Quelle: NZZ | 17.11.2016
Auf der Überfahrt von Afrika nach Europa sind seit Montag mehr als 340 Menschen ums Leben gekommen.
(dpa) Innerhalb von zwei Tagen sind bei vier Schiffbrüchen nach Behördenangaben mehr als 340 Menschen bei der Überfahrt von Afrika nach Europa im Mittelmeer ums Leben gekommen. Allein etwa 100 Menschen starben nach Angaben der internationalen Migrationsbehörde IOM in der Nacht auf Donnerstag, wie Sprecher Flavio Di Giacomo auf Twitter mitteilte. Die Hilfsorganisation Ärzte ohne Grenzen habe 27 Menschen von dem verunglückten Schiff retten können, auf dem insgesamt 130 Menschen von Libyen aus unterwegs waren. «Diese Tragödie ist einfach unerträglich», schrieb Ärzte ohne Grenzen auf Twitter.
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siehe auch: The Guardian | 16.11.2016
„In one week, 240 feared drowned in Med“
UN reports four accidents, including 130 refugees missing from one boat, bringing this year’s Mediterranean death toll to 4,500
About 240 people are suspected to have drowned this week in four separate incidents in the Mediterranean, raising the total annual death toll to an unprecedented 4,500.
Deaths in the Mediterranean are now nearly 20% higher than last year’s total of 3,771, which was the previous annual record.
About 130 asylum seekers are missing after a rubber boat capsized on Sunday night, while another 100 are thought to have drowned on Tuesday night in a separate incident, the UN refugee agency said. Up to 10 people died in two further tragedies in recent days, bringing the death toll this week to at least 240.
In the accident on Sunday 15 survivors were left in the water for 10 hours, clinging on to a piece of a capsized boat, before being rescued by an oil tanker. Nine are still in hospital, Iosto Ibba, a spokesman for UNHCR, said in a phone call.
Migration between Turkey and Greece has lessened significantly since March, after Turkey agreed to re-admit people deported from Greece. But crossings between Libya and Italy continue unabated. More than 165,000 people have reached Italy so far this year from north Africa, and the final annual total is likely to surpass the previous record of 170,000.
Ibba said the continuing migration flows, and rising death tolls, showed why Europe needed to provide asylum seekers with more legal routes to safety.
“Without alternative ways to reach Europe, refugees will always try to reach safety in dangerous ways,” said Ibba. “That’s why it’s so important to expand legal pathways for refugees, including humanitarian admissions, family reunification programmes, private sponsorship, and student visas for refugees. At the same time it’s also important to support the countries of origin and transit, and to keep up search-and-rescue missions, without which the death toll would be even higher.”
European countries are attempting to stem migration flows by providing more aid to African countries that agree to re-admit deported asylum seekers. Additionally, navies from countries such as Britain are intercepting and destroying Libyan smugglers’ repurposed fishing trawlers after they enter international waters. But that strategy has failed because smugglers have instead packed their customers into disposable rubber boats – which can be operated by the refugees themselves, allowing the smugglers to remain in Libya.
The rising death toll in 2016 can be partly explained by the increasing use of the inflatable boats, which are even more dangerous than the wooden ships they replaced.
Syrians are no longer using Libya as a springboard to reach Europe. Instead, Libya is mainly used by people fleeing war and poverty in Nigeria and Sudan, or repression in Eritrea and Gambia. Others are migrant workers who tried to find jobs in Libya, but fled after the civil war there led to the collapse of law and order.
Many migrants are kept in slavery-like conditions by their Libyan employers, while others are tortured or extorted, sometimes by the authorities. About 70% say they faced some kind of exploitation in Libya, according to research by the International Organisation for Migration.