Is the past repeating itself in the Mediterranean? Recent months have seen a sharp uptick in the number of migrant crossings, especially via the sea’s central route from North Africa to Italy and Malta, long considered the world’s deadliest migration corridor. Already this year, approximately 31,000 migrants have arrived in Italy via sea, nearly four times as many as during the same period for the last two years, a situation that prompted the government this week to declare a six-month state of emergency. Across the European Union, crossings of the Mediterranean are triple the rate of 2022. These numbers are not as high as during the 2015-16 migration and refugee crisis. But the increase has raised alarms across the European Union and prompted renewed debate about the bloc’s border security and humanitarian obligations. The reasons for the increase are multifold. Some migrants may have been encouraged by calmer weather as well as poor conditions in Tunisia—the departure point for many migrant boats—where authorities have targeted sub-Saharan Africans and the economy is in tailspin. The influx has fed into the narrative of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a hard-right leader who has sought to limit rescue operations in the Mediterranean, claiming they acts as lures and encourage smugglers. At least 72 people—including 28 or more children—were killed when a rickety wooden boat smashed into rocky reefs off the Italian coast in February, leading the government to impose tougher penalties for smugglers. Southern Europe is not alone in toughening its stance. Sweden is going through a self-described “paradigm shift” to offer less generous humanitarian protection, impose restrictions on family reunification, tighten employment-based immigration, and increase returns of unauthorized immigrants. Notably, these kinds of responses sharply differ from the largely warm, unified approach to the millions who have fled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. True, increased migration across the Mediterranean is typically accompanied by more migrant deaths and disappearances. In fact, this year is shaping up to be the deadliest for migrants in the Mediterranean since 2017, according to the International Organization for Migration. Yet analysts widely agree that one reason the route is so dangerous is because of policies to restrict migration, which often push asylum seekers and other migrants into more precarious journeys. And the bodies of many of those who die along the journey will never be discovered, making it impossible to understand the true toll. Some “ghost boats” launched from North or West Africa with hoped-for European destinations have traveled as far as the Caribbean, arriving months after departure and carrying only corpses. For now, it remains unclear whether irregular Mediterranean migration in 2023 will be on par with the 2015-16 crisis. But recent months have clarified that the relative lull in movement across the central Mediterranean after that era was only temporary. The challenge may be permanent. Best regards, Julian Hattem
Editor, Migration Information Source
[email protected] | 
