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2016 was an extraordinarily deadly year for migrants: 5,000 people perished in the Mediterranean Sea, vastly exceeding the death toll of 3,700 in 2015. And in the first six months of 2017, more than 1,000 deaths have been recorded.

Year after year, we see the same dynamics at work. Migrants flee conflict and instability in the Middle East and Africa trying to reach Europe. In order to avoid the land checkpoints established by European governments, they take their lives into their hands, setting off across the Mediterranean in makeshift boats, often operated by unscrupulous people smugglers.

This is not a recent tragedy; migrant advocate organisations have been recording the death toll of these people since the 1990s. But now they don't simply tally up the dead, they directly intervene by rescuing migrants at sea.

It all started in 2014 with the discontinuation of the Italian navy's humanitarian and military operation Mare Nostrum. The cost of the operation was too high for the Italian government, which was unable to convince its European partners to join its efforts.

The program was replaced by operation Triton, financed by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex). But NGOs feared that the change would lead to the deaths of thousands of migrants: Triton has a lower budget than Mara Nostrum and only operates in a small section of the waters where boats are liable to sink.

Above all, Triton was primarily designed for border control, rather than saving lives.

Launched by a couple of Italian-American millionaires, the Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) was the first private organisation of its kind to charter a boat. In 2015, Doctors without Borders (MSF, short for Mdecins Sans Frontires) followed their lead, as did Save the Children in 2016.

Across Europe, citizens came together to create new organisations such as SOS Mditerrane, Sea Watch, Life Boat Project, Sea Eye, Jugend Rettet in Germany, Boat Refugee in the Netherlands, and Proactiva Open Arms in Spain.

The number of different authorities and organisations involved has made rescue operations more complex. Since maritime law states that any vessel close to a boat in distress must come to its aid, the relevant maritime authorities coordinate rescue efforts for each zone. In the central Mediterranean Sea, it is most often the Italian coast guard, part of the Ministry of Transportation, that grants NGOs permission to intervene.

But, in reality, it's often the NGOs who find a sinking boat and contact the coast guard themselves.

Once the migrants are rescued, they are taken to an Italian port, under the authority of another government department (Ministry of the Interior), who selects their destination, registers them and directs them towards " hotspots " - migrant centres set up by the European Union.

In Italy, the role of NGOs in rescue operations has created controversy. In December 2016, the Financial Times highlighted Frontex's frustration.

The European border force has reservations about sea rescue operations. In its opinion, letting migrants believe that all they need to do is take to the sea to be rescued and welcomed to Europe opens up the floodgates.

According to the British newspaper, Frontex has evidence that some NGOs are in contact with smugglers and direct them towards zones where migrants have the best chance of being rescued. In other words, they claim these NGOs are accomplices to human traffickers and are therefore guilty of the crime of assisting illegal immigration.

The report led Italian authorities to investigate. In May 2017, the Italian senate's parliamentary inquiry concluded that NGOs constitute a "pull factor" and that they should cooperate more with maritime police operations. The Catania chief prosecutor nevertheless stated that there was no proof of wrongdoing.

The Italian government itself is divided. While the minister for foreign affairs has denounced the NGOs, the prime minister has thanked rescuers for their help, and the coast guard says it supports "politically neutral" maritime activities.

International organisations have also taken a stand. The UN High Commission for Refugees defended the NGOs, while the International Organization for Migration gave partial support to Frontex's arguments, while highlighting the importance of saving lives in the Mediterranean.

On June 9 2017, researchers Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani published the report Blaming the Rescuers. Using empirical evidence, it refuted Frontex's claims and pointed out that the border force also accused operation Mare Nostrum of encouraging illegal immigration.

Yet the end of the Mare Nostrum operation, far from limiting fatalities, led to an increase in deaths. In the 2016 report Death by Rescue, these same researchers measured fatalities during Mediterranean crossings, comparing the number of people lost at sea with the number of people who reached Europe. They showed that it was far more dangerous to migrate during the Triton operation than Mare Nostrum. Increases in fatalities and the risk of death during a crossing are therefore not due to the presence of rescuers but rather to the lack of rescue operations.

These reports accuse Frontex of ending the Mare Nostrum operation knowing that it was saving lives. They also claim that it is now doing the same thing with NGOs, attempting to get rid of them knowing full well that their absence would make the journey riskier.

The debate highlights contradictions in European migration policies, which are creating a "prohibition effect". If it is impossible to procure something legally (access to Europe), demand shifts to the riskier back market, profiting unscrupulous intermediaries.

Strengthening border control, especially on land, automatically results in risky boat journeys and therefore a rise in the number of deaths at sea. And the humanitarian aim of saving lives inevitably runs up against government efforts to control immigration.

Behind the controversy lies the question of legitimacy. Who has the right to intervene and come to migrants' rescue?

Frontex defends the right of governments to control their borders and exercise sovereignty. NGOs have another perspective: if national governments are unable to uphold certain fundamental rights, such as the right to life, civil society must intervene.

