Why and how almost 300 Syrians, including children, drowned two months ago, with the rest divided between Malta and Lampedusa
Published:
December 4, 2013 at 10:04pm
You just have to read this report in the international edition of the respected Italian news magazine, L’Espresso. There are links to the report in the original Italian, too, for those who prefer that.
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http://espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2013/11/28/news/lampedusa-buck-passing-on-the-massacre-so-they-left-syrians-children-drown-1.143363
http://espresso.repubblica.it/internazionale/2013/11/28/news/lampedusa-i-soccorsi-in-ritardo-ecco-i-documenti-1.143247
http://espresso.repubblica.it/foto/2013/11/28/galleria/le-copertine-dell-espresso-dedicate-alla-strage-dell-11-ottobre-1.143310#1
How desperately sad.
The interview with Mohanad Jammo is chilling. At 8’40” he says his first call came through to Malta at 1pm. He’d already called Italy several times by then.
Two hours and several calls later, Malta told him rescue would arrive in 45 minutes. At 4pm a spotter plane arrived. He made another call and was told the rescue boat would arrive in an hour and 10 minutes.
If Italy and Malta had prioritised saving lives over bickering about responsibility, everyone could have been saved.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is expected in Malta on Monday.
Three of his predecessors have just given their backing to the pro-European demonstrators. ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25216727 )
On whose side is our Government?
http://www.facebook.com/vellanorman
Whenever we have a Labour government, Malta has the propensity to ass-lick despots and degenerate leaders. Yanukovyc is one of them. It seems that he will go the Gaddafi way.
What were Manwel Mallia and Joseph Muscat doing at the time the boat was sinking?
Were they stamping their feet and making Europe smell their coffee?
Muscat says he cut a deal with Enrico Letta to bring to Malta all the migrants on the Maltese rescue boats as long as Italy took in the ones in the Italian rescue boats.
Shame he did’t put aside his tantrums to make sure everyone was picked up, instead of leaving several hundred drown.
Seems like Joseph Muscat should wake up and smell l’Espresso.
Has this case been debated in the Maltese Parliament?
No. Not yet.
Imma lilu mlibbes bin-North Face issibu ….
“There’s another incredible story behind 1:34 p.m. that afternoon. It’s the moment in which the notice to mariners by the Operations Centre in Rome is broadcast all over the world: …, it’s the fault of those in Malta who forget to engage the Libra in rescue activities.
Maltese Armed Forces still have to provide explanations.”
Syrians. Egyptians. Sub-Saharan Africans. Immigrants. What’s in a name?
These ‘illegal immigrants’ are people just like us Maltese, Italians, Europeans. Their nationality, provenance, legal status, even their religious and political beliefs are secondary and less important details that pale into total insignificance when considering the loss of even one single life at sea. Even more so, when this loss of life may be caused through our inactivity.
Malta, Italy and Europe consistently and conveniently fail to deal with this crisis effectively, forgetting that several fellow European countries may have played their own historical role in the colonisation of some of these war torn countries. Not only did Europeans milk their resources dry, but they also starved them of the necessary infrastructure that any country needs to be able to stand on its own feet, leaving behind a wake of turbulence and political instability, a vacuum that became the breeding ground for insane, power thirsty war mongers.
These refugees, these migrants are people first and foremost. They are not flotsam, cargo, or a burden. Yet, Europe speaks of them in terms of ‘burden sharing’ on the better days. On other days they are simply forgotten or passed around between control rooms, often left to their own devices, until they drown.
Articles like this, show the scale of the tragedy of Europe’s inertia. Articles like this add, to my newly found shame of being Maltese (a feeling forgotten since the 90s), the shame of being European. Caught up in recessions, economic crises, and other fraternal squabbling, we shamefully sleep, in the relative comfort of our humble homes, knowing that the night will offer us respite from the constant cries of the destitute that knock at our doors, knowing full well that by morning, some of those cries would have been silenced.
