UNHCR envoy criticised over remarks about parents of migrants

A senior official with the UN Refugee Agency has provoked outrage after suggesting that grieving parents should be “symbolically prosecuted” for the deaths of their children while attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.

Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR’s special envoy for the Western and Central Mediterranean, said on Twitter on Tuesday that grieving mothers of missing migrants “had no problem encouraging or funding their children to embark on those dangerous journeys”. He added that “symbolically prosecuting parents for putting at risk their children could trigger serious attitudinal change on death journeys”.

His comments were widely criticised by activists, refugees and a range of other observers and analysts, some of whom called for Mr Cochetel to resign.

“As if [mothers] are the ones responsible for the failed policies that underpin poverty and despair in the region and beyond. White prejudice endures, including in the UN,” tweeted Saïd Benarbia, Middle East and North Africa director for the International Commission of Jurists.

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Hannah Cooper, Europe co-ordinator at the International Detention Coalition, also responding on Twitter, said: “An absolutely disgraceful take. People move and always will. The real problem is a lack of safe and legal pathways.”

“The same white men have no problem embarking on safe journeys around the borderless world their passport affords them,” tweeted Eve Geddie, director at Amnesty International’s European Institutions Office. “This tweet could and must trigger serious attitudinal change in UNHCR.”

“Accusing mothers he has never met of their children’s death ... How low can he get, shameful,” tweeted Omer Shatz, a lawyer who co-authored a submission to the International Criminal Court to have EU officials prosecuted for crimes against humanity for the deaths of refugees and migrants in the Central Mediterranean.

On Wednesday, Mr Cochetel apologised for his comments. “Reflecting on the strong reactions to my previous tweets, my comments were inappropriate. I am sorry, especially to the mothers who have lost their children. My frustration at seeing so many lives lost, and the impunity the smugglers enjoy, does not justify my words.”

In an email to The Irish Times, a UNHCR spokesperson said: “UNHCR does not support prosecuting family members. The only exception would be if they were involved in criminal or trafficking activities.

“We fully understand the reactions to the tweet. The special envoy has apologised. UNHCR extends its deepest condolences to all those affected by this tragedy. We, at UNHCR, always stand in solidarity with all those impacted, including those who lost their children.”

According to his UNHCR biography, Mr Cochetel has worked for UNHCR since 1986, and he has been in his current position since 2017.

Mr Cochetel previously provoked outrage in 2019 when, on Twitter, he said he was “very concerned by the radicalisation of the migratory dreams and demands of some migrants and refugees in Libya and neighbouring countries.”

North Africa is a transit point to Europe for migrants and refugees from across the African continent, many of whom have fled war, dictatorships, persecution or crushing poverty, and do not have access to safe and legal routes to safe countries. A number travel on “go now, pay later” schemes, which mean they give no money to a smuggler up front, but later call their families — who often had no idea about their plans — and ask for the demanded fee.

Nearly 24,600 people have drowned or gone missing on the Mediterranean Sea since 2014.

Since 2017, at least 102,828 men, women and children have been caught on the Central Mediterranean, by the EU-backed Libyan coastguard, and forced back to Libya, where the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, among others, has said there is evidence that crimes against humanity and war crimes take place against them.