Because it is the state that pushes the immigrants to Italy (according to 007)

The presence of NGO ships at sea “represents a logistical advantage for the criminal organizations that manage migrant smuggling and allows them to adjust the way they operate according to the likelihood of degrading the quality of the boats used, thereby increasing illicit earnings, but not disclosing.” It exposes people on board to a more tangible risk of shipwreck.” Italian intelligence attributes, in these words, for the first time, the so-called “pull factor” to humanitarian organizations engaged in the search and rescue of migrant boats, according to the theory an increase in departures and tragedies. Undersecretary Alfredo “This is an objective fact: the presence of NGO ships increases the likelihood of accidents, capsizing, and death at sea,” Mantovano said around the same time the government and the EU Frontex agency reclaimed their responsibilities. says?

The 2022 intelligence report states that “There is an increase in maritime rescue efforts by NGO ships, especially in the Sar region of Libya”. These activities are “often advertised on social networks by facilitators of irregular migration, as a guarantee of greater safety for travel to Europe,” they add. It’s hard to deny that this is true: human smugglers have always sought every possible basis to safely support their journey of hope. For example, prior to the arrival of NGOs, what was cited by smugglers as insurance for the success of the crossing was the certainty of finding first aid aboard Italian Coast Guard vessels. But criminals’ tricks of selling customers are one thing, but the weight they have on the number of men, women and children who take the riskiest route to reach Europe each year.

Also, looking at the data in the 007 report, a number of data stand out that seem to contradict the inferences about NGOs and their so-called “pull factor”. First of all, search and rescue activities: in 2022, according to the report, there were just over 57,000 people rescued at sea trying to reach Italian coasts illegally. Of these, “only” 11,892 were rescued by humanitarian aid ships. The remaining 45,136 people were rescued by so-called corporate SAR missions, namely Navy and Coast Guard vessels. In reading these figures, if there is a “pull factor”, it can be thought that the State was the first to provoke it.

In other words, if the link between NGO ships and departures is based on the fact that the existence of these organizations supports the propaganda (and thus their business) of traffickers, then the State should suspend rescue activities in violation of international law. . In fact, if we better read the Italian intelligence report, there is no difference between NGO ships and corporate ships when it comes to propulsion factors. The “pull factor” therefore belongs to both recovery constructs. Indeed, the report clearly states that “the most significant increase in maritime rescue activity over 2022” relates to “operations of the corporate apparatus (eg Frontex, Coast Guard, Guardia di Finanza)”.

I study

Having made this clear, anyone wishing to flea the 007 method of analysis cannot fail to notice how their report does not refer to other evidence to support the pull factor thesis. For example, it would be helpful to refer to the (to be honest, very scanty) scientific literature on the phenomenon of migration, which has already dismissed such factors. One of the most documented studies is, for example, the study published by two Italian researchers, Eugenio Cusumano and Matteo Villa, who analyzed data on departures on the Central Mediterranean route between 2014 and 2018. The activism of humanitarian NGOs is making headlines: thanks to the severe Syrian crisis, NGO recovery rates have increased from 0.8 percent in 2014 to 13 percent. Did this cause an increase in departures? No way. Indeed, there has been a decline. Another fact: Before the explosion on NGO ships, “almost 8 out of 10 migrants were already loaded on rubber boats, not large boats”. Then, in 2017, the number of migrants leaving Libya dropped significantly when NGO ships became the main perpetrators of rescue operations in the Mediterranean. How come?

According to Villa and Cusumano, the agreement signed between the Italian and Libyan governments to stop the departures played a role. But over time the deal failed and the smugglers started doing good again (as well as some of them in the top management of the coast guard in Tripoli). In 2018, when then Interior Minister Matteo Salvini launched his crackdown on NGOs (he also blocked the EU’s operation Sophia), deaths rose 19% from the previous year. And this is despite the declared drop in takeoffs. More separation equals more deaths, given that it also disproves the equation.

Villa also continued his research in the following years: Between January 2019 and mid-February 2020, he writes in Ispi: “We discovered that the relief activities of NGOs did not increase the departure of migrants from Libya and remained almost the same. The departures were due not to the arrival of aid ships but to the weather ( It seemed to be influenced by rising temperatures slowly rising departures and strong winds reducing them drastically) and political conditions in Libya.” And here we come to another element that various immigration experts have focused on: “push factors”.

push factors

“People keep leaving Libya because the situation is so unstable and the violence is so strong that they decide to do so regardless of whether there is a rescue at sea or not,” said the UN’s international migration organization IOM. It operates in Libya. In other words, if people decide to risk their lives, the reason should be sought not in the last mile of the journey, but in the place where the journey begins. In this sense, it is strange that the intelligence report did not insist so much on the driving factors: “Current areas of humanitarian crisis and socio-political instability continue to push significant numbers of people to migrate in search of better living conditions”, a short passage reads.

Still, just scroll through to see how crisis factors in the immigrants’ regions of origin have increased significantly in 2022: there is food insecurity, fueled by the conflict in Ukraine, there is an extension of terrorist movements in the countries of Morocco, Libya and Africans south of Tunisia, i.e. smugglers in the Maghreb. entry and exit from Spain and Italy. All the causes that cannot be solved overnight. Departures will continue, recent history has taught us. And perhaps there will not be less of a humanitarian ship at sea to stop or reduce them.