This case is particiular not because the migrants were Syrian, but because they could have been saved.
They died because Malta and Italy wasted time arguing over who was responsible for their rescue.
Now, both countries are responsible for their deaths.
The MT Salamis stand-off is yet another case where time was wasted, although the Italian’s better sense prevailed that time round.
From these two incidents alone, we are left to conclude that this sort of political haggling over rescuing migrants’ lives takes place every time there is a boat in our respective backyards.
Italy and Malta are indeed to blame, but Europe too has its share of blood on its hands. If a concerted effort is to be made to save lives at sea, then Malta and Italy clearly cannot be trusted to deal with rescue operations effectively.
As sovereign countries, they both have their own respective political agendas that are not necessarily aligned with the concept of saving migrants lives at all cost.
All entirely beside the point that on 11 October, Malta was officially responsible for coordinating rescue and Malta and Italy haggled to death – literally.
My point – neither Italy or Malta should be left in charge when saving lives conflicts with their national interest.
Your point – notwithstanding all said, Malta was in charge on the day.
Fair enough. However, the present state of affairs is not working and is therefore not acceptable. If changes are not made, more lives will be lost at sea.
Lives weren’t lost because Malta couldn’t cope.
Lives were lost because Muscat was throwing tantrums.
In the end, he got what he wanted. Most of the migrants didn’t come here. They drowned and were never found.
I’m pretty certain that if they were Syrian, they weren’t actually illegal at all. They were refugees.
What if they weren’t?
I suspect Commissioner Malmstrom prefers tea.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-12-05/news/burden-sharing-not-in-new-eu-proposals-3386081285/
Labour would still raise storms in a teacup. No surprise.
Far be it for me to chastise anyone over comments that they may pass. I’ve passed more than my fair share of snide or politically loaded comments on this blog.
However may I respectfully remark that this article is hardly the place for either.
Inertia and reaction are dulled for the “smaller” issues. Once the smaller issues are allowed to pass and renegotiated with, the tolerance base line is lost.
Values need to go back to basics. Intolerance is necessary for a stronger reaction and indeed action. Not the intolerance on which racism is based, but the intolerance of racism, of shunning people based on who they are and where they come from and the resultant or related indifference to the plight of suffering and need.
A nation with stronger ethical values would have a stronger level of intolerance.
This tragedy would never have happened under Gonzi’s watch.
Another aspect is that a great deal of people seem to depend on others to take that first action. How many actually resolve to take their own bit of action in hand? What is there that each one personally can do? Sign a petition? Have you done it? Can you round up support from family members? Amongst friends?
If you hear of Martin on the streets of Dublin, for example, how many people would be willing to open up their homes to him?
The Pope has asked religious orders to open up their convents and monasteries to help such people. With this in mind, how many actions of this nature have been undertaken in Malta?
Big actions start with little actions.
If radio hams still exist in Malta, could they have a watch for such situations? Can the EU have a new easy international number for such emergencies at sea? New, so that calls to it do not get lost in bureaucracy as these desperate calls have.
Surely the cost is offset by the humanitarian considerations.
I would rather that the EU puts safeguards in place for individuals and the rights and obligations of the “smaller” issues, than to hear of the hundreds of thousands, and indeed millions of euro going to projects which in healthy economic self regulation industry should be providing seed and investment funding for in the first place.
Expect a u-turn from the government now that the EU Commission is offering EU countries €6000 per head for each refugee. Read more in today’s EU Observer article
http://www.euobserver.com/justice/112351
It’s too late for a U-turn. The dead aren’t coming back, the missing won’t be found, and the mourners have a lifetime of regret ahead of them.
He’s why the botched rescue took so long:
http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/world/No-burden-sharing-member-states-to-be-paid-6-000-for-migrant-relocation-20131205
“Malta is currently challenging EU guidelines forcing the member states hosting a Frontex operation, to take in all rescued migrants. Malta has a vast search and rescue region that would ultimately make it responsible to coordinate all rescue operations in the region, and then take in all migrants saved by the Frontex mission it hosts.
