In 2023 the "Mediterranean mass grave" has seen a five-year high in migrant deaths. 2260 dead or missing migrants were reported in the Mediterranean so far in 2023.
A total of 28,009 migrants, including 1135 children, have died or disappeared on the Mediterranean route since the Missing Migrants Project began recording in 2014.
The Mediterranean's rough waters make the route "the most dangerous in the world," where one in six migrants who set sail from the North African coast die.
Meanwhile, the EU continues to close Europe's external borders to migrants from the Global South through the coast guard agency FRONTEX, which has been involved in human rights abuses, including deadly pushbacks.
The EU plans to increase FRONTEX'S budget to $6.9 billion until 2027. FRONTEX has been withholding information about its responsibility for the catastrophic shipwreck off the Greek coast earlier this year, which killed over 600 people.
"Fortress Europe" has also established multi-million dollar contracts with Mediterranean "front-line" countries to allow them to stop migration. Tunisia, which receives $112 million from the EU, has seen pogroms against Black migrants over the last months, fueled by the racist conspiracy theories of President Kais Saied.
European countries are increasingly pursuing dehumanizing migration policies, such as the UK's new Bibby Stockholm barge to detain migrants, which has been compared to a "floating prison".
#FRONTEX #RefugeesWelcome #OpenBorders
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