The number of arrivals via the central Mediterranean route has fallen drastically by 2024. Libya announces an even tougher approach and concludes a new deal with the EU.
Compared to 2023, significantly fewer people are arriving in Italy on the central Mediterranean route this year. This is according to figures published by the Ministry of the Interior in Rome on Friday. According to the data, irregular sea border crossings in 2024 fell by 63 per cent to 30,770 compared to the same period last year.
Italy recorded a total of 157,651 arrivals last year, while only 380 people arrived in Malta. According to statistics by the United Nations, the main nationalities along the route in the central Mediterranean are Bangladeshis, Syrians, Tunisians and Guineans, a quarter of whom were women and children, according to United Nations numbers. Last year, people from the Ivory Coast headed this list, followed by Guineans and Egyptians.
Italian authorities attribute the falling numbers to the activities of the Libyan and Tunisian institutions. This includes the sometimes brutal behaviour of the police and coast guards in both countries. At the beginning of 2023, statements by Tunisian President Kais Saied led to pogroms against refugees from sub-Saharan countries, hundreds of people were expelled from the port city of Sfax, which is frequently used for crossings to Europe, and some were deported to the desert on the border with Libya and Algeria.
Last year, according to a count by Sea-Watch, Tunisia’s coastguard is said to have picked up 79,905 people at sea and brought them back to the country. These figures continue to rise, Tunisian media reported in spring. The interceptions by the Libyan coastguard are much lower: according to information from “nd”, around 9,600 people have been affected by such pullbacks to Libya this year.
On Wednesday, the Libyan Ministry of the Interior organised an anti-migration summit in the capital and invited North African and European governments to attend. Prior to the meeting, Libya’s acting Interior Minister Emad Trabelsi announced a tougher approach to migration policy in a press conference. The country wants to establish four “lines of defence” to reduce irregular migration at land borders, in the desert, in cities and at sea. His ministry has mobilised 5,000 police officers, who are to be sent to the borders within 30 days, said Trabelsi. According to the minister, “illegal immigration” has become a matter of national security.
Together with the EU, the Libyan government wants to promote the “voluntary return” of migrants. The Commission and the External Action Service from Brussels travelled to Tripoli at the end of June for an unofficial meeting to reach an agreement to this effect. Libya then promised to facilitate the procedures for “returnees” to return to their African home countries.
Another topic of the informal EU meeting with Libya at the end of June was the further expansion of the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Tripoli. The centre is responsible for coordinating interception operations with authorities from Italy and the EU border agency Frontex.
“The expansion of the so-called coordination centre in Tripoli has exactly one goal: migration defence,” says Giulia Messmer, spokesperson for Sea-Watch, commenting on the new EU deal. “It is only thanks to financial injections from the EU that Libyan militias are able to abduct tens of thousands of people back into violence and slavery,” says Messmer to “nd”.
Because Libya does not have its own aircraft, Frontex is de facto responsible for air surveillance in the central Mediterranean and reports sightings to the control centre in Tripoli. According to the Alarm Phone network, one such pushback by the coast guard from Libya is said to have occurred in the Maltese SAR zone on Monday.
There are also around 20 civilian rescue ships in the central Mediterranean. Now the “Sea Eye 5” from the German organisation of the same name is joining them. Half of the costs for the rescue cruiser, which was christened on Monday, were borne by the German organisation United4Rescue at a cost of €465,000, with the money coming from the German government.
Two small ships, also sailing under the German flag, rescued a total of 122 people from an unseaworthy double-deck wooden boat in the Libyan SAR zone on Saturday. The sailing boat “Trotamar III” from the Compass Collective in Wendland and the rescue cruiser “Aurora” from Sea-Watch had learnt about the incident in the Libyan SAR zone from the aircraft “Seabird”, which is also operated by Sea-Watch.
Neither ship is designed to take many people on board. After the rescue, however, there were 72 people on the “Aurora” and 50 on the “Trotamar III”. Italy had initially instructed Pozallo in Sicily as a safe harbour. However, as the “Aurora” had too little fuel to travel at normal speed, the disembarkation took place on Sunday in coordination with the Italian authorities on Lampedusa.
Published in German in „nd“.
Image: “Aurora” and “Trotamar” were informed of a double-deck wooden boat in distress by a Sea Watch aircraft on Saturday. The small rescue ships are not designed for so many people (Sea-Watch).
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