[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry.

Rescue Worker: Hey, on the port side, the three board is very low. Can you move a couple of people on the other side, please?

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: These are rescue workers in the Mediterranean Sea. They're working on the Ocean Viking, a humanitarian ship, which carried out five rescue operations during two days this past February. Together, these small dangerous missions saved the lives of 247 people, people who were trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea from the North African coast into Europe.

Although they survived, many of these migrants suffered from injuries, hypothermia, fuel inhalation. Many of these migrants, they already risked dangerous journeys on their way to the sea. People from Eritrea and Ethiopia are fleeing war and human rights abuses. A catastrophic drought across the Horn of Africa is forcing millions from the region to leave their homes in search of a more stable future.

The Syrian civil war, which began over a decade ago, is still responsible for the largest refugee population in the world. Since 2014, nearly 25,000 people have gone missing in the Mediterranean. According to data released this summer by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 3,200 people died or went missing at sea in 2021. I'm joined now by Jenelle Eli, who is an emergency responder for the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies. Jenelle, welcome to The Takeaway.

Jenelle Eli: Thanks so much for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Also with us is Bill Frelick, the director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. Bill, thanks for being here.

Bill Frelick: It's wonderful to be here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, Jenelle, you spent six weeks in 2021 on the Ocean Viking, which is operated by the Red Cross and by SOS Mediterranean. Can you help us to understand what you learned about what is compelling people to take these risks and undertake such a dangerous journey?

Jenelle Eli: I have deployed to a lot of disasters around the globe on behalf of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Being aboard this rescue ship was, by far, the toughest mission I've ever done just physically, mentally, spatially. People are fleeing across the sea and they know it's dangerous, but they feel like they have no other choice. They very often leave in the dead of night from the Libyan coast so that they're not spotted.

They are in inflatable rafts and really rickety boats that you wouldn't even want to take on a lake. The reality is they're fleeing because they feel like it's their only chance for safety and for hope for a future. A lot of people are fleeing conflict zones. I met many Syrians who have been trying to get out for years and just find a safer place for them and their families and they've been separated along the way.

Others are from places like Somalia, where they've seen their family members killed, or they just know that they just don't have hope for a better future in the way that they want right now. Still others, they went to Libya to work and they ended up in forced labor situations or sexual exploitation situations and knew that they had to get out. They're not necessarily trying to get to Europe. They're just trying to get somewhere to safety.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Bill, help us understand a bit about what the journey is like to get to the Mediterranean based on these kinds of conditions that we're hearing from Jenelle about why people are fleeing.

Bill Frelick: Actually, the Sahara Desert is a major part of the topography of the region. One of the things that we haven't adequately explored are the number of deaths in the desert because the people that I've interviewed have told me about being dumped in the desert, forced to drink water that has drops of benzene in it. It's a very dangerous journey.

There are smugglers, of course, that are paid to traverse some of this difficult terrain, but there are predators there that are out to get whatever they can from people and then there is trafficking, which, as Jenelle mentioned, forces people into forced labor, into sex work, into exploitation, being held for ransom, and to extort money from their families. It's a very dangerous journey.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Can you help us to understand a bit about some of the social, economic, political circumstances in the nations where folks are fleeing?

Bill Frelick: This is something we call "root causes" a lot of the time. It's definitely the plural there, "causes," because it's usually not just a singular cause. Conflict, violence, war, these are major drivers. Corruption is a major driver as well. The sense of hopelessness, the endemic poverty, and people that are desperate for education and can't get it in their home countries, the effects of climate change are felt with people that are in agriculture. Their crops have failed because of the effects of climate change.

The definition of a refugee from the 1951 Refugee Convention is a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted for their race or religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion. That's certainly a very strong and valid reason for people to flee, but there are other existential threats that people face and compel them to leave their countries that may not qualify strictly speaking under the 1951 Refugee Convention but actually are life-threatening and need to be taken into consideration.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jenelle, I hear on the one hand as you're describing the harshness of the conditions as Bill is helping us to understand some of the root causes that both of you at various points view this language of hopelessness, and yet there is also extraordinary hope in the willingness to take on this kind of danger, this belief that there may, in fact, be something across the sea. Can you talk to me in your experience with folks who are making this journey, that balance between some level of optimism that keeps people going in the context of so much loss and danger?

Jenelle Eli: I had a lot of time to speak to people while we were on board at sea. This feeling of hope certainly is in everybody, but most of them told me, this felt like their last chance at it. They had tried many different times, many different ways to find safety and weren't able to find it, and that hope is what they bring with them on board our ship. I met a 20-year-old car mechanic from Syria and he was traveling with his mother and six-year-old sister.

