Lampedusa: Grandi (UNHCR) and Pope (IOM), “Saving lives is a moral obligation”

GENEVA, OCTOBER 3 – Saving lives is not an option, it’s a moral imperative, the High Commissione for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and Amy Pope, Director of IOM, said in a joint statement issued 10 years after the Lampedusa shipwreck of October 3 2013. “When a boat crammed with over 500 women, men, and children sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa 10 years ago, the world said ‘never again’. Today, on the 10th anniversary of that shipwreck, we have not lived up to that commitment; 2023 recorded the deadliest first quarter since 2017 and by 2 October, 2,517 people were accounted as dead or missing this year alone in the Mediterranean, Grandi and Pope said.

“Rarely does a week pass without stories from across the globe of tragedies and dramatic incidents, whether at sea or on land routes. They have become appallingly normalized. These tragedies are preventable and the need to provide a meaningful response cannot be put off any longer. Saving lives is not an option. It is a legal obligation. It is a moral imperative“, said the Un agencies chiefs urging further efforts to strengthen cooperation in coordinated search and rescue operations; ensure that migrants and refugees receive life-saving assistance; end the criminalization, obstruction or deterrence of those providing humanitarian assistance; establish effective regular pathways that meet the needs and uphold the human rights of all concerned; counter trafficking and exploitation; and collect data to prevent and resolve cases of missing migrants and refugees and make them publicly available.

In 2018, UN Member States adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees. These Compacts were born in part as a response to tragedies such as Lampedusa; intended to be implemented complementarily, they represent historic frameworks, said Grandi ands Pope. The GCM seeks to establish coordinated international efforts to strengthen migration governance, and safeguard migrants. Simultaneously, the GCR is dedicated to strengthening responsibility sharing and facilitating solutions to support refugees. Grandi and Pope stressed that the second Global Refugee Forum, organized by UNHCR in December, will facilitate the announcement of concrete pledges, and consider ways in which burden and responsibility sharing can best be achieved, while urging more solidarity with refugees. (@OnuItalia)