The headlines are full of reports of people drowning in the Mediterranean. Aid agencies and authorities are working day and night to provide the survivors with the most basic necessities. The 10-point plan proposed by the EU shows no serious will to end these tragedies. It should be clear to everyone by now that it is no use just fighting migration. Other demands are appropriate.
In the last twenty years at least 15000 people have died in the sea off the European coast. One or two tragedies a year, in which the number of deaths is quantitatively outstanding, shake up the public. So was the death of about 800 people last Sunday. In the absence of adequate political responses, local organisations in the Mediterranean countries continue to work in a state of permanent emergency and try to alleviate the greatest suffering of those refugees who survived the journey in the short term. Among them are many children and young people.
Financial support extended
Terre des hommes Italy, which is currently expanding its activities, is one of these organisations. Terre des hommes Italy works in the Sicilian province of Syracuse in reception centres with unaccompanied minor refugees and families with children. While most of the organizations concentrate on covering basic physical needs such as health, food and shelter, the conditions in the reception centres are usually extremely precarious, Terre des hommes specializes in psychological support. terre des hommes Switzerland has decided to extend its financial support for this work in the sense of an immediate measure.
The people, especially children and young people, should be able to process their traumatic experiences. This reduces the risk of long-term psychological illnesses. Terre des hommes also offers legal support. The organisation is now about to extend its activities to the province of Ragusa. Besides Syracuse, the province of Ragusa is the place where most refugees in Sicily arrive.
Emergency aid alone is not enough, however, because the flow of refugees will not stop. Political and solidarity-based solutions are needed.
The 10-point plan adopted by the EU in response to the latest mass death in the Mediterranean can only be described as cynical. For example, measure 5 proposes to take the fingerprints of all refugees. This in response to the fact that another 800 people have drowned. They took the risk of crossing the Mediterranean because they wanted to escape poverty and violence in their country of origin. The fingerprinting is only to make it easier to deport the survivors of this and the next disasters.
Together with numerous other development organisations, we demand:
