[Upon] closer scrutiny, the operation of retrieving, commemorating and mourning proves to be deeply problematic and hypocritical. For this tragic loss of life was not an unfortunate “accident” but the result of political decisions taken, amongst others, by the very state actors who are now claiming a high moral ground by recovering and mourning the dead.

The forgotten 22,000

First of all, the 18th of April shipwreck is only one among many more incidents that have led to more than 22,000 documented deaths at sea over the last 25 years. These have been the structural product of EU migration policies that have denied legal access to EU territory to the impoverished citizens of the global South since the end of the 1980s. The militarization of border controls and their externalization to North African states has forced migrants wishing to reach EU territory to resort to smugglers and to take longer and ever more dangerous routes. Italy, as a “frontline” state of the EU, has for many years been a pioneer in these practices, and as such is deeply enmeshed in this deadly migration regime. But the responsibility of the EU and Italy, in particular for the loss of lives in the 18th of April shipwreck, lies not only in these long standing policies, but in a series of precise operational decisions that created the conditions in which this shipwreck was only waiting to happen.

Killing by Omission