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A precarious metal boat carrying 40-50 migrants across the Mediterranean from Africa.
Europe plays the blame game over asylum-seekers
“There had been landings but never a tragedy like this,” the mayor of Cutro, a southern Italian town, said after a boat carrying an estimated 200 migrants splintered into pieces on Sunday after hitting rocky terrain.
At least 63 people, including children and at least one newborn, were found dead, while 80 migrants, all adults, survived. Dozens remain missing. Most of the migrants came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, having crossed the tumultuous sea from Turkey.
This week’s tragedy comes amid a steep increase since 2022 in the number of asylum-seekers from North Africa and South Asia attempting to cross the Mediterranean in hopes of reaching Europe. Indeed, the Italian coast has emerged as the first point of entry for many would-be migrants fleeing economic hardship, oppression, and political implosion.
What’s causing the uptick, and how are Italy and the European Union responding?
A post-COVID surge. The pandemic years saw a lull in migrants from North Africa crossing the Mediterranean, largely due to border closures. But that all changed in 2022 when a significant number of migrants from Afghanistan, Tunisia, Libya, Eritrea, Iraq, Egypt, and elsewhere resumed attempts to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. Though the influx has not reached crisis levels seen in 2015-2016, when 1.3 million people sought refuge in Europe, roughly 100,000 people crossed the Mediterranean into Italy alone last year. Migration levels have also steadily risen due to an influx of refugees from the eastern flank of Ukraine, as well as the Western Balkan route, which accounted for 45% of all illegal entry attempts into the EU last year.
There has been a “build-up of migration pressure because of people who needed to leave during the pandemic but did not have the access,” says Eric Reidy, a reporter for The New Humanitarian focused on migration. This dynamic is also interacting with specific factors, Reidy notes, including the “Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan and the deteriorating situation for Syrian refugees in Turkey.”
Shipwrecked in Italy. Many refugees leaving Turkey or northeast Libya, two of the main points of embarkation, are opting to take a longer and more perilous journey to Italy to avoid disembarking in Greece, where authorities have been known to push back boats. Meanwhile, prison-like conditions at Greek refugee camps have been a boon for people smugglers promising to help would-be migrants reach the Italian coast.
But the Italian government isn’t keen to absorb the influx. Since coming to power last fall, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Brothers of Italy Party has sought to position herself as an anti-immigrant firebrand. While Meloni, a nationalist, has surprisingly avoided many of the anticipated confrontations with the European Union, her government has introduced sweeping anti-immigrant legislation and antagonized fellow member states into sharing the load.
“Italy wants more redistribution where they [migrants] can submit their asylum request elsewhere – but this is a non-starter in Europe,” says Luca Barana, a research fellow at Italy's Institute for International Affairs in Rome, pointing to bloc-wide rules requiring member states to process refugees who arrive first in their territorial waters. Rome, however, says the status quo is unsustainable.
Meloni takes on NGOs. In a move broadly condemned by rights groups, the Meloni government has focused on making it harder for humanitarian vessels to rescue migrants at sea by assigning boats to disembarkation ports in northern Italy. Essentially, this means that after conducting a rescue operation, vessels must return to their designated port – even ignoring subsequent distress calls – limiting their time on the sea. Those who ignore the order could have their vessels confiscated by Italian authorities.
Indeed, the anti-NGO push was largely championed by deputy PM and longtime anti-immigrant advocate Matteo Salvini, who has long argued that the presence of charity rescue vessels in the Mediterranean incentivizes migrants to risk the journey.
Unsurprisingly, this policy is causing deep rifts within the EU. Back in November, France and Italy were at loggerheads after Rome refused to accept the Ocean Viking, a ship carrying 230 migrants, claiming – in what France said was an act of bad faith – that Paris had agreed to take in the vessel (it had not). After three weeks of bobbing around on the waters, France ultimately accepted the NGO vessel but suspended an earlier goodwill gesture to take in 3,500 refugees from Italy.
What’s Europe doing about it? In recent years, both Italy and the EU have been trying to direct resources to countries of origin to try and stop the boats. Just last month, Italy delivered another ship to the Libyan coast guard, while Meloni also recently visited Libya to strengthen cooperation arrangements.
However, refugee advocates have long said that Europe’s ability to absorb refugees is simply a matter of political will. Many now point to the absorption of Ukrainian refugees over the past year as a case in point. “Around 4.8 million Ukrainians registered for protection in the EU in the past year,” Reidy says, while comparatively, the number of people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe is in the 120,000-150,000 range. For Reidy, this reinforces the “division of refugees into deserving and undeserving refugees” that pervades Europe.
