GENEVA, 04 October 2013 (ICMC) -- Thousands of people have died in their attempt to reach Europe. Yesterday again some 130 men, women and children drowned at just 1 km of the European coast with over 200 still missing: a shock for all; the end of their lives and the despair of their families. Yet not the end of the attempts for so many others to gain a better future.

Yesterday’s drowning painfully mirrors again the thousands of people who never reached the shores and confirms the future occurrence of similar situations. Their deaths are not so much due to the fragility of the vessel but rather to inadequate immigration policies and the repeated failure to combat smuggling. They die on the shores of departure and arrival because of social resistance and continued indifference; because of the lack of efficient responses to ensure the protection and dignity of all people.

While discussions on appropriate responses, enforced border controls, immigration quotas and debates on the development value of migration continue to fuel political debates, too many people are left without protection and instead become the victims of their hope and criminal promises.

“Shame” is the word Pope Francis used to indicate how much the true concern for the dignity of every human person remains imprisoned by defensive attitudes and controlling attitudes. “Shame” is the word for inadequate policies and for a barrier building mentality coupled with longer term indifference.

Indifference for such human suffering creates victims and destroys societies. Yesterday’s deaths are the reminder of the urgent need to establish and strengthen new and existing international policies that effectively regulate human mobility; to monitor this mobility in full respect of laws and human dignity; to combat with enhanced energy the criminals that make a profit on these people’s despair. Their deaths call for respect; their lives for better governance and shared responsibility.

In these days of the High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development ICMC urges all actors and all people to recognize human dignity as the first and core value on which communities can be built, nations forged and global futures projected. Without true respect for every human person, democracies cannot grow and true development remains in vain.

--Johan Ketelers, Secretary General

Photocredit:  © EPA/A.Tarantino
Pope Francis talks to migrants during his recent visit to Italy's Lampedusa Island.

To read more on the crisis of Lampedusa, please download the statement by Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM),"The Painful Death of an African Migrant", attached.

THE PAINFUL DEATH OF AN AFRICAN MIGRANT.pdf (1.13 MB)