The grubby trafficking business where the customer comes last
The rusting “ghost ship” Ezadeen finally slipped into dock in Calabria late last night after five days adrift in the Adriatic. Buffeted by freezing winds, out of fuel, food and water and apparently abandoned by the traffickers who’d earned $5,000 USD per head, 359 Syrian escapees cheered and whistled as their sordid vessel berthed.
The arrival of the first ship of the new year brought tears of joy to its tired and famished human cargo. But with the Ezadeen comes a serious and seemingly intractable problem for the European Union.
It is struggling – and failing – to find a solution to this unprecedented surge. The flood of desperate people fleeing war and deprivation is already putting paid to politicians’ new year resolutions to stem this rising tide.
After the passing of the deadliest year on record, in which people traffickers from across North Africa turned the Mediterranean into a migrants’ graveyard, the Ezadeen is but the latest in a fresh onslaught from the east.
Customer comes last
The Italian coastguard, under-resourced and now completely overwhelmed, declared the 50-year-old cattle freighter the 15th cargo ship to reach Italian shores in just three months.
The traffickers have switched their routes and upped their game. Theirs is a grubby, brutal travel business in which the customer comes last.
Although there have been suspicions that traffickers have attempted to mingle with asylum-seekers as they disembark, all those I spoke to as they waited to be fed and watered by the Italian Red Cross insisted that the traffickers had abandoned ship and escaped in speed boats. None, though, had actually seen this with their own eyes.
Police here say they do not suspect any of the fresh arrivals to be traffickers.
The scene last night, drenched in the arc lights of the southern port of Corigliano Calabro, was the stuff of epics. Hooded and swathed in blankets against the biting cold, those aboard the Ezadeen peered out from the cattle pens, stacked on the old ship’s deck.
One man gently kissed the hand of a young woman, who stood there sobbing with relief in winter moonlight. Children stared out, bewildered, as Carabinieri (Italian military police), backed by civilian police, Guardia di Finanza and Coastguard officers, shepherded the infirm and some injured down the metal gang-plank onto terra firma.
Those disembarking looked in reasonable condition, considering their miserable 10-day voyage from the Turkish town of Mesina, to which they’d been smuggled from all over Syria. Each clutched a small bag or backpack – seemingly all they were allowed to bring with them.
The Ezadeen was the first refugee boat to dock at this southern Italian port. The police were nervous and seemed a bit unsure about exactly what to do. They prevented us from talking openly to the new-arrivals, but in snatched conversations we learned of the privations of their voyage and of the horrors they had left behind.
“Syria is like hell,” one man told me. They all claimed to be Sunni Muslims; all chorused that they “hated Bashar” – referring to the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. The younger men all said they were draft-dodgers and deserters. “Bashar is making everyone join the army now,” they said.
Many of the 359 who arrived last night were well-educated, middle class professionals – those with enough money to pay the traffickers.
No regrets
They had no regrets about fleeing their homes and families, or, indeed about being fleeced by the criminal gangs that got them to Italy. They had already lost everything and were prepared to risk their very lives to get here.
I saw a couple of tiny babies; there were pregnant women and five unaccompanied minors. They stood in small clusters around the Red Cross tents, sipping hot coffee, eating for the first time in several days. On the quayside, nine buses waited for many hours until the would-be refugees were processed. Before first light, they left for destinations as far away as Turin and Milan.
The processing took hours. It’s not exactly clear what the registration entailed, but Italy has failed to honour its obligations under EU law to consider asylum applications to all those landing on its shores.
To the chagrin of other EU countries, Italy has turned a blind eye to the tens of thousands who have struck out north, heading for Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain. None I spoke to overnight had any intention of remaining in Italy for long.
Frontex mission
Britain had argued that supporting search and rescue operations served only to encourage more migrants to head in this direction.
Without the assistance of the EU Frontex mission and the Italian coastguard though, the Ezadeen would have drifted hopelessly in the choppy seas, posing a shipping hazard – and a mortal threat to those aboard.
Earlier this week another vessel, the Blue Sky M, with 796 mostly Syrian asylum-seekers aboard, was locked on automatic pilot by the traffickers, who fled, having set it on a collision course with the Italian coast. The cargo ship was successfully boarded and brought under control by the Italian coastguard.
As the processing continued through the early hours last night, we boarded the Ezadeen to see conditions for ourselves. Among the rotting detritus that littered the cattle pens on deck, lay discarded shoes and blankets, plastic water bottles, gloves and a handful of scattered playing cards, for whiling away the long, cold days at sea.
In our torchlight, the abandoned vessel felt all the more ghostly. On the stern, the home port of the Sierra Leonean-registered ship was painted in bold white capitals: Free Town, a city founded by freed slaves.
The cattle freighter on which the city’s name was written seemed for all the world like a slave-ship of the modern era – and for the traffickers who run this racket, the economic model is every bit as profitable.
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