The massacre of migrants in Greece and our responsibilities

A few days after the closed-door press conference which saw Ursula Von Leyen, Giorgia Meloni and the president of Tunisia Kaïs Saïed together, yet another piece of news arrives from the Mediterranean of a terrible shipwreck, which occurred on the night between the 13th and 14th June.off Pylos, Greece.

There are 78 confirmed victims so far.However, there is talk of hundreds of missing people which could raise the death toll to 600, according to the latest estimates.Among the survivors, some reported that in the hold of the boat there were "at least 100 children”.Overall there were around 750 people present, coming from Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and Palestine.

While operations at sea continue, for the umpteenth time a pattern of denied or rebuffed responsibilities is repeated, which we had recently seen with the Cutro shipwreck, and which we are seeing now with the continuous changes of version of the Greek authorities, the conflicting versions.The Frontex agency has for example published the video which shows the sighting of the vessel already 13 hours before the sinking.The organization Alarm Phone, in a harsh statement, states that it has alerted both Frontex and the Greek Coast Guard of the shipwreck via email.

🚩Alarm Phone Statement on the fatal shipwreck off #Greece.

Stop blaming people on the move for trying to escape your violence!

Stop blaming people on the move for their own death!

Stop pushbacks, end death at sea, tear down Europe's borders! https://t.co/mOaRgq6AJ0

— Alarm Phone (@alarm_phone) June 14, 2023

This year, in October, marks the tenth anniversary of the Lampedusa massacre.Right from Lampedusa, on the eve of World Refugee Day, the warning from Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe:“I am struck by the alarming level of tolerance towards serious human rights violations against refugees, asylum seekers and migrants that has developed in Europe.” To honor these anniversaries, for the sake of truth and respect for human dignity, it is appropriate to reiterate a principle that is central to us.

Cutro massacre, an international investigation shows that Italy lied

We tend to speak in terms of "tragedies" when faced with similar events, but these are real massacres.As such they must be considered and described.They are the product of chains of decisions, they call into question precise responsibilities, precise visions of migratory phenomena and specific policies adopted to address them.It was March 9, 2020 when Ursula Von der Leyen praised Greece “shield of Europe”, personally going there while the country was engaged in a migration crisis on the border with Turkey, with policemen in riot gear they fired tear gas at the refugees.It is what is blocked, hidden or crushed by that shield that we must ask for an account of, instead of fueling the criminalization of convenience of "evil smugglers".

A tragedy evokes powerful emotions, dark and irrational forces, it moves souls.But emotions are changeable:diminish, or it is possible to hide them under indifference or cynicism.The responsibilities, however, remain unchanged, and the institutions must respond to them, at a time when human life, in the Mediterranean and in the countries through which the migratory routes pass, increasingly becomes a negotiable value.And the forces at work are anything but dark and irrational, they actually follow very specific logics, implemented with the greyness of bureaucrats.The European Union that is now mourning the dead recovered from the sea is the same one that it destined for Greece 800 million euros for border management, and only 600 thousand euros (0.7%) for search and rescue operations.

Instead of creating safe routes, instead of reviewing an approach that treats human life as something that threatens "the garden" Europe, instead of solving the issue of passports, whose inaccessibility then pushes those who leave to get into debt and take on makeshift means, the EU intensifies its efforts in a wicked and inhumane direction.Last June 8, the Council of European Interior Ministers agreed to reform the regulations on border procedures and the management of asylum seekers, distorting, among other things, the definition of "safe country". As highlighted by Lucrezia Tiberio just after the Pylos massacre, "In the face of what could be the most tragic episode ever to have occurred in the Mediterranean, the very recent political decisions of the European Union not only do not seem to understand the extent of this phenomenon, but even proceed in opposite direction."

The same Memorandum under discussion between European Union and Tunisia, that's all it does confirm the repressive spiral of a country for which the European Parliament itself has documented arbitrary arrests and violations of human rights.In this ignoring the civil society of those countries chosen time and time again as partners, contributing to stifling democratic aspirations and paving the way for new crises.

To stop migrants we pay authoritarian, racist, violent governments:what is happening in President Saied's Tunisia

Protected by "walls" and "shields", decisions that impact the crises triggered are more easily forgotten, creating refugees who increasingly portray themselves as "invaders".In a editorial ofObserver commenting on the shipwreck, it is recalled that for Afghanistan (among the countries of origin of the shipwrecked people), the United Kingdom and the NATO countries aligned themselves with the United States in abandoning the country in 2021.The United Nations estimates that more than 28 million people, accounting for two-thirds of the country's population, will need urgent humanitarian assistance.“The list of countries of origin is an index of suffering, for which the EU, Great Britain and their allies bear a great responsibility,” writes theObserver. 

In addition to Afghanistan, we must in fact remember Syria and the West's inability to stop the Syrian regime's war, as well as the situation of the Palestinians who live in refugee camps of the country.

Because they leave.Against propaganda and disinformation on migrants - Conversation with Antonella Sinopoli [podcast]

But it is useful to remember this idea of ​​having to raise walls, barriers, separations, having to reject or at most manage potential threats is increasingly a material reality of our continent.In fact, between the borders of the EU there are 19 walls or physical barriers spread across 12 countries, erected in the name of defense against terrorism or migratory flows.By forgetting the concept of cooperation, of aid that strengthens structurally, instead of creating new hierarchies or confirming existing ones, the security virus is now firmly established, creating increasingly divided and conflictual societies, dominated by fear and a of enemies against which to defend oneself at all costs.