You are here

Article Text

Article menu

Download PDFPDF

XML
Commentary
Migrants caught between tides and politics in the Mediterranean: an imperative for search and rescue at sea?
  1. Federica Zamatto1,
  2. Stefano Argenziano1,
  3. Jovana Arsenijevic2,
  4. Aurelie Ponthieu3,
  5. Marco Bertotto1,
  6. Francesco Di Donna1,
  7. Anthony D Harries4,5,
  8. Rony Zachariah2
  1. 1 Operations and Medical Department, Médecins Sans Frontières, Brussels Operational Centre, Rome, Italy
  2. 2 Operational Research Unit (LuxOR), Médecins Sans Frontières, Brussels Operational Centre, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
  3. 3 Analysis and Advocacy Unit, Médecins Sans Frontières, Brussels Operational Centre, Brussels, Belgium
  4. 4 Center for Operational Research, International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease, Paris, France
  5. 5 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to Dr Rony Zachariah; rony.zachariah{at}brussels.msf.org

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2017-000450

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Summary box

    • In the late 2014, owing to lack of European Union support, the Italian state retreated from their Mare Nostrum—a proactive ‘Search and Rescue’ (SAR) operation in the central Mediterranean leaving thousands to die at sea.

    • Humanitarian Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) including Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) stepped in to fill this gap but have been recently accused of being a ‘pull factor’ for migrants and refugees and being a cause for deterioration in maritime safety by increasing deaths at sea.

    • Contrary to the pull factor hypothesis, the number of sea arrivals during the NGO involvement period (with proactive SAR operations) was lower than during equivalent prior periods. Mortality rates were also substantially lower during the NGO period compared with similar prior periods.

    • These findings strongly support arguments that SAR operations by humanitarian NGOs reduce mortality risks and have little or no effect on the number of arrivals.

    It was in the 1980s when the first bodies of migrants and refugees from the global south were washed up on European shores.1 In the absence of safe and legal alternatives, people continue to embark on perilous sea journeys for a myriad of reasons; they are fleeing persecution, violence and poverty and seeking freedom, safety and a better life in Europe. Thousands continue to die in the Central Mediterranean Sea which has proved to be the most dangerous route.2

    The greatly mediatised Lampedusa shipwreck of 3 October 2013 when 368 migrants and refugees died off the Italian coast is credited with the launch of an Italian state-led mission ‘Mare Nostrum’.3 4 The operation had an explicit humanitarian objective and involved identifying boats in distress and then rescuing people—a proactive ‘Search and Rescue (SAR)’ operation that operated close to the Libyan coast. Significant human resources, military rescue assets as well as financial means were placed at its disposal …

    View Full Text