THE scenes looked surreal as a flotilla of migrant boats from Tunisia overwhelmed Lampedusa, an Italian island south of Sicily last week, but they mirrored the dilemma faced in many parts of Europe. Between Tuesday, September 12 and Wednesday, September 13, the overcrowded iron boats, 120 in all, according to Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, dropped round 6,800 migrants on the island, putting the capability of the coast guard to test and compounding the already tense situation in the island with a population of 5,000 people. Of course, the number of migrants could have been higher, but some, including a baby whose mother survived, perished in the sea as their boats tipped over. There were scuffles as the Red Cross handed out bottles of water. Lampedusa’s premier, Giorgia Meloni, previously pledged to thwart irregular migration but the surge of smuggler’s vessels has not ceased.
The situation in Lampedusa, a metaphor for the African condition, is indeed disturbing. Migrants storming any part of the world in over a hundred boats would put a strain on the facilities, and last week’s ugly sight in Lampedusa, where the population in the migrant camp with a capacity for only 450 beds had previously exploded, leaves much to be desired. The conditions are, to say the very least, dire, and the point cannot be stressed enough that all of this would not happen if African countries had good leadership and the environment was more clement. The wave of migration to Europe in dingy boats and at the mercy of the elements, as it were, is a humanitarian crisis. Citizens dissatisfied with the living conditions in their countries head to North Africa, desperate to make the trip to Europe, and without any thought for law or logic, only the quest for a different life.
Throngs of migrants perish in the Meditteranean Sea, forever forgotten, and many others fall into the hands of organ traffickers in Libya and other places who literally butcher them, provoked by their shrill cries to commit greater barbarity, and treating any call for mercy as an affront. On another plane, untold numbers of young women, lured with promises of good jobs in Europe, end up in brothels on the continent where they are treated worse than animals and die in droves, plagued by torture and disease. Of the few who make it to Europe, only a tiny number manage to escape from their captors who trade in their (the victims’) flesh without any care for their well-being, only the rustle of crisp currency. African countries are in a terrible mess and Africans keep escaping from the continent, often flouting international law and putting themselves through endless peril. They have lost confidence in their leaders and the hollow promises to make their lives better, and are willing to take terrible risks on the sea in crowded, flimsy boats that can capsize any moment. The situation gets worse by the day.
The fact that more than 6800 migrants arrived Lampedusa within just 24 hours in an armada of boats launched from Tunisia should help to plant the point it in the minds and senses of all that the problem of migration is not one that can be solved by building walls and structures to deter migrants. Rather, the solution lies in working to ensure that many do not see the need to flee their home countries in search of basic existence in the first place. When human beings are pushed to seek existence outside of their home countries at any costs because of the unsavoury circumstances in such places, nothing that can be realistically done to deter them from their resolve. Seeking a better and worthy life in other locations is a basic human trait. This is why all the steps taken by the rich and prosperous countries of the world to prevent immigration do not seem to be working.
Lampedusa witnessing an avalanche of almost 7,000 immigrants in a single day without being able to do anything about it means that the current methods adopted to check illegal immigration are doomed to failure. The countries which migrants are departing in droves from due to insecurity, war, bad governance and leadership insensitivity and atrocities should be helped and persuaded to make the necessary positive adjustments to make life more livable. In particular, Africa has to be helped through frank engagements with leaderships on the continent to become a more livable place for its people. In this regard, Europe also has to stop the idea of relating to Africa in an exploitative manner with its cozy relationship with rapacious leaders on the continent, including through blatant theft of natural resources. This is the way it can stop being ultimately overwhelmed by those running away from the disasters created by its nefarious activities on the continent.
This is, of course, not to say that African leaders themselves should not be embarrassed by the indignity of seeing thousands of their people, especially the young ones, dying every day in the seas and being subjected to degrading treatments because of their desperation to move into more affluent locations. Evidently, African leaders owe themselves and their people the responsibility of reworking their destiny by making the continent a more livable and prosperous place for the people. The indignities associated with massive and unending emigration from the continent need to stop.
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