Why do they flee
away from their
country?
The Routes
As we can see there are three main routes which cross the African and asian continents involving the Central, the Eastern and the Western side. Each route leads the main part of the migrants to the closest coast, respectively in Italy, Greece and Spain.
A 4 Billion Business
The journey is not linear and often migrants have to wait for months, which are spent working to pay the smugglers. The criminal organizations which manage the human traffic are responsible of uncountable humanitarian crimes, there are copious testimony of entire groups of people abbandoned into the desert, detention in inhuman conditions, murders and rapes. Migrants have to pay different prices for the travel depending on the route, the means of transport which can be more or less crowded or safe. Frontex estimated that the whole business reaches 4 billion euros which are reinvested in illegal trades such as weapons and drugs.
The Main Used Boats
2016 Sea Accidents
and Operation Triton
Operation Triton is a border security operation conducted by Frontex; it replaced Mare Nostrum operation, which was too costly for a single country to fund. Triton is under the Italian control and involves voluntary contributions from 15 other European nations. It requests 9 aircrafts, 25 ships and patrol boats, which operate within 30 nautical miles from the Italian coasts for the purpose of controlling borders. As we can see from the map, the most part of the ship accidents occurs near African coasts where the weak and overcrowded boats sink.
2016 European Sea Arrivals
The main docking coast for the Weastern, the Central and the Eatern routes are respectively Spain, Italy and Greece. The bubbles give an idea of the different amount of migrants reaching Southern Europe , particularly the case of Spain where the number of people is heavily lower than arrivals in Italy or Greece. The cause are linked with the Ceuta and Melilla border fence constructed to stop illegal immigration and smuggling. On the other hand, Greece receives a very high number of people seeking asylum and the phenomenon is generating an humanitarian crisis.
Ethnic Composition of 2016 inflow
Each of the three asylum seekers inflows has a different cultural composition. The chart below shows the top ten nationalities of Mediterranean sea arrivals by destination Country. The lenght of the link indicate the distance between hometown and the european coast of arrival. The missing part of the whole percentage is composed by other little ethnic groups.
The Relocation
The last hurdle of the journey is the relase or not of the refugee status and the relocation in other European countries. Spain doesn’t receive enough asylum seekers because of Ceuta and Melilla border fence, so it is considered one of the redistribution destination. In Greece, the uncontrolled inflow generated an overwhelming number of asylum seekers waiting in tent cities. Amnesty International stated that in this way the relocation of the whole amount of asylum seekers waiting in Greece will take 18 years. In Italy, asylum seekers should wait 45 days before being accepted as refugees, but legal terms are often infringed and the waiting can last untill two years.
Conclusion
The main dramatic point reported in 2016 is that the harrowing journey across the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe become increasingly deadly for asilym seekers desperate to find a better life. Even though far fewer people have attempted the perilous crossing, almost as many migrants have died at sea as all of the last year. Despite some EU reforms, much more need to be done to save human lives. No boundaries, no government should ever cause such loss. The Mediterranean sea known in ancient times by several civilizations as the sea between lands should be a helpful link between countries and people, not a perilous obstacle.
