The constant increase in the numbers of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean is forcing EU governments to devise a response strategy to it. The paper shows the failures of EU policy in preventing and discouraging migrants to make the journey and describes the critical humanitarian conditions that force people to flee from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Eritrea and other countries, providing a large number of interviews with many migrants arriving in Italy and Greece. The paper then suggests the measures that EU governments should take, such as building safe channels for migrants, Italy’s Mare Nostrum and similar operations, fighting people-smugglers and in general placing a human rights perspective at the center of the solution.
The Human Rights Watch