http://www.irinnews.org/report/100403/better-management-of-dead-and-missing-migrants-needed-in-europe
Better management of dead and missing migrants needed in Europe
JOHANNESBURG, 28 July 2014 (IRIN) - As the number of migrants and asylum
seekers reaching southern Europe's shores this year continues to climb - to
about 75,000 at last count - so too does the death toll from attempts to
cross the Mediterranean in over-crowded, unseaworthy boats.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) estimates that more than 800 migrants have
died trying to make the treacherous crossing from North Africa since the
beginning of the year.
Last week alone, the bodies of 29 migrants were found in the packed hold of
a fishing boat where they are thought to have been overcome by engine
fumes. According to survivor accounts, 60 others who tried to escape from
the suffocating hold were stabbed and thrown overboard by five fellow
passengers. A day earlier, the Italian navy rescued 12 people after their
rubber dinghy capsized off the coast of Libya. Another 109 who were on the
boat are missing.
An unknown number of other migrants who attempt the journey disappear
without a trace, their bodies presumably claimed by the sea, leaving
families back home desperate for news of their loved ones that never comes.
Yafet Gibe, an Eritrean refugee living in Sudan, last heard from his wife,
Brikti, who was trying to reach Europe with their 20-month-old daughter,
over a month ago. She called him from Libya, the departure point for most
migrants and asylum seekers trying to reach Europe, on 20 June and told
him that she would be boarding a boat on 28 June. Both a friend of Gibe's
based in Libya and the smuggler who had charged US$1,600 for the journey
from Sudan to Libya and another $1,700 for the Mediterranean crossing,
confirmed that Brikti and her child left on the boat as planned.
But Gibe, who had planned to join his wife in Europe with their other child
at a later stage, has not heard from her since and he learned that about
250 other migrants and asylum seekers travelling on the same boat have also
failed to make contact with their families. The smuggler insists that they
are all in an Italian prison, but as the weeks pass with no word from any
of them, this seems increasingly unlikely.
"Now I'm in Sudan and there's no one that can help me," Gibe told IRIN over
the phone from Khartoum. "Some of my friends in Europe have contacted the
Red Cross and they're checking the names of those arriving in Italy, but
there's no news."
No system for identifying dead migrants
Currently, Europe has no centralized system for identifying the bodies of
migrants, who often travel without documentation, nor for informing their
families in origin countries. Where there is no dead body available to
collect DNA samples and other identifying data, the task of helping
families to trace missing relatives is even harder. Now there is mounting
pressure from migrant and human rights advocates who argue that migrants'
families have a right to know the fate of missing relatives and European
governments should be doing more to help them.
"There's an inability to grieve when you don't have closure; entire lives
become focused on the return of the loved one and family relations can
disintegrate"
"There's an inability to grieve when you don't have closure; entire lives
become focused on the return of a loved one and family relations can
disintegrate," said Simon Robins, a researcher with the University of
York's Centre for Applied Human Rights, who recently co-authored a briefing
paper on how Europe could better deal with the migrants who die or go
missing on its southern frontier.
He and his co-authors argue that "there is a humanitarian imperative and a
moral and legal responsibility" to attempt to identify the bodies of dead
migrants, inform their relatives and treat their bodies with dignity.
However, based on research they conducted on the Greek island of Lesbos,
this rarely happens. The researchers found "a gray zone where no authority
assumed responsibility" for dealing with the bodies of migrants retrieved
by the island's coast guard. Nor is there any national or EU budget
allocated for their burial. The result is that "unidentified migrants are
hastily buried in unmarked graves" making it impossible for families to
locate their remains.
"Gathering data from bodies is crucial where there is a body, but clearly a
significant fraction of bodies are at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea
and will never be found," said Robins, adding that there are still ways of
reconstructing who was on a boat.
