Migrants will never stop. Those who would like to close borders, patrol every square metre of the Mediterranean Sea and monitor every centimetre of our coastlines had better accept it. Migrants will never stop because people fleeing a war, years of famine, violence, persecution and poverty do not stop. Those who have already lost everything, except hope, are willing to do anything. Even to risk their lives.

12,000 migrants rescued in one week, Italy calls for help again

Every year, for decades, tens of thousands of migrants have left their homelands — from Africa to the Far East — in an attempt to reach Europe, in the hope of a better life. Of their journey, we see only the final stretch: the one involving people smugglers, dinghies and decrepit boats. We can estimate the number of deaths in the Mediterranean, but we have no idea how many lose their lives along the long route that comes before the sea.

Some travel for years before reaching the Libyan coast. Crossing deserts, wars, hunger, thirst. Many people end up in the prisons of the countries they pass through. Many women are raped. Many minors are left alone. Yet they do not stop. "People who run from a burning house throw themselves into the void. They know they will be dashed to pieces, but they won't let themselves be burned alive," writer Erri De Luca summarised with great effectiveness.

The latest figures that have prompted Italy to sound yet another alarm to other European countries should come as no surprise. 12,000 migrants were rescued within the space of a few days, picked up off the coast of Libya and transported to Italian ports by 22 vessels, most of them belonging to non-governmental organisations. Since the beginning of the year, 60,000 people have been rescued at sea; 1,700 did not drown. In 2016 there were 7,100 deaths, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Europe seeks an impossible agreement with Libya

The European Union is looking to conclude an agreement with Libya to "regulate illegal flows". At a European Council meeting in Malta last February, it was proposed to "train, equip and support the Libyan national coastguard". The idea is to intercept migrants on the coast or at sea in order to send them immediately to "reception centres in Libya".

A plan that NGOs unanimously reject, pointing out that such "centres" are nothing more than prisons in which not even the most basic human rights are respected, as highlighted by Judith Sunderland, associate director at Human Rights Watch. Furthermore, the scale of the migratory phenomenon appears to make the operation impossible: the total number of undocumented people present in Libya has been estimated at over 700,000 men, women and children. The majority are in the hands of people smugglers, who earn 300 million euros a year from them — partly by charging for sea crossings, and partly by selling them to criminal gangs that kidnap them to exploit them, sell them on, or demand ransoms from their families in their countries of origin.

Above all, in a state torn apart by civil war, whose internationally recognised government controls only an infinitesimally small portion of the vast national territory, there is a risk that the agreement could prove entirely useless even from the scarcely humanitarian perspective of suppressing the phenomenon. "Libya is not Turkey," the IOM warned. "It would be better to organise regulated channels that allow refugees and migrants to reach Europe legally and safely," explained Tommaso Fabbri, head of mission for Médecins Sans Frontières in Italy. Because migrants, whatever happens, will never stop.