'Like the Wild West'

Peter Popham in Rome writes in today's Independent(UK) on how migrants clung desperately to life towed on a tuna net across the Mediterranean "by a Maltese tug that refused to take them on board" after their boat sank. Popham writes that up to 10,000 people are believed to have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean from Africa:

..Malta and Libya, where they had embarked on their perilous journey, washed their hands of them. Eventually, they were rescued by the Italian navy. The astonishing picture shows them hanging on to the buoys that support the narrow runway that runs around the top of the net. They had had practically nothing to eat or drink. Last night, on the island of Lampedusa, the 27 young men - from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan and other countries - told of their ordeal. As their flimsy boat from Libya floundered adrift for six days, two fishing boats failed to rescue them. On Wednesday, the Maltese boat, the Budafel allowed them to mount the walkway but refused to have them on board.

This is the latest snapshot from the killing seas of the southern Mediterranean, the stretch of water at the European Union's southern gate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says "has become like the Wild West, where human life has no value any more and people are left to their fate". On Friday, The Independent reported how a Maltese plane photographed a crazily overloaded boat in this area carrying 53 Eritreans, several of whom telephoned desperate pleas for help to relatives in London, Italy and Malta. The boat disappeared with all hands before anything was done to save them. They died, not because help was unavailable, but because no-one wanted to do anything. Malta is full up. Libya, where these voyages begin, takes no responsibility. One might think that the EU's new frontiers agency, Frontex, had a part to play. But its "rapid response team" remains on the drawing board.

Frontex is expected to begin joint patrols in the Mediterranean shortly, following a brief pilot programme last year. But the critical stretch between Malta and Libya is to be controlled by Malta and Greece, and the hard-nosed attitude of the Maltese in recent weeks does not inspire optimism. The Maltese captain of the Budafel refused to land the men, he later explained, because he had $1m-worth of tuna in the pen. If he had taken them to Malta, the trip would have taken 12 days, given the tug's slow speed. There, he would have found himself in the middle of a diplomatic wrangle. "I couldn't take the risk of losing this catch," he said.

The captain informed the Maltese authorities. The Maltese phoned the Libyans - the Africans were about 60 miles from the Libyan coast, within Libya's area of competence for search and rescue. Libya said they would send a helicopter to the spot and throw down a life raft. Malta - by this point Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi had become directly involved - said that was unacceptable. They gave Malta's armed forces the task of persuading the Libyans to pick the men up. The 27 had by this point spent three days and nights standing on the walkway, which is 18 inches wide. The Budafel's captain said he wouldn't mind being on the walkway for an hour. Any longer - under the fierce sun, or in the chill of the night - no thanks...

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