This philosophy is nothing new. State inaction is also the reason many NGOs have become involved in the fight against poverty, for instance, and the defense of minorities. What is different is its application to questions of sovereignty, which is normally reserved for nation states.

To an extent, the crisis in the Mediterranean enables NGOs to challenge state control over borders. And it's understandable that this creates resistance. But if governments wish to defend their monopoly, they should find better arguments than those put forward by Frontex.

Greater solidarity in Europe would help avoid situations like the one that led to the discontinuation of the Mare Nostrum operation. Following the Dublin Convention, countries such as Greece and Italy are continuously at the front line, which is neither fair nor sustainable.

In this context, we can see the limits of the current political approach to migration, founded on an obsession with security and a denial of fundamental rights.

With calm weather conditions ideal for sea crossings, the northern summer is almost upon us. The migration debate is only just beginning and it brings with it the need for a basic rethinking of European migratory policies.

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.

Antoine Pcoud, Professeur de sociologie, Universit Paris 13 - USPC and Marta Esperti, Doctorante en sociologie, Universit Paris 13 - USPC

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Are NGOs Responsible For The Migration Crisis In The Mediterranean? - Huffington Post India

An Irish naval ship rescued 712 people including pregnant women and infants off the coast of the Libyan capital of Tripoli as part of an international migrant rescue effort, Ireland's Defence Forces said on Monday.

The L Eithne ship led the rescue of multiple vessels in distress 40 kilometres north-west of Tripoli throughout Sunday. Six migrants, including one baby, were revived from states of unconsciousness.

The ship will transport the people, including 14 pregnant women and four infants below the age of four months, to a designated "port of safety" to be handed over to Italian authorities.

"I'm very proud to say all lives were saved, no lives were lost. It was a complex operation where lives were at stake at every turn over a full eight-hour period," Commander Brian Fitzgerald told national broadcaster RTE from the ship.

"Overall, they were really in a wretched condition but in all cases healthy enough to undertake the journey to a port of safety."

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Migrant crisis: Irish naval ship saves 712 people off Tripoli coast in eight-hour rescue operation - Firstpost

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ROME - Italy on Tuesday said migrant arrivals by sea were up by a quarter this year and chided European Union partners who refused to offer a helping hand to those who flee their troubled homelands.

Two days before European leaders meet in Brussels to discuss migration policy and other issues, Italy's Interior Ministry said 71,000 migrants have been rescued at sea this year, 26 percent more than the same period last year.

Last week, the European Commission opened a legal case against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic for refusing to take in asylum seekers under a 2015 plan to relocate migrants from frontline states Greece and Italy.

"I'm sorry that not everyone, including in Europe, has shown the same willingness to take people in" as Italy has, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in a message marking world refugee day.

More than 190,000 asylum seekers are living in state-funded shelters.

"The refugee issue crosses national borders and involves the entire EU and is, in the end, a global phenomenon," he added.

Turkey has largely stopped migrants from setting off in small boats for the Greek islands since signing a deal with the EU last year. That has made Italy the main country through which migrants fleeing violence and poverty are reaching Europe.

"There are a lot of problems in Chad... There is a lot of killing and a lot of violence," said Ibrahim, who was rescued in the Mediterranean over the weekend along with his wife and infant daughter, who he held in his arms.

"All we really want is to stay in a really safe place, where we can feel safe without any of these problems and any of these troubles, and not be fearful for our lives," he told Reuters on the Vos Hestia rescue ship run by Save the Children.

Almost 2,000 people have died trying to make the crossing this year, and at least 130 people died at sea over the weekend in three different incidents, the UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.

There has also been a decline in the number of rescues by ships participating in the EU's anti-smuggling mission, Sophia, this year, Italian coastguard data show.

Italian navy and coastguard picked up 41 percent of migrants rescued at sea last year, NGO ships 26 percent, and Sophia 25 percent. During the first four months of this year, Italy rescued 33 percent, NGOs 35 percent and Sophia 16 percent.

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Italy chides EU partners for lack of solidarity in migrant crisis - The Jerusalem Post

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Aydan zouz, commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, told the Financial Times that only a quarter to a third of the newcomers would enter the labour market over the next five years, and for many others we will need up to 10.

The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) found only 45 per cent of Syrian refugees in Germany have a school-leaving certificate and 23 per cent a college degree.

Statistics from the Federal Labour Agency show the employment rate among refugees stands at just 17 per cent.

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It said 484,000 of the refugees are looking for work, up from 322,000 last July an increase of 50 per cent.

Of those, 178,500 are officially unemployed, meaning they not only have no work but are not enrolled in any training programmes or language courses up 27 per cent on last July.

The figures will be hard to swallow for Angela Merkel as she seeks a fourth term as chancellor in elections this September.

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Ms Merkels poll ratings plummeted in 2015 when she responded to Europes migrant crisis by announcing a deeply unpopular open-door policy.

