How the EU border regime designed a deadly migration journey

By the time the overcrowded fishing boat sank off the coast of Pylos, Greece on 14 June, plunging the 750 migrants onboard into deep waters, it had been stranded at sea for 15 hours.

The incident is one of the deadliest migration tragedies in the Mediterranean since 2015. Just 104 passengers were rescued. So far, 82 bodies have been recovered, while more than 500 migrants - including about 100 children - remain missing.

In response to the shipwreck, both Greek and European Union (EU) officials have offered thoughts and prayers while denying responsibility and reiterating the need to crack down on smuggling. 

Behind the cameras, the EU has continued to build a border regime predicated on keeping those seeking asylum out at any cost. Since 2014, more than 25,000 migrants have died in the Mediterranean attempting to reach European shores, making it the deadliest migration route in the world. 

“The Pylos shipwreck should shock us and remind us why the system that's in place is an unjust one and a cruel one,” Niamh Keady-Tabbal, a PhD researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, told The New Arab.

The scale of the recent tragedy has captured attention and put a spotlight on the failure of EU border policies designed to create a hostile and perilous environment for migrants at every step of the journey, from long before entering the sea to long after arriving on European soil. 

"Behind the cameras, the EU has continued to build a border regime predicated on keeping those seeking asylum out at any cost"

Border externalisation

The externalisation of Europe’s borders refers to the process by which the EU and its member states outsource border monitoring and migration control operations to states neighbouring the continent. It has become one of the defining elements of the EU’s border regime.

“Rather than waiting for refugees to arrive at their borders and on their shores, European governments have decided that the best way to obstruct and deter new arrivals is to outsource the task of migration management to undemocratic and authoritarian countries,” explained Jeff Crisp, a researcher with the Refugees Studies Centre at Oxford University and a former senior official at the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees.

By shifting responsibility for migration management onto countries outside its borders, the EU is able to avoid its obligations under international law. 

“Externalisation creates a distance between the EU and the harmful consequences of its policies and makes it easier to evade accountability for human rights violations,” explained Keady-Tabbal. This is precisely what happened in the aftermath of the Pylos shipwreck, when EU officials immediately shifted blame onto smugglers as well as migrants themselves.

“[Externalisation] enables Europe to claim that it is not actively obstructing the arrival of refugees. But this is clearly a lie,” said Crisp, explaining that EU funds are put directly to severe deterrence methods used by partner states, forcing migrants into more dangerous routes.

The EU has poured millions into agreements with all the countries that serve as the most popular departure points for migrants across the Middle East and North Africa, including Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco.

Turning a blind eye to extremely troubling human rights records, these deals strengthen authoritarian regimes in partner states with scarce protections for migrants and refugees.

In Libya, where the trawler set off from, human rights groups have documented severe abuses against migrants by both state and non-state actors, including human trafficking, unlawful killings, and organ harvesting. A UN report found that these abuses “may amount to crimes against humanity”.

Despite this, Italy renewed its migration agreement with Libya in February, through which EU funds are sent to the Libyan coastguard to intercept and push back migrants, forcing them into detention centres where torture is rampant.

Tunisia, which has just recently overtaken Libya to become the most common departure point for migrants seeking to reach Europe, reached a deal with the EU just days before the Pylos tragedy to receive €100 million for border management and anti-smuggling. 

Rights groups have warned that this will not only create an even more hostile environment for migrants in Tunisia, who President Kais Saied has scapegoated for many of the country’s woes, but also enable Saied’s increasingly authoritarian and repressive policies. 

In June, the EU pledged €80 million to Egypt for border management, citing the drastic increase in migration. Just last week, the bloc announced that it would provide a further €20 million to Cairo to help address the influx of refugees fleeing violence in Sudan, who have received a cold welcome at the Egyptian border. 

EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell even cited the Pylos incident, emphasising the need to “take fierce action” against smugglers. With this, the EU continues to push its border deeper beyond the Mediterranean and into Africa.

"Those that are fortunate enough to survive the deadly journey across the sea are then met with hostility on European soil"

At sea: Abandonment and pushbacks

Making it into European waters does not mean that the difficult part of the journey is over. Southern European states, such as Greece and Italy, have routinely practised a policy of deliberate abandonment and forced returns of migrants.

