Dinghy deaths continue
01 May 2003
As EU governments prepared for a summit in the Greek seaside resort of Porto Carras on 20-21 June 2003 (where they agreed an increase in the level of funding allocated to combat illegal immigration) news filtered through from the southern borders of the Union reminding them of the human cost of the prohibitionist approach towards immigration.
A boat heading from Tunisia to the Italian island of Lampedusa laden with around seventy passengers sank on Saturday 13 June, according to the account of three survivors. Around seven corpses were subsequently found, while the remaining migrants are missing, presumed dead. Another boat, that set off for Italy from the Libyan coast, and carried over 250 migrants, sank on Friday 20 June in the high seas near the port of Sfax, in an incident that is believed to have caused over 200 deaths. Forty-one survivors were rescued, and 12 bodies were found during rescue operations.
In the run-up to the European summit, shipwrecks were also being reported from the Spanish coast, particularly the Canary Islands. On 2 June 2003, two dinghies carrying migrants travelling towards Fuerteventura were spotted by a high-tech integrated external surveillance system (SIVE) off the coast of Tuineje, on the southern part of the island. The official version of the accident, reported in El País, indicates that as a Guardia Civil launch approached, the passengers on one of the dinghies stood up, causing it to overturn. Survivors indicated that 12 people had fallen into the sea, one of whom was rescued. The dead bodies of nine of the remaining 11 were found in the following days.
The dynamics of another incident on 10 June, in which nine migrants are believed to have died (the bodies of two others are missing) were similar. As the passengers on a dinghy carrying 25 migrants were being lifted into a Guardia Civil rescue launch, they reportedly stood up because the dinghy looked like sinking. This caused the boat to overturn. Sixteen people were rescued. On 31 May, 15 migrants disappeared in similar circumstances off the coast of Fuerteventura.
In the early morning of 14 July, two migrants drowned in a shipwreck in Tarifa, and their bodies were found by Guardia Civil rescue launches. El País estimates that a minimum of 62 persons have died trying to reach Spain this year, although published figures tend to be lower than reality because a number of the corpses of migrants who die trying to reach Spain are never found. From the beginning of 2003 until 11 June, 5,159 migrants, in 286 dinghies, were arrested as they tried to land.
El País 3, 10, 11.6.03, 15.7.03; il manifesto 21.6.03; Agence France Press 17, 24.6.03.