It was hoped the arrival of so many working-age, highly-motivated immigrants would help end Germanys skills shortage and solve a demographic crisis posed by its dangerously low birth rate.

Dieter Zetsche, chief executive of carmaker Daimler, said the refugees could lay the foundation for the next German economic miracle.

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Moroccan Police look at immigrants trying to jump the six-meter-high fence in Ceuta, Spanish enclave on the north of Africa, 09 December 2016.

But the truth about the migrants lack of qualifications and language skills is now sinking in.

Ms zouz told the FT: There has been a shift in perceptions.

Many of the first Syrian refugees to arrive in Germany were doctors and engineers, but they were succeeded by many, many more who lacked skills.

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Refugee reality: Germany admits 75% face long-term unemployment and life on benefits - Express.co.uk

As people around the globe marked World Refugee Day Tuesday the all too familiar news came that at least 120 people had drowned off the coast of Libya. Their deaths bring the total number of people who have died while attempting to cross the central Mediterranean to more than 1,800 since the start of the year.

Against this grim backdrop, European leaders are meeting Wednesday and Thursday in Brussels to discuss migration. Each leader will no doubt lament these latest deaths. But despite their hand-wringing rhetoric, the focus of their discussion will not be the importance of saving lives. Instead it will be how to reduce the number of people arriving in Europe in the first place, by reinforcing cooperation with African countries to stem irregular migration.

This strategy not only exacerbates the disparity between developed and developing countries in the number of refugees they are taking in, but it also undermines any claim by the European Union to be a standard bearer for human rights.

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Rather than offering refugees and migrants the chance to avoid irregular border crossings, by creating safe and legal routes for people to move to Europe and improving conditions in refugee camps, Europe has focused on increasing border controls and stepping up returns.

No matter how much money European governments invest in international aid projects purportedly intended to address the root causes of displacement, the reality is that EU leaders have so far largely favored projects that create barriers for migrationand they have used international aid as leverage to get African governments to cooperate in their implementation.

The currently preferred method for solving the migrant crisis seems to be externalization. This involves recruiting countries refugees and migrants come from or travel through to tighten border controls or to shift protection responsibilities to other countries.

So-called externalization policies increase the likelihood of human rights violations. This is particularly the case if measures to tighten border control are encouraged politically (including by leveraging aid) and facilitated technically (through training and equipment) in countries with problematic human rights records.

These policies can end up encouraging or supporting refoulement, collective expulsions, arbitrary detention, ill treatment and other serious human rights violations. Investing in such measures might not even achieve the desired result of reducing irregular arrivals. In the absence of alternatives, people fleeing conflict, persecution and poverty will still try to flee the only way they can, putting their lives in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers.

A shameful example of how this works in practice is Europes cooperation with Libya. European leaders have deepened cooperation with the Libyan coastguard, through training and even provision of boats, in the hope of stopping sea crossings, despite warnings that this would support and even fuel human rights violations. They are now looking at supporting Libyan border control capacity in the south of the country.

This is happening even though Libya does not have a concrete plan to improve human rights protection. Refugees and migrants are detained automatically and people in need of international protection have no prospect of claiming asylum, as Libya has no legal asylum framework.

By empowering the Libyan coastguard to intercept refugees and migrants at sea and take them back to Libya, EU policy is exposing thousands to unspeakable abuses in the detention centers where they are sent upon disembarkation; centers where they are detained indefinitely and subjected to torture, beatings, rape and exploitation by guards.

Also, as we have seen in multiple sea interceptions carried out over the past months, the Libyan coastguard disregards basic safety protocols and international standards, and has even opened fire during rescue operations at sea. Refugees and migrants are put at risk while the EU looks the other way. Meanwhile, the number of irregular crossings and deaths at sea continues to rise.

This might be the most troubling example of how cooperation may lead to unintended but foreseeable consequences, but it is by no means the only one. In the pursuit of quick fixes to reduce migration, European governments are further developing measuressuch as the labeling of certain countries as safe for returnsthat increase the risk of human rights violations. So desperate are they to achieve the goal of reducing arrivals that they are prepared to trample the rights of desperate men, women and children seeking safety in Europe.

EU leaders have an opportunity to revert this course of action. At the very minimum, they should refrain from any form of cooperation that might leave refugees and migrants stranded in countries where they are exposed to human rights violations. They must monitor and address the human rights risks that may arise from current externalization policies.

But radical change is needed. As they review their external migration policies, European leaders must end their focus on the short-term objective of reducing crossings. Instead, a bold plan is needed to support human rights protection in countries of origin and transit and to make safe routes available to refugees and would-be migrants.

Such measures would provide a safer and more orderly alternative to dangerous irregular crossings and in so doing, steer refugees and migrants away from criminal networks who leech off their desperation. Only then will the tragedy of lives lost at sea become a thing of the past and the rights of vulnerable men, women and children will be truly protected.

Matteo de Bellis is a researcher at Amnesty International.

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EU Refugee Crisis: Human Rights Violations and Migrant Deaths Are Being Ignored - Newsweek