AN image going around on the internet these days depicts the azure waters of the ocean, with a dozen human bodies floating in the shape of the circle — a biting comment on the general attitude towards migrants displayed by a set of countries that own as their flag the Europa, with its 12 golden stars.

The flood of refugees trying to land on European shores appears to not be slowing down, notwithstanding measures to discourage them such as the highly debatable decision to suspend the Italian-run search-and-rescue operation Mare Nostrum.

Initiated in late 2013, this operation reportedly saved more than 100,000 lives last year. On Friday, news emerged of the deaths of over 100 people in two more shipwrecks off the Libyan coast; here too, desperate people fleeing violence and poverty were put aboard rickety ships in the bid to cross the Mediterranean.

Amongst the survivors was a Pakistani teenager, Shefaz Hamza, who gave rescuers a harrowing account of how the boat carrying some 350 passengers disintegrated.

A separate rescue operation undertaken by the Libyan coastguard on Wednesday found 51 people who had died of suffocation in the hold of a boat, with survivors describing how human traffickers beat them and demanded money for allowing people a breath of fresh air.

And it is not just via sea that the wretched of the earth are trying to reach some modicum of safety and respect (for, even if they managed to reach Europe, their reception would still make their immediate future grim): these deaths come on the heels of the discovery of the bodies of 71 migrants, thought to be mainly Syrian, in a lorry in Austria.

The UN said on Saturday that “much more is required”, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling it a “crisis of solidarity, not a crisis of numbers”.

He called on states to “expand safe and legal channels of migration”, adding that the international community must show greater determination in resolving “conflicts and other problems that leave people little choice but to flee”. There can certainly be no argument about this, and the fact that this is a humanitarian crisis that represents a blot on the world’s conscience.

A change of mindset is needed amongst the populations of stable and well-off countries. There could be potential benefits to their own societies and economies were migrants thought of as human resource rather than a burden.

Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2015

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