JRS appeals to EU leaders to “target saving lives”

(Vatican Radio) As Europe witnesses yet another tragedy of migrants at sea, Jesuit Refugee Service calls on leaders, yet again, to take action to prevent further loss of life.

Not only have European states not taken the necessary measures to save lives in the Mediterranean, says a JRS press release today, they have established a series of ‘legal’ obstacles for those fleeing intensifying conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.

JRS International media director James Stapleton told Vatican Radio’s Linda Bordoni that this latest tragedy was foretold.

Listen to the interview: 

“This is probably the fifth or sixth time in the last two years that we’ve been saying to European Governments: please do something to save people coming across the Mediterranean” says Stapleton.

He says that “Mare Nostrum” the Italian search and rescue operation that searched for vessels in difficulty outside Italian waters where most of the accidents take place provided some level of support for fleeing refugees.

Stapleton points out when that programme was ended JRS warned that “if the European programme wasn’t of the same measure, didn’t have the same capacity, this (kind of tragedy) would happen again, and it has”.   

He says we see the situation in Syria, in Iraq, we know what is happening in Eritrea, in Afghanistan, and we know that people are desperate “we’ve begged the Governments to do something about this”.

“I just can’t understand how the Italian Government could afford a programme like ‘Mare Nostrum’ for a year – saving 170,000 people – a country of 60 million people, and the whole of the European Union, one of the richest blocs in the world, can’t have a programme which matches that” he says.

Stapleton says this is a question of political choices.

“Governments are deciding that the most important thing is border security and the second – far after that – is saving lives” he says.

Stapleton asks how many more people have to die before they recognize this is not a simple question of economic migration. He says we are witnessing the worst war on European borders since WW2.

He says there are 7 million people displaced inside Syria, 3 million outside the nation with Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey bearing the brunt.

These countries he says can’t cope and now the people are coming to Europe “We said this would happen” he says.

Stapleton says Europe refuses to give people the support they need in the countries that receive them, we do not even reach out to those vulnerable people we know are going to face huge difficulties to survive in a country like Lebanon, “and now we won’t even help people get across the sea when their lives are at risk”.

JRS has recently issued a policy paper with ‘recommendations for the development of safe and legal paths to protection in the EU with indications for decision makers to work on.

“We are calling for four recommendations. The first one is: Target saving lives” he says.

Stapleton says the other recommendations call for ‘Family reunification’ processes; for ‘Resettlement and humanitarian admission”; for the issuing of some kind of ‘Humanitarian visa’ and for the ‘Temporary lifting of visa requirements’.

Concluding Stapleton agrees that by turning the other way we are making it more profitable for human traffickers “because we are making it so dangerous that we are increasing the cost for people to get out and save their lives2.

“We can’t have it both ways: we can’t talk about clamping down on international crime and at the same time create policies which make these people richer” he says.