As part of this effort to augment North African coast guards, intercepted migrants are often put in indefinite detention by Libyan authorities. They are “detained in horrendous conditions where forced labor, torture, extortion, and sexual abuse” are rife, Reidy says. Their only way out is to pay a hefty fine or, for women, to sexually exploit themselves. Otherwise, they risk languishing there indefinitely.
What now? It’s easy to blame the bureaucracy in Brussels for policy stagnation, but that’s not what’s really going on here. Rather, the problem is that 27 member states with competing domestic priorities simply can’t agree on a possible solution. Italy, playing for a domestic audience that backs its tough-on-migration play, remains committed to employing cynical tactics to get the EU to play ball. But as crises mount around the world, would-be-migrants still calculate that risking their lives at sea is safer than staying put.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with his daughter Kim Ju Ae at a banquet in Pyongyang, North Korea.
Hard Numbers: North Korea bans a name, US inflation stays warm, aid trucks cross into Syria, Ukrainians freeze sperm
0: The number of North Korean girls who are allowed to have the same name as Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter Kim Ju-Ae is now, reportedly, zero. Young Ju Ae, who is thought to be around 11 years old, has recently been in the spotlight inspecting weapons with her dad and appearing on postage stamps.
6.4: Annual inflation in the US fell by just a tenth of a point in January, to 6.4%, disappointing expectations that price growth would ease further in the world’s largest economy.
10: A fleet of 10 UN humanitarian aid trucks crossed from Turkey into Syria on Tuesday via the Syrian side’s Bab al-Salam border post. This is the first time since 2020 that the Syrian government has opened the checkpoint to allow aid trucks into this part of the country, parts of which are held by opposition forces.
100: Since the Russian invasion, a clinic in Kyiv has frozen the sperm of about 100 Ukrainian soldiers. “It’s not scary to die,” one man told the AP, “but it’s scary when you don’t leave anyone behind.”
Photo composite of devastation in Turkey and Syria.
Hard Numbers: Turkey-Syria earthquake devastation
The death toll from Monday's earthquake in Turkey and Syria has now surpassed 20,000. Want to donate to help people in need? Consider these worthy causes: Ahbap Platform, Turkey Mozaik Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, UNICEF, Red Cross.
16: That’s how many unaccompanied babies have been flown from the southern Turkish city of Kahramanmaras to Ankara, the capital, after being rescued from the rubble. Presumably, most – if not all – are now orphans.
5,000: Lorries carrying aid entered northwestern Syria from Turkey on Thursday for the first time since the 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the region. Still, Syria expert Charles Lister says these trucks contain enough to help just 5,000 people – at most – out of the more than 4 million Syrians in the northwest in need of assistance.
36: The European Union has sent a large delegation to the hardest-hit areas in Turkey, but so far EU rescuers have had success in rescuing just 36 people. The delegation also brought along 70 pups to search for survivors.
3,000: Roughly 3,000 White Helmet volunteers – a group of first respondents activated during Syria’s civil war – are combing through the rubble to find survivors in opposition-held northwestern Syria, where the death toll has already reached 1,930.
Afghan men sell Taliban flags outside the former US embassy in Kabul.
Can a deadly quake inspire change for Afghanistan?
Struggling with a drought, economic collapse, famine, and an enemy more extreme than themselves, the Taliban now face Afghanistan’s worst natural calamity in years.
More than a thousand people were killed in last week’s earthquake, and while humanitarian organizations are eager to help, there is a gap in the international relief effort. Questions about recognizing the Taliban during this time of crisis, or working with the Islamists for the long-term development of the country, come sharply into focus.
“The world is punishing the suffering people of Afghanistan by not engaging with the current government,” Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told GZERO from Qatar. Indeed, some aid groups recently asked to end the Taliban’s isolation. They say humanitarian support won’t be enough to get Afghanistan out of this and other crises, as the Islamists appealed to unlock Afghan funds frozen since the US pullout last summer.
So, can global players use this moment to convince the Taliban to make their government more inclusive and tolerant? Is the Taliban willing to budge? Can cooperation in the humanitarian effort lead to functional relationships with Kabul?
There aren’t many buyers for recognizing the Taliban. Nor is there any consensus about how to engage them.
Relations with traditional ally Pakistan have soured, as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (aka the Pakistani Taliban) operate, mobilize, and recruit freely from Afghan territory, attacking Pakistan without any restraint from their cousins in Kabul.
Meanwhile, Iran has always been uneasy about the Taliban’s Sunni tilt but gets even more nervous when faced with the alternative, the ultra-Sunni ISIS-K. Tehran has tried but failed to engage the Taliban and elements of the Afghan resistance.
