Off the coast of Tunisia, 11 bodies were found on Sunday, August 23, after a boat sank towards Italy; 1 survivor, 3 are wanted. There were about 15 Tunisians on board. This is another death account for the way that Europe is trying to manage from a distance.
Tragedy off the coast of Tunisia
The Tunisian National defender reported on Sunday that 11 bodies were found after the boat crash with migrants. According to Associated Press, the unit departed Thursday morning from the area between Zarzis and Ben Guerdane, and the destination of the cruise was Italy. 1 individual was rescued by a merchant ship. 3 people are inactive considered missing.
According to the accounts cited by Al Jazeera for Reuters and AP, there were about 15 people on board, mostly young people from southeast Tunisia. The boat sank about 14 nautical miles (26 km) from the Tunisian coast. Among the passengers there were to be 7 people from 1 household and a man with a pregnant wife.
It's a text that needs to be written seriously. The Mediterranean has again become a place of death for people who have tried to enter Europe by a dangerous route. You can't make a spectacle of it. It is slow and it must be made clear: a migration policy that has for years pretended that the problem will solve half-measures, cost life, safety and order of states.
Route through Zarzis and Ben Guerdane
Zarzis has for years been 1 of the exit points for people trying to get across the Mediterranean to Europe. The proximity of the border with Libya and the location other the Italian Lampedusa make southeastern Tunisia a place of migration pressure. Migrants prey on desperation there and European countries watch the effects at their own borders.
According to AP, the only survivor was to drift for 48 hours in a life coat before taking it on a merchant ship. After this signal, a chopper and coastguard boats were sent to action. The Ben Guerdane families demanded that the search be accelerated; police utilized teardrop gas for the assembled. This shows the second dimension of tragedy: behind each statistic there are families who want to know where they are close to them.
The National diary had previously written about how record migration force struck the Italian island. Today's disaster has a different scale, but the same mechanism: the confederate border of Europe is exposed to smugglers, the weakness of transit countries and political disputes within the Union itself.
Europe pays for illusions
In 2023, the European Union concluded a migration agreement with Tunisia. The AP recalls that in 2023 alone Brussels allocated EUR 105 million to migration support for Tunisia, mainly for border control and Coast defender training. The number of trips from Tunisia has decreased, but neither smuggling nor the hazard of death at sea have disappeared.
International Organisation for Migration She warned in August that migration routes became more dangerous even erstwhile the number of irregular arrivals declined. This is an crucial fact for Poland. The Brussels model frequently counts flows, transfers and agreements, but besides seldom speaks of responsibility: who guards the border, who breaks up smuggling nets, who pays for chaos erstwhile the strategy breaks.
The right doesn't gotta choose between compassion for victims and a tough border policy. Just due to the fact that human life has dignity, states cannot give control to smugglers. The more Europe sends conflicting signals, the stronger the business of the people who put passengers on boats without real guarantees to get there.
Italian border is besides a European border
Italy has been 1 of the main destinations on the central Mediterranean way for years. The dispute over Dublin rules, relocation and work of first entry states returns at each subsequent disaster. We just wrote that Italy and Dublin rules have become the axis of the migration dispute. This is not a method dispute. It is simply a question of whether national states hold the right to decide who they let in and under what conditions.
For Poland, the lesson is simple. The border is not an abstraction or an administrative line on the map. It is simply a prerequisite for citizens' safety, legal order and trust in the state. Whoever blurs it in the name of the ideology of openness, sooner or later gets chaos, social cost and tragedy at sea.
Serious alternatively of political theatre
After this disaster, 3 things are needed: uncovering the missing, the worthy treatment of the victims, and a real hit on smugglers. Europe besides has a work to halt pretending that further transfers of money will solve the problem without hard border control and without a consistent return policy.
The stakes for Poles are not just what happens far from our ports. The state model is at stake. Either Europe returns to realism, sovereignty and the protection of its borders, or subsequent tragedies will be repeated in the rhythm of messages and condolence. Compassion without order does not save life. Order without dignity loses its meaning.
Source: WP News, Associated Press, Al Jazeera, IOM.
Source: WP News
