GENEVA: The UN voiced alarm Friday at reports that countries are failing to help migrants in distress on the Mediterranean Sea, blocking assistance by NGOs and coordinating pushbacks of their boats.
UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville warned during a virtual press briefing that such measures “are clearly putting lives at risk.”
“We are deeply concerned about recent reports of failure to assist and coordinated pushbacks of migrant boats in the central Mediterranean, which continues to be one of the deadliest migration routes in the world,” he said.
More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year with 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
And so far this year, more than 250 migrants have perished trying to make the perilous crossing.
Colville pointed to claims that distress calls to Maritime Rescue Coordination centers “have gone unanswered or been ignored.”
“If true,” he said, this “seriously calls into question the commitments of the states concerned to saving lives and respecting human rights.”
He especially decried reports that Maltese authorities had asked commercial ships to push boats with migrants and refugees in distress back to the high seas.
And he lamented that humanitarian search and rescue vessels that usually patrol the central Mediterranean have been prevented from helping migrants, even as the numbers of attempted crossings surge.
During the first three months of this year, departures from war-torn Libya increased four-fold compared to the same period in 2019, Colville said, stressing that migrants and refugees embarking on such journeys were entitled to protection under international law.
“Yet, since April 9, both Italy and Malta have declared their ports ‘unsafe’ for disembarkation due to COVID-19,” he said.
Italy, the most common destination for rescue boats, has been one of the most affected countries in the pandemic, with nearly 30,000 deaths.
As a result of port closures, at least three vessels with migrants onboard are awaiting disembarkation, Colville said.
He pointed to reports that a small group of adults, including pregnant women, and children were allowed to disembark on Thursday after the Maltese government made a concession on humanitarian grounds.
“While we welcome this effort, we call for all migrants currently being held on board these vessels to be urgently disembarked, as the conditions on merchant vessels are not suitable for long-term accommodation,” he said.
He also decried that the Libyan Coast Guard continues to turn vessels back to its shores and to detain all intercepted migrants in “horrendous conditions,” warning that overcrowding there also made detainees vulnerable to the novel coronavirus.
Since the summer of 2018, the European Union has tasked Libya’s coast guard with coordinating search and rescue operations in a vast stretch of the Mediterranean beyond their territorial waters.
But the UN and others have long warned that it is not safe for migrants to be returned to the conflict-ravaged country.
“Libya cannot be considered to have a safe port for disembarkation,” UN refugee agency spokesman Charlie Yaxley told Friday’s briefing.
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UN decries dangerous Mediterranean Sea migrant pushbacks
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UN decries dangerous Mediterranean Sea migrant pushbacks
- UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville warned during a virtual press briefing that such measures “are clearly putting lives at risk”
- More than 100,000 migrants tried to cross the Mediterranean last year with 1,200 dying in the attempt, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration
Indian writer Arundhati Roy pulls out of Berlin Film Festival over Gaza row
- Writer pulls out after jury president Wim Wenders said cinema should 'stay out of politics' when asked about Gaza
- Booker Prize winner describes Israel’s actions in Gaza as 'a genocide of the Palestinian people'
BERLIN: Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy said Friday she was withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’s comments that cinema should “stay out of politics” when he was asked about Gaza.
Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Wenders’s response to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference on Thursday.
Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.
However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider, “with deep regret.”
When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at a press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.”
Fellow jury member Ewa Puszczynska said it was a “little bit unfair” to expect the jury to take a direct stance on the issue.
Roy said in her statement that “to hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”
She described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.
Roy is one of India’s most famous living authors and is a trenchant critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, as well as a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause.
Shying away from politics
The Berlinale traditionally has a reputation for topical, progressive programming, but so far this year’s edition has seen several stars shy away from taking a stance on the big political issues of the day.
US actor Neil Patrick Harris, who stars in the film “Sunny Dancer” being shown in the festival’s Generation section, was asked on Friday if he considered his art to be political and if it could help “fight the rise of fascism.”
He replied that he was “interested in doing things that are apolitical” and which could help people find connection in our “strangely algorithmic and divided world.”
This year’s Honorary Golden Bear recipient, Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, also demurred when asked to comment on US politics in a press conference on Friday, saying she “cannot presume to say I understand” the situation there.
This isn’t the first edition of the festival to run into controversy over the Gaza war.
In 2024 the festival’s documentary award went to “No Other Land,” a portrayal of the dispossession of Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
German government officials criticized “one-sided” remarks about Gaza by the directors of that film and others at that year’s awards ceremony.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
Roy said in a statement sent to AFP that she was “shocked and disgusted” by Wenders’s response to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference on Thursday.
Roy, whose novel “The God of Small Things” won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as a festival guest to present a restored version of the 1989 film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” in which she starred and wrote the screenplay.
However, she said that the “unconscionable” statements by Wenders and other jury members had led her to reconsider, “with deep regret.”
When asked about Germany’s support for Israel at a press conference on Thursday, Wenders said: “We cannot really enter the field of politics,” describing filmmakers as “the counterweight to politics.”
Fellow jury member Ewa Puszczynska said it was a “little bit unfair” to expect the jury to take a direct stance on the issue.
Roy said in her statement that “to hear them say that art should not be political is jaw-dropping.”
She described Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel.”
“If the greatest film makers and artists of our time cannot stand up and say so, they should know that history will judge them,” she said.
Roy is one of India’s most famous living authors and is a trenchant critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, as well as a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause.
Shying away from politics
The Berlinale traditionally has a reputation for topical, progressive programming, but so far this year’s edition has seen several stars shy away from taking a stance on the big political issues of the day.
US actor Neil Patrick Harris, who stars in the film “Sunny Dancer” being shown in the festival’s Generation section, was asked on Friday if he considered his art to be political and if it could help “fight the rise of fascism.”
He replied that he was “interested in doing things that are apolitical” and which could help people find connection in our “strangely algorithmic and divided world.”
This year’s Honorary Golden Bear recipient, Malaysian actor Michelle Yeoh, also demurred when asked to comment on US politics in a press conference on Friday, saying she “cannot presume to say I understand” the situation there.
This isn’t the first edition of the festival to run into controversy over the Gaza war.
In 2024 the festival’s documentary award went to “No Other Land,” a portrayal of the dispossession of Palestinian communities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
German government officials criticized “one-sided” remarks about Gaza by the directors of that film and others at that year’s awards ceremony.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliation has left at least 71,000 people dead in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures the UN considers reliable.
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