In the Central Asian ‘Stans, Tajik nationalists in Dushanbe are worried about the Pashtun Taliban’s inability to guard the border with Tajikistan, which has seen attacks by ISIS-K. Uzbekistan, which is as land-locked as Afghanistan, wants more regional trade but needs stability in its southern neighbor. The US notably supplies Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to improve border security while courting them for intelligence gathering, but American ambitions are limited by Russia’s influence in the former Soviet republics.
Middle Eastern powers are only nominally involved. Before the quake, the Saudis had been developing a pipeline of humanitarian funding. The Emiratis are rebuilding Afghan airports as reconstruction aid. The Qataris still play the role of the Taliban’s diplomatic front office, encouraging international contact to ease the country’s isolation. And the Turks are leading the international rescue effort after the earthquake, which is helpful but not very broad.
Major powers, meanwhile, remain on the fence. Russia has hinted it will recognize a more inclusive Taliban, but on its own terms. China, holding back on major investments, is watchful about security. US diplomats and generals are making the rounds in regional capitals and have engaged with the Taliban at various levels.
But there’s less focus on recognizing the Islamists or improving their organizational prowess to keep Afghanistan from failing. Washington is keener on regaining its lost visibility in the region, given clear counter-terrorism concerns about al-Qaida and the rise of ISIS-K.
“Major powers remain in a wait-and-watch mode on the Taliban,” said Asfandyar Mir, a senior expert at the United States Institute of Peace. They are “offering ideas on potential paths forward for the Taliban’s rehabilitation but not on more given concerns, ranging from Taliban governance to lack of inclusion to terrorism.”
For now, this seems unlikely to change. “They are only offering ideas, not offering real roadmaps,” Mir added.
Interestingly, the only real diplomatic breakthrough has come from one of the Taliban’s most bitter rivals: India. It has reopened its embassy in Kabul and seems keen to restart development projects and boost economic assistance.
India has engaged in high-level meetings with Taliban leadership about what it insists are humanitarian concerns, but the Indians have two major reasons to court the Taliban: their strategic rival, China, and their old foe, Pakistan. Either of those countries moving in first would be a clear disadvantage to New Delhi. The Taliban have reciprocated India’s overtures, and surprisingly offered up their “troops” to be trained in India.
It’s an unusual and important opening, but New Delhi has not officially recognized the Taliban (no country has). Also, the return to proxy rivalries is reminiscent of the pre-Taliban Afghanistan, when Pakistan bet on the Islamists, and the Indians bet on those who fought them, with hundreds of thousands dying in the process.
The Taliban say they’re ready. Just prior to the earthquake, Kabul’s chief spokesperson said the regime had fulfilled “all the requirements” for international recognition. But when asked about the rollback of women’s rights — from education to freedom of movement – Zabiullah Mujahid clarified that all Afghans were obliged to follow Shariah law.
So, the Taliban fall short of international demands for protecting women’s rights and inclusivity, which makes them a politically toxic liability for would-be friends.
“Nobody wants to have a Taliban ambassador driving around with a flag of the Taliban in their own capital,” explained Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan finance ministry official now based in Geneva. “Recognizing the Taliban will not bring anything additional for anyone, but it will bring you reputational harm.”
So, with recognition off the table, what about aid? Afghanistan watcher Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, thinks the US should offer humanitarian assistance, “even at the risk of aid ending up in Taliban hands.” In response to the quake, the White House says it’s seeking ways to offer a helping hand without engaging the Taliban, including by going through international partners.
The intentions are good, but in disaster-prone Afghanistan, a natural calamity is always just around the corner. Besides the 1,000 lives lost and the 2,000 homes destroyed, only 2% of Afghanistan’s 38 million people have enough food, according to the UN. The country is actually starving while faced with a collapsing health system, migration crisis, and a rising terror threat.
Just a year short of victory, the Taliban are sinking, not saving Afghanistan. Everyone agrees things are bad, but progress will only be determined by which side — the Taliban or the international community — blinks first.Storm-battered Philippines cleans up
In a matter of hours, swathes of the main Philippine island of Luzon were flooded by record downpours from Typhoon Vamco. Rivers burst their banks, landslides smashed into villages and rice fields were flattened. Much of the capital Manila was inundated by muddy water that quickly reached the rooftops of homes in some areas.
Philippines evacuates thousands as Typhoon Vamco approaches
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Troops, helicopters search for survivors after deadly landslides in Vietnam
HANOI • Vietnam deployed helicopters and soldiers yesterday to search for dozens of people feared dead in two catastrophic landslides, near a hydropower dam, triggered by adverse weather that aid groups warned could overwhelm the most resilient communities.
At least 11 dead after rain-triggered landslides in Nepal
At least 11 people were killed and many more reported missing in the hilly region, which borders Tibet, officials said, bringing a renewed crisis to an area hit hard by a devastating earthquake in 2015.