Rights groups slam Europe's 'shameful' migrant policy

A day before EU leaders gather in the Belgian capital for an emergency summit to discuss the surge in migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, rights groups have called on European Union (EU) leaders to relaunch search and rescue operations.

2015 is set to be the deadliest year on record in the Mediterranean as ever-growing numbers of people fleeing violence in Syria, Eritrea and elsewhere try to reach safety in Europe. As many as 1,700 migrants have perished in the Mediterranean this year, 100 times more than in the same period in 2014. On Sunday more than 800 migrants and refugees drowned after their ship capsized.

New York-based Human Rights Watch's executive director Ken Roth wrote an open letter to EU leaders on Wednesday calling for a robust search-and-rescue operation in the Mediterranean. 

The death toll among migrants has soared since the decision to end the Italian Navy's humanitarian operation, Mare Nostrum, at the end of 2014. Mare Nostrum was replaced by a patrol mission called Triton, a smaller agency limited to border control off Italy's coastline, which does not actively search out boats in distress.

"The main thing we are calling for, the immediate imperative, is a robust search and rescue programme," Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watch's Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director, told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

"We have some serious concerns with the way in which many EU leaders have been characterising this as a fight against the evil criminal smugglers who are behind this crisis. To our mind this is an attempt to divert attention from failed EU policies," she said.

Advocates for migrants' rights have long pointed out the contradiction at the heart of EU migration policy: migrants must be on European territory before they can lodge a claim for asylum there, but without a visa, there is no legal way to reach the continent in the first place. This situation has prompted thousands of people, particularly Syrians and Eritreans, to board unseaworthy vessels in desperate attempts to reach European soil.

In an emergency meeting on Monday, the EU's main executive body recommended that member states commit to bolstering search and rescue missions, systematically capture and destroy vessels used by smugglers and set up an EU wide voluntary pilot project on resettlement. 

Wenzel Michalski, Germany Director for Human Rights Watch, told al-Araby al-Jadeed that simply destroying smugglers' boats would not help. 

"This is a desperate, naive and even stupid approach to the problem. It's dealing with the problem form the wrong end. What's needed is search and rescue, plus a different system for seeking asylum," he said.

Meanwhile, London based rights group Amnesty International called for the immediate launch of a humanitarian operation to save lives at sea, with adequate ships, aircraft, and other resources, patrolling where lives are at risk. 

"European leaders gathering in Brussels have an historic opportunity to end a spiralling humanitarian tragedy of Titanic proportions," said John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International's Director for Europe and Central Asia.

"Europe's negligence in failing to save thousands of migrants and refugees who run into peril in the Mediterranean has been akin to firefighters refusing to save people jumping from a towering inferno. Governments' responsibility must clearly be not only to put out the fire but to catch those who have stepped off the ledge."

Italy pressed the European Union on Wednesday to take robust steps to stop the tide of migrants, including setting up refugee camps in countries bordering Libya.

Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti also said human traffickers must be targeted with military intervention.

"We know where the smugglers keep their boats, where they gather," Pinotti told Sky TG24 TV in an interview. "The plans for military intervention are there."

With reporting by Associated Press