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Few issues have more political and social impact than paperless immigration in Europe in 2019. The Open Arms crisis has made headlines an issue whose real figures are far from the xenophobic slogans and the campaigns of some parties calling for a hard hand with NGOs, which they accuse of collusion with traffickers, and closed borders for a flow that they consider an "invasion."

With data from UNHCR, the world refugee agency, Frontex, European Border Surveillance Agency and the United Nations International Organization for Migration (IOM), this is the current photograph of the central Mediterranean as a migration route.

MORE BOAT DEPARTURES WITHOUT NGOs IN THE AREA

In recent months a mantra has spread in the political speeches of the extreme right and in its main forums: "The NGO ships collaborate with the human trafficking mafias." Politicians such as Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini called these boats "taxis" for allegedly picking up immigrants in the waters of Libya and bringing them to Europe, favoring "illegal immigration." In Spain, Vox copies that narrative and calls Open Arms and MSF "mafias."

They have not presented any evidence on this and the reality denies them: people traffickers have thrown these boats full of immigrants to the sea from the Libyan beaches regardless of whether there were NGO ships.

From January 1 to August 20, according to IOM data, 7,531 immigrants embarked from Libyan beaches without NGO vessels at sea, while only 1,961 people left those same beaches when there were at least one of these ships in international waters off the same coast of Libya. That is, the vast majority of immigrants were shipped by the mafias when there was no "taxi" at sea, according to Salvini terminology. These boats were returned to the ground by the Libyan coast guard or sank or, at least, arrived in Lampedusa or Malta by their own means.

BATTERIES WITHOUT RESCUATORS

Listening to the rhetoric of these ultra-right politicians, underpinned by gross mounts (the most popular uses images taken by the program Saved from an assault of a Libyan patrol boat on the Open Arms ship and makes it go through a collaboration between the NGO and the mafias) it seems that every boat chartered from Libya by the traffickers should wait at sea for the corresponding NGO boat waiting for rescue. Actually, it is not like that. 43 boats left the coast in periods when there was no NGO in front of Libya, for only 35 who did at that time. If you talk about coordination, but the data denies it. The majority of inflatable boats launched by the mafias go to sea without NGOs on the horizon.

MAFIOUS INTERESTS

The three output peaks during this 2019 have coincided with a moment of NGO emptying in the central Mediterranean. Traffickers did not mind throwing people into the sea knowing they would have much less chance of being rescued. The first was during the first days of last May. Almost 450 people were shipped to Italy. The second peak took place the first days of July. Up to 300 immigrants left Libya then. The last and most important, during the last days of July, involved 600 people and there were no NGO ships in the so-called SAR zone (search and rescue area). That is, the interests of the gangster do not coincide with the times of the rescue boats of the NGOs.

BUSINESS ALWAYS OF THE SAME

In the reality of today's Libya as a failed state there are two very lucrative jobs: one, being a trafficker of people. And the other, fight against that traffic of people. The most curious thing is that sometimes these two jobs are carried out by the same people. The EU has trained 200 Libyan coastguards for months to control the exits of these boats while Italy has paid huge amounts of money to the Libyan militias so that they are not involved in this business. But there are armed groups that stop vessels at sea, with patrol cars paid by the EU, and then put them back into the water. Immigrants are only their merchandise. In addition, these traffickers may have a problem if they lose a shipment of weapons, or cocaine, other businesses that drive on their same routes, but nobody will ask for accounts if a ship with 100 people sinks, because it has already charged. According to IOM, there are now 800,000 immigrants in Libya: a business for the mafia.

A ROAD IN DECADENCE

It is curious that there is more talk about immigration than ever, especially with reference to the central Mediterranean and the operations of NGOs, when it is a route that loses traffic year after year. That "invasion" that the ultra-right groups talk about is in free fall. According to data from Acnur, of the 181,436 immigrants who arrived in 2016 from Libya, the maximum peak recorded in this area, we went to 119,369 in 2017 and only 23,370 in 2018. In the almost eight months we have been in 2019, only 4,393 have landed in Europe , less than in Spain (18,558, a figure that also falls compared to the previous year) and Greece (29,028). That is, on the route of the Central Mediterranean, the number of immigrants without papers has dropped 87% in three years.

CALL EFFECT ... LOST

IOM and Acnur data override the theory of the called effect. Rather it would be a "missed call." The gangsters can know, like anyone else, thanks to the navigation pages that track GPS of all the world's maritime traffic, whether there are NGO ships or not in the area. And that does not determine the moments in which they decide to launch their ships in the sea.

In addition, there are fewer and fewer NGOs that charter ships to the Mediterranean. Three years ago, up to seven rescue vessels arrived to coincide, but the criminalization of these rescue activities in Italy and the Spanish pressure on ships such as the Open Arms have caused many to withdraw. At this time only the Mare Jonio of the NGO Sea Watch, which was held in Sicily for reasons similar to those of the Open Arms, is heading to the Libyan SAR area.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Libya
  • Open arms
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  • Vox
  • Matteo Salvini
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