Libyan Boat Capsize Reveals Trafficking and Smuggling
As the Sunday morning sun rose, so did the death toll of people trafficked to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. In the early hours of the morning, a shipwreck took the lives of more then 800 people. The boat, which was traveling from Libya to Italy, capsized just 100 miles off the coast of Libya.
When the Italian authorities were notified that a migrant ship appeared to be crossing the Mediterranean Sea late Saturday night, they sent the nearest commercial ship, the King Jacob, to the scene. As the King Jacob approached the migrant boat, the people onboard all rushed to one side, trying to attract its attention. This caused the boat to capsize, with hundreds of victims trapped in locked rooms on board. Unable to escape, nearly all people on the trafficking ship perished.
There were only 28 survivors of the over 850 people who had been on board. So far this year there has been well over 1,750 deaths, including the latest incident, as a result of people attempting to migrate to Europe.
The Libyan captain and a Syrian crewman, who both survived, were arrested on trafficking charges after being rescued on Sunday. The people on board, who have consistently been called migrants, appear to be victims of trafficking.
Human trafficking is a lucrative business that runs rampant in Libya and across Western and Eastern Africa, facilitated by transnational tribes such as the Tebu and Tuareg. Ps These groups often engage in human trafficking and smuggling due to their control of key trade routes.
From January to March 2015 alone, there have been 10,165 reported migrants to Italy from Senegal, Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Eritrea, Somalia, and Syria. These numbers don’t include those who perished attempting to get there, or migrants who have not been reported.
The UN defines human trafficking as “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them” and the definition of smuggling of migrants as the “procurement for financial or other material benefit of illegal entry of a person into a State of which that person in not a national or resident”. In many major news outlets, the articles only refer to the smuggling routes as just that, migrant smuggling routes. However, often times trafficking and smuggling can overlap.
People who are attempting to migrate pay a group, in this case North African tribes such as the Tebu or Tuareg, to smuggle them into Europe. These tribes advertise the opportunity to migrate to Europe, promising the chance of a better life. People are lured in under the false pretense that upon arrival they are free to do what they want. What initially may begin as smuggling can quickly turn to trafficking.
Trafficking is a high-profit business, with conservative estimates putting the annual profit at around $32 billion. Smuggling migrants is also highly profitable, with low estimates suggesting an annual profit of $6.75 billion. Terrorist organizations use trafficking and smuggling as a source of fundraising because it is a low risk, high reward business.
Not only is smuggling people financially enticing but the actual smuggling routes are strategic resources as well.
The Tuareg are known to have relationships with AQIM (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb). This relationship is advantageous for AQIM because not only can the trade routes be used to smuggle migrants, but also terrorists. Having control means that it is possible to smuggle in new recruits, weapons, and other resources that terrorist organizations may need.
While we may be sympathetic to civilians aiming for a better life, being smuggled across borders is an illegal and dangerous activity that ultimately ends with the terrorists profiting.
States must do more to disincentive migrants from travelling, and improve intelligence sharing and transnational cooperation to interdict smugglers before the rickety boats take to sea.
