VALLETTA, malta — Three deadly Mediterranean shipwrecks that claimed the lives of hundreds of would-be asylum-seekers fleeing war and repression sharpened calls Saturday for humanitarian corridors to allow safe passage to Europe.
At least 34 people drowned in Maltese waters south of the Italian island of Lampedusa when a boat packed with hundreds of Syrians and Palestinians capsized Friday, the same day another 12 migrants died in a shipwreck off of Egypt.
Those tragedies came eight days after at least 339 Eritreans died when their boat sank within sight of Lampedusa, in one of the worst verified migrant sea tragedies on the Mediterranean.
Facing unrest and persecution in Africa and the Middle East, many migrants risk the perilous journey to Lampedusa, a gateway to Europe just 70 miles from Africa, in rickety boats procured by people smugglers who charge more than 1,600 euro, or $2,200.
Most are asylum seekers, fleeing civil war in Syria or repression and mandatory conscription in Eritrea, unlike the waves of economic migrants a decade ago.
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, expressed concern that Syrians fleeing conflict have sought to reach Europe by such a perilous route, calling it “inhumane.”
U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon called for action to prevent tragedies “that places the vulnerability and human rights of migrants at the center,” while Pope Francis lamented that “too often we are blinded by our comfortable lives and refuse to see those dying at our doorstep.”
About 30,100 migrants arrived in Italy and Malta in the first nine months of 2013, compared with 15,000 in all of 2012, according to the U.N. refugee agency.
At least 70,000 Syrians are registered in Egypt as refugees. Many, including thousands of Palestinians who also fled the war in Syria, are not registered and use the country as a stopover before making the perilous sea trip to Europe.
Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Strait of Sicily, where Lampedusa is located, between 1994 and 2012. Often ships disappear at sea, leaving no way to verify deaths.