In the recent case of the trawler, activist group Alarm Phone had received several calls from passengers on board saying the vessel was in distress. The group then relayed this information to authorities, along with the vessel’s location.

Both the Greek coast guard and the European Border and Coast Guard Agency Frontex were aware of the boat’s presence and location. But instead of immediately sending help, Greek authorities simply continued to monitor the boat.

Greek authorities said that they did not intervene sooner because the passengers refused assistance, but activists say that the international law of the seas requires them to provide assistance to any boat in distress.

According to testimonies from those aboard the boat, the Hellenic coast guard actually caused the boat to capsize after attempting to tow it and destabilising it.

Greece also routinely uses pushbacks, an illegal practice to expel refugees by dragging them back into international waters and preventing them from lodging an asylum claim. This often involved towing a migrant boat at high speeds, causing it to capsize or violently forcing migrants onto motorless, inflatable boats that are then towed away from the shore.

In Europe: Criminalised and marginalised

Those that are fortunate enough to survive the deadly journey across the sea are then met with hostility on European soil. 

Often, the at-sea policies of abandonment and forced return extend to land. Migrants that have made it to Greece are sometimes abandoned on remote islands for weeks, left to die of hunger and thirst, as was the case for a group of 40 migrants stranded on an islet for a month last year.

European authorities have also been accused of rounding up migrants that have recently arrived on land and forcing them back into the sea. A recent video published by The New York Times shows migrants in Greece being unloaded from a van, forced onto a dinghy, and dragged out into the water. 

In recent years, European states have also escalated their efforts to criminalise migrants, asylum seekers, and those that advocate for them. Migrants are accused of captaining the boats they arrive on and are charged with human smuggling. In the Pylos shipwreck, nine Egyptian men were arrested but all have denied the allegation.

The rest of the survivors were detained in a warehouse for two days. Migrants are often kept in overcrowded and destitute camps surrounded by wire fences and far away from society. Even if they are finally granted legal status, migrants often struggle with integration, access to resources, and discrimination.

This process of legal and social marginalisation, which continues years or decades after arrival, is what Jan Shaller calls “externalisation on the inside”.

"These kinds of tragedies or disasters remind us of the structural inequalities that borders sustain and if we normalise them, then we may forget that they're actually not inevitable, but can be prevented"

A cycle of violence

Even with such hostile policies at every step of the journey, the EU’s increasingly violent deterrent measures to keep migrants and asylum seekers out of Europe do not work.

In the first quarter of 2023, nearly 28,000 people arrived in Europe via the central Mediterranean, three times more than in the same period last year. This year has been the deadliest for migrants since 2015. 

Since the Pylos shipwreck, 37 people went missing when a migrant boat from Tunisia capsized, while a further 35 are feared dead after another boat attempting to reach the Canary Islands sank.

Still, EU officials have shamelessly continued to escalate efforts to create a hostile environment for those trying to reach European shores. In February, the bloc agreed to toughen border infrastructures. 

“EU officials even use these disasters to further justify more closed borders, pointing to the danger of these kinds of journeys in order to justify cracking down on migration even more,” said Keady-Tabbal.

For now, neither Crisp nor Keady-Tabbal believe that the EU and its member states will switch course and put an end to the ongoing cycle of violence at its doorstep.

“To put it crudely, dead black and brown bodies are seen to be a price worth paying to sustain the illusion that states are 'doing something' to prevent the arrival of people from the Global South,” Crisp said. 

Both also emphasise the need for safe and legal routes for those wishing to migrate as the most fundamental first step in order to protect lives and uphold the principle of asylum under international law. 

“People shouldn't have to resort to these types of routes in the first place. And borders shouldn't be used to discriminate against people, safety shouldn't be based on where you're from, or how much money you have,” said Keady-Tabbal. 

“These kinds of tragedies or disasters remind us of the structural inequalities that borders sustain and if we normalise them, then we may forget that they're actually not inevitable, but can be prevented.”

Nadine Talaat is a London-based journalist writing about Middle East politics, borders and migration, environment, and media representation. She is a Deputy Editor with The New Arab's editorial team.

Follow her on Twitter: @nadine_talaat