NEW YORK (Dispatches) - The European Union is partly to blame for deaths of refugees taking boats across the Mediterranean due to unanswered distress calls, obstruction of humanitarian rescue efforts, and so-called “pushbacks” to Libya, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Thousands of refugees including many from Africa undertake long, dangerous journeys via Libya to Europe each year, often embarking on small, inflatable boats in search of a better life.
Death rates are rising and so far this year at least 632 people have died on that route, the UN rights office said in a 37-page report entitled “Lethal Disregard”, calling this a “human tragedy on a massive scale”.
The report found that the lack of migrant protection “is not a tragic anomaly, but rather a consequence of concrete policy decisions and practices by the Libyan authorities, European Union member states and institutions, and other actors...”
The EU has not only cut back on its own official search and rescue operations but individual governments have prevented humanitarian agencies from rescuing migrants in distress, by impounding their vessels and targeting individuals with administrative and criminal proceedings, the report said.