Hundreds of people trying to migrate from Africa to Europe have been drowned this week, when the boats they were travelling in sank. Here Tanja Miller says more needs to be done and that European policies have contributed to the deaths.

It has become a defining feature of European asylum and migration policy in recent years: boats full to bursting with desperate people trying to reach what they regard as the promised land of European shores. Some years ago the public was shocked by pictures of half-starved and dehydrated African refugees who had come ashore amongst holiday-makers on Italian islands. Nowadays, shock only seems to set in when hundreds of refugees drown, as happened in one of the latest incidents on 19 April, in which more than 700 people are feared dead. Carlotta Sami, spokesperson for the UNHCR, called it one of the greatest tragedies in the Mediterranean in an interview with Italian TV. Some days earlier around 400 people went missing on the same route. Most boat journeys start in Libya, where thousands of people wait for their turn to get on one of these deadly boats. The Libyan ca Save & Exit pital Tripoli is only around 300 kilometres away from the Italian island of Lampedusa, and now weather-wise is one of the better periods to cross theoretically. Not that those who put refugees on unseaworthy boats care or even listen to weather forecasts.

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