MEPs demand EU search and rescue mission to prevent Mediterranean deaths

The European Parliament has called for a “comprehensive” joint EU search and rescue mission to be set up to prevent further mass drownings in the Mediterranean, after hundreds of people were killed in a shipwreck off Greece last month.

The resolution, which was initiated by Dublin Fianna Fáil MEP Barry Andrews and was approved by a show of hands on Thursday, noted that there had been no proactive state-run search and rescue operation since Italy ended the Mare Nostrum mission in 2014 and that 27,633 people have been recorded as missing, presumed dead, since that year.

The motion called on the European Commission to provide funding for search and rescue operations and noted that under international law states were required to offer assistance “to any person in distress at sea” and to bring them to a place of safety.

“People intercepted by the Libyan coast guard are transferred to detention centres where they are systematically exposed to arbitrary detention in inhumane conditions and where torture and other ill-treatment, including rape, as well as arbitrary killings and exploitation are endemic,” the motion read.

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The deaths of hundreds of people in a shipwreck off Greece last month has led to political recriminations over the inadequacy of search and rescue operations, as well as questions over why the Greek coast guard failed to complete a rescue despite being aware of the struggling boat.

“EU member states continue to flout international law in their refusal to render assistance of those in distress,” Mr Andrews said in statement.

“Although investigations are ongoing, it appears that the Greek authorities were informed hours before the boat eventually sank. This is nothing short of immoral and cannot be tolerated in the European Union.”

On Thursday five NGOs, including Médecins Sans Frontières and Oxfam, announced they had submitted a complaint to the commission against a new law introduced by Italy that restricts vessels from carrying out more than one rescue operation at a time, as well as a practice of sending boats to distant ports to disembark survivors.

Their combined effect places “unjustified restrictions” on search and rescue operations, the NGOs said.

The motion calling for increased search and rescue operations is non-binding but MEPs described it as necessary to rectify a previous vote in 2019, in which the parliament voted against increasing search and rescue operations to help refugees and migrants in the Mediterranean.

“The 2019 vote in this parliament was a stain on us all, and I was complicit in that stain because I was not present to vote on that day,” Fianna Fáil Ireland South MEP Billy Kelleher told the chamber as the resolution was debated.

“Just because we failed to deal with the human traffickers and the camps in North Africa and elsewhere ... does not mean that we should fail in a human being’s hour of need when they are gasping for air as they drown just off the beaches where we lie sunbathing during the summer,” Mr Kelleher said. “It is shameful.”