MALTA INSISTS THAT THE COUNTRY TO TAKE THEM IN WOULD BE THE ONE OFFERING THE SAFEST, NEAREST PORT OF CALL.”
The closes port that day was Lampedusa.
Malta’s “vast search and rescue region” is a pre-1964 legacy. What if it is cut down to size commensurate with our air and naval assets?
Does our SAR region have anything to do with potential oil exploration?
What are the pros and cons of reducing our SAR region?
Our SAR brings in revenue every time a plane flies through the corresponding air space. That’s the bit they never talk about when whining about SAR responsibility.
Giorgio Borg Olivier once considered selling Malta’s stratosphere to the US. Fascinating bit of history, that.
My God, this is very shocking. It is very hard for me to believe that all this is true.
How many are/were aware of the timeline of these events? Someone should really press for answers.
Especially when one remembers the immense show our Prime Minister made that evening, in his address to the nation, with his mute foreign Minister to his left. If the Prime Minister was aware of all this, it is totally disgraceful and disgusting. I am left without words.
The Prime Minister was not only aware. He was directly involved.
EVERYONE should press for answers. You too. Write to your MP demanding an explanation in parliament.
People are not important any more it seems. Only money is..
One must also look at the broader picture. Besides those who died there were also hundreds saved from drowning by both Malta and Italy. In this respect the EU and the other Member States should play a greater role to avoid similar tragedies and Malta and Italy have been asserting this for a long time.
[Daphne – They’re people, David, not dropped eggs or spilt milk. ‘Oh never mind the 300 who just drowned. We saved so many. Look on the bright side.’]
Save people first, be assertive as much as you like later.
There is only one suitable response: just f*ck off, David.
How can these people sleep at night?
A six-year-old boy left orphaned and without his siblings as a result of the above – http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20131205/local/hugs-and-tears-as-syrian-boy-who-lost-everything-is-reunited-with-uncle.497723#.UqCPmxRwbmI
250+ people died needlessly, some possibly a slow, lingering death, tortured by the knowledge that they’d been overlooked and left behind.
Our Prime Minister is the one who during his electoral campaign had stated that he does not want any guilt on his conscience for anyone who could or might get sick because of the power station, which at that time he was describing it as a cancer factory.
Now, in government, the cancer factory is still there, and will stay for some time long, since it has been proved that the power station is and was not a cancer factory. Since that, time he can boast of his push-back threat, not effecting it only because he was stopped by the European Court of Justice and now these resulting deaths. It seems that for quite a long time, he had already planned and decided that anybody can come on this rock as long as he is able to pay.
Our Prime Minister does not have any identity of himself. He has shown that he does not hold high any respect for either being Maltese nor European. He has neither shown any minimum sense of respect for the human being. He is not the product of the nationalist era in government, but the product of the short and cunning Alfred Sant era. Like everything else under Alfred Sant, his measures, including respect, are measured pragmaticly.
I am certain all these Syrians would have been saved if Gonzi was still in power.
The indifference of a party propaganda hack turned prime minister who remained focused on cashing in on selling passports was really what sealed their tragic fate.
They weren’t all Syrian. Many were Palestinian, making theirs a double displacement.
From that article it is clear that at least in this particular case Italy is to blame for the tragic incident.
What would save lives is if these tragedies had to be highlighted in the countries of origin, mainly Libya. Knowing how real the risks are people may think twice before deciding to take the perilous journey across the Med.
No. Malta is culpable too, possibly more than Italy.
Muscat has repeatedly said – most recently in today’s news – that migrants should be taken to the nearest port. The boat was close to Lampedusa but in Malta’s SAR.
It isn’t difficult to work out that the delays were because Muscat – egged on by Mallia, no doubt – was stamping his feet while Letta blocked his ears.
Cartoonist Chappatte on the October shipwreck:
http://migrantsatsea.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/chappatte-on-the-latest-disaster-at-lampedusa-2/