The Mediterranean killed more than 2,200 people in 2024. Here’s why it could be worse this year
More than 2,200 people died or went missing trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea last year, the United Nations said. As many European countries fight for the success of far-right policies aimed at keeping out immigrants, experts warn even more lives could be lost by 2025 without real change.
As revelers around the world woke up to the new year, sad news came from the Mediterranean: A small boat from Libya sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa, leaving only seven survivors, including an eight-year-old child whose mother was among the children. more than 20 people were reported missing.
It is a very common story in the region, where many ships carrying migrants try to cross the waters to Europe. Many do not complete their journey. About 1,700 people were killed or went missing in 2024 on the central Mediterranean route, which runs from North Africa to Italy and Malta.
The deaths come after a year of increasing attacks on civilian rescue boats in the Mediterranean, and an attempt by Italy’s right-wing government to transfer asylum seekers to Albania.
Michael Gordon, a researcher at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont., said non-governmental organizations involved in search and rescue have become a “scapegoat” for authorities frustrated by the influx of migrants.
“The result of this is being made a crime [is] … there is a small cargo at sea that helps the migrants in distress. And because of that, people will continue to die,” he said in an interview with CBC News.
More than 31,000 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.
The death toll in 2024 includes “hundreds of children, making up one in five of all migrants in the Mediterranean,” Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF regional director for Europe and Central Asia and special coordinator for refugees and migrants in Europe, said in a statement last week. “Most are fleeing violent conflicts and poverty.”
‘Widespread crime’ of civilian rescue boats
Growing anti-immigration sentiment makes these crossings even more dangerous, according to experts and human rights groups.
In 2023, Italy made it illegal for NGOs to search and rescue more than once per voyage, meaning ships would have to ignore any other distress calls they receive, or risk heavy fines and the arrest of their ships.
In November, the German non-governmental organization Sea-Watch filed a petition criminal complaint against Italian authorities over the September shipwreck that killed 21 people, alleging that it notified the Italian coast guard of a boat in distress but a rescue vessel was not dispatched for two days.
Italian authorities also provide remote ports for NGO rescue ships. Last month, SOS Méditerranée, an international rescue organization, shared on social media that it was forced to travel more than 1,600 kilometers over several days to get 162 survivors to safety after Italian authorities ignored requests to enter a nearby port.
“We have been sanctioned simply for carrying out our legitimate duty to save lives,” said Juan Matias Gil, a representative of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, in a statement after their rescue ship was ordered to be detained for 60 days in August.
This “criminal escalation” of civilian rescue operations is unnecessarily putting people’s lives at risk, said researcher Gordon, who also works with Wilfrid Laurier University’s International Migration Research Center.
“I think this has a lot to do with the rise of remote governments in Europe.”
Immigrant arrivals are falling sharply in Italy
The policies of Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni, who was elected in 2022 on an anti-immigration platform, had consequences for his government in 2024. Just over 66,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat last year, down almost 60 percent from the 157,000 population. who arrived in 2023, reports the country’s Ministry of the Interior.
The recorded number of deaths and disappearances in the Mediterranean – which is already low, as many boats disappear without a trace during the crossing – will decrease by about 28 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to IOM data.
“The fact that we have fewer people arriving doesn’t mean we have fewer dangers,” Nicola Dell’Arciprete, UNICEF’s country coordinator for the refugee response in Italy, told CBC News.
Dell’Arciprete has worked with children who have fled war, extreme poverty or political unrest. Many came without parents or guardians.
“They are really running away from nightmares,” he said. “The factors that push people to Europe are not really changing.”
Reducing migrant deaths requires more investment in reception centers, emergency plans for periods of high arrivals, safe and legal means of immigration and strengthened search and rescue operations, said Dell’Arciprete, adding that the question is whether there is “the political will to go in those ways. “
This year, European countries will be reviewing their regulations to plan the implementation of the new European Union agreement on asylum and migration. The deal, the first update of Europe’s asylum rules in two decades, was agreed in 2024 but will not come into full force until 2026.
The EU pays countries for immigration control
Italy and the EU are more focused on countries of origin in controlling migrants. The EU delivered 10 billion euros in aid to Tunisia by 2023 to strengthen border controls and stop migrant boats from leaving its shores, and signed a 7.4 billion euro ($11 billion) deal to bolster “stability” in Egypt, focus on migration control.
Meloni played a key role in securing the Tunisia deal, which is now widely known to reduce immigration by 2024, and a similar deal Italy made with Libya in 2017.
Human rights organizations have pointed out that returning migrants found at sea to Libya exposes them to torture and ill-treatment and arbitrary detention.
Nevertheless, Italy’s immigration policies have received praise from other European leaders, such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who in September praised Italy’s “remarkable progress”.
Italy’s latest immigration crackdown fell through last fall, when Meloni struck a deal with Albania that would see up to 36,000 asylum seekers sent directly to a non-EU country each year to await deportation, only to be rejected by Italian courts. ensure the transfer of migrants.
The plan has stalled due to disagreements about a safe country, although Meloni vowed in December to continue the project.
Experts say that without meaningful change, disasters in the Mediterranean will continue.
“Until we strengthen search and rescue operations, until we create safe and legal pathways for children to travel to Europe, we will see more deaths,” said Dell’Arciprete. “And that’s the simple truth.”
At least 59 migrants have died after a boat capsized off the coast of Italy with about 200 people on board. Many of the dead were children. The crash brought back the story of the unusual and dangerous immigration crossing.
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