – Aman against Discrimination(AAD)
- –المنظمة الليبية للمساعدة القانونية– “LIBYAN NETWORK FOR LEGAL AID”
- منظمة عدالة للجميع لحقوق الإنسان – ADALA FOR ALL (AFA)
- مؤسسة بلادي لحقوق الإنسان – Belaady Organization for Human Rights
- منظمة حقوقيون بلا قيود Justice without chains
- منظمة رصد الجرائم الليبية Libyan Crimes Watch (LCW)
- المنظمة الليبية المستقلة لحقوق الإنسان Independent organization for human rights (IOFHR)
- شبكة أصوات للإعلام – Aswat media network
- المركز الليبي لحرية الصحافة – The Libyan center for freedom of the press
- مركز ليبيا المستقبل للإعلام والثقافة – Libya Al Mostakbal