Interviewing shipwreck survivors
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) interviews survivors of
shipwrecks and other disasters at sea who are brought to Italian ports in
an effort to compile a list of migrants whose bodies were lost or dumped at
sea. The list is then passed on to the Italian authorities.
"What happens in practice is that as soon as a new shipwreck is reported,
we're immediately called by the families. We would then put them in touch
with someone who was on the boat to determine if their relative was there,"
explained Simona Moscarelli, a migration law expert with IOM in Rome. "In
some cases, we've also accompanied migrants' relatives to the police so
they can report the missing."
The shipwreck that claimed the lives of more than 350 mainly Eritrean
asylum seekers off the coast of Lampedusa in October 2013 shocked the world
and provided the impetus for the Italian navy's search-and-rescue mission,
Mare Nostrum, which has rescued tens of thousands of migrants since it
launched. The incident was unusual in that it occurred so close to shore
that divers were able to retrieve the bodies. However nine months later,
more than half of those bodies remain unidentified and the families of
those that have been identified are yet to be officially notified,
according to the Italian Red Cross.
Local authorities have taken DNA samples from all of the bodies, but
without comparison samples from close relatives (known as ante-mortem data)
that would allow a match to be made, the samples have little value. The 50
percent of the bodies that have been identified were mainly as a result of
linking up relatives (who called organizations like the Red Cross and IOM
in the days following the tragedy) with survivors who could confirm whether
or not their family members were on the boat.
Both the Red Cross and IOM have a presence in Eritrea and potentially could
collect DNA samples from relatives, but according to Lourdes Penados,
regional forensic advisor with the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC), not many of the immediate family in Eritrea have made contact and
asking them to present themselves for DNA collection presents considerable
diplomatic and security challenges in a country where emigrating without
the permission of the state is forbidden and severely punished.
Lack of centralized databases
ICRC hosted a conference in November 2013 on the issue of how Europe's
Mediterranean countries could better manage and identify dead migrants.
"We found that the problems are similar in most of these countries,"
Penados told IRIN. "There's a lack of databases for unidentified bodies and
a lack of communication between institutions at the national and regional
levels."
A number of recommendations came out of the conference, including that
there be standardized practices for collecting and managing information on
dead migrants and that the data be recorded in centralized databases
accessible to all relevant institutions. However, Penados said progress on
implementing the recommendations had so far been very slow despite the
ICRC's efforts to lobby the European Union (EU) on the issue.
"It's a regional issue so the EU has to get involved and also allocate
resources for this centralization to happen," she said.
One of the major impediments remains the lack of any mechanism to link
post-mortem data from European countries where dead migrants are found with
ante-mortem data from their countries of origin all over the world.
"It's potentially a hugely complicated logistical problem," admitted
Robins, who nevertheless argued that with sufficient political will, the
obstacles could be overcome.
Andreas Kleiser of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP)
agreed that tracing dead migrants back to their families in various origin
countries would take "a sizeable effort" but that similarly complex efforts
to identify the dead in the wake of natural disasters and conflicts had
yielded results.
"If you go back to the [2004] tsunami in Thailand, you had about 8,500
victims, among them many tourists from all over the globe. So you had to
find the family members and get the DNA references and that was done.
Interpol and national police forces cooperated to ask family members for
DNA samples.
"So it can be done, but it takes a mechanism to coordinate these things and
you need money."
Last year, ICMP and IOM signed a cooperation agreement that aims to draw on
ICMP's long experience in using DNA testing to trace the missing and its
sizeable database of reference and victim profiles and align this with
IOM's presence in origin countries where it could collect missing person
information and DNA samples. However, concrete programmes have yet to be
put in place and there is widespread agreement that leadership and funding
needs to come from the EU.
"It involves EU member states and EU border protection systems," pointed
out Klesier. "It needs to be addressed at an EU-wide level and in the
external relations of the EU as well."
ks/cb
Theme (s): Migration,
Received on Mon Jul 28 2014 - 14:00:04 EDT