Some 289 children have died since the start of 2023 trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, the UN announced on Friday July 14. This figure is twice as high as that of the first six months of 2022, said Unicef, (the United Nations Children’s Fund), calling for the creation of safe humanitarian corridors allowing children to find refuge in Europe.
“We estimate that in the first six months of this year, 11,600 children have made the crossing, also double the same period in 2022,” said UNICEF Migration and Displacement Officer , Verena Knaus. “These deaths are absolutely preventable,” she stressed.
The actual numbers are likely higher, she said, because many shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean go unrecorded.
“These children are dying before our eyes”
In the first three months of 2023, 3,300 children making the crossing – or 71% of the total – were unaccompanied or had been separated from their families, according to UNICEF. This figure is three times higher than that of the same period of the previous year. Along the way, these children may be exposed to deprivation, torture, exploitation and rape, with girls being particularly vulnerable.
“It’s the reality, the shocking reality, but we seem to come to terms with the fact that day after day children are losing their lives,” Verena Knaus also said. “These children are dying, not just before our eyes, but also, it seems, as we close our eyes,” she added. “These children need to know that they are not alone. Leaders around the world must act urgently,” said Verena Knaus.
MEPs on Thursday called for the development of a “reliable and permanent search and rescue strategy” for migrants in the Mediterranean, after a shipwreck in mid-June off the Greek coast that could have killed more than 600 people.
An old and overloaded trawler, leaving Libya, was shipwrecked off Greece on the night of June 13 to 14. Only 104 exiles could be rescued while the boat was carrying around 750 people. Eighty-two bodies have been recovered, and the other castaways are presumed dead.