Statement concerning the drowning of migrants at sea off the Libyan coast
The tragedy of the lost lives continues once again on the shores of Europe. As since the 15th of August, it is reported about a boat with dozens of persons on its board (numbers are not yet precise) started to send a distress calls off the Libyan coast. Communications have been made among the authorities in Europe and their counterparts in Libya in order to urgently intervene to save the rickty boat, in which water started to leak into . But what is strange and inhumane, is the authorities’ insistence to ignore the calls for help, which determined accurately the location of the boat in international waters. The organization received Alarme Phone calls and tried to contact the authorities for12 times before losing the contact with the plastic boat since Saturday at 22:45 pm off the city of Zuwara, Libya.
This tragedy took the lives of 45 migrants, including 5 children, at sea. This incident reveals the ugly policies that choose to close the borders and work in all sorts of different ways to prevent migrants from reaching safety. And the tragedy is that the lives of other 37 migrants , who told the details of what happened , were saved by freshmen
As authorities in the north and south of the Mediterranean connive at focusing the security approach, while the Libyan authorities play the role of the border policeman. And concerning the humanitarian approach which is supposed to preserve the dignity and lives of immegrants, refugees and asylum seekers, it remains on the margins of policies that accords the utmost importance for political, economic and security concerns at the expense of the lives of people who fleets from crises, wars and violence.
The Center for Democratic Transition and Human Rights Support (DAAM) calls on the conscience of humanity that loses the lives of its children, without any regard for the tragedies of families ,without any respect for the principles and values of human rights by stopping these inhuman cases. With every tragedy, and as a result of the collapse of the laws and rules of human rights. The Center calls on all parties to defend human rights and implement it on the ground in order to stop the bleeding of death that hangs over the southern Mediterranean and the African continent.