They were so relieved to be on board our ship and safe after taking that really dangerous journey. That hope is also tampered a bit because he's been separated from his father and brother who are still in Syria. I think we really have this dichotomy of people who've been rescued in that they are grateful and they feel like they have something hopefully good and safe ahead, but they're going to be haunted by what they've left behind.

Still, when people are rescued, they just have such varied reactions and it can be like a roller coaster. Many of them, of course, as they board, they say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." Others just collapse from the long journey and need really serious healthcare interventions because of what they've been through. It's not just about even making it across the sea, but it's about the long journey they have ahead.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As you begin to tell us about this experience, you said that of all the experiences you've had in a variety of very difficult circumstances, this was the most complex, the most challenging. Can you take us aboard this rescue operation a bit and help us understand what is it that you all are doing? You're saying folks are coming out at night in rafts, in very rickety small boats. What does a rescue operation actually look like for you and for the other folks who are on board?

Jenelle Eli: Our ship has a crew from all over the world. It's really people coming together to deliver this humanitarian mission. What happens is the Ocean Viking goes into international waters, but right outside of Libyan waters. We're able to search the horizon when we're in that rescue zone and really see if there are people who are in distress. Once people are spotted, we're able to take our big ship over to them and our rescuers get ready.

They get all the life jackets on board, even smaller, little speedboats that they can go and rescue people. It is such a delicate rescue operation. They bring these life jackets and make sure everyone on these rafts or little ships that are sinking, make sure they have those life jackets, try to get kids off first. These operations can take hours as the boats are sinking inch by inch into the water. Honestly, it's like seeing a potential mass casualty situation unfold in front of our eyes each and every single day that we're in the rescue zone.

I just still got a pit in my stomach thinking about watching these rescues. Once they're on board and once they're in safety, we're able to provide them with the really basic things that they need. Immediate health care, food, water, and a little bit of shelter, and honestly, just for the kids, a bit of normalcy as well. I think just being able to provide those kind of things, it's not everything and it's not going to last long for them, but being able to give these certain little humanitarian pieces of aid is really special.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Bill, the data from the UN show that deaths on the sea passage have been rising pretty sharply since 2019. Is there something that is making the passage even more dangerous?

Bill Frelick: Well, yes, the European Union withdrew its naval assets from the area close to the Libyan shore. Frontex is the European external borders agency. A decision was taken basically to pull back and to use the domestic coast guards, if you will, of the EU countries close to the EU borders. The area that is under the search and rescue region for Libya was expanded far beyond what it had ever been before.

In a sense, Libya, where coast guards normally are protecting their own coasts, the Libyan Coast Guard has actually become a proxy force that's bought and paid by the European Union and its member states to prevent people from leaving and in a sense, from quite a distance, to guard the EU coasts. The Libyan Coast Guard is not a-- let's just say it does not operate according to conventional, transparent, and humane lines.

It's run largely by militias representing different actions in a failed state. The most distressful thing in addition to the shooting at migrant boats and ramming of boats and other aggressive actions that are taken at sea is to bring them back to Libya, where they're put into horrific detention conditions in centers that are run by many of these same militias.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let's take a quick pause. We're going to have more on migrant rescues in the Mediterranean Sea right after this.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: We've been hearing about the crisis of refugees and asylum-seekers attempting the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa into Europe. I'm speaking with Jenelle Eli of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Bill Frelick of Human Rights Watch. Is this in line with our understanding of international rules and understandings about when borders should be open to folks crossing?

Bill Frelick: I think the critical question is, really, the foundational principle of international refugee law, which is the principle of non-refoulement, which essentially says that it's forbidden for any country to send a person back to a place where they would be persecuted, where they would be tortured, where their life or freedom would be threatened. That's in the refugee convention, but it's part of customary international law, the Convention Against Torture, and others.

It's a binding principle, a binding mandate on all countries. What's happening with people that are being interdicted in the Mediterranean is they're being sent to Libya. Libya is a country that never signed the refugee convention. It has no refugee law whatsoever, no asylum procedure. It doesn't exist and it doesn't even have a functioning government. They're competing governments there.

There's no legitimate government that controls the country. You have militias with various tribal affiliations that are connected to traffickers, who are the worst exploiters and predators in the treatment of migrants. They treat them as commodities. Essentially, human slavery and people that are being bought and sold, people that are being held for ransom. Under maritime law, there's also a requirement for a rescue at sea. You have to bring someone to the next safe port. These are not safe ports.

The European Union is in collusion with the Libyan coast guards. It's what enables this occurrence to take place. The coast guard is completely bought and paid for by the European Union. They are taking people and putting them into the most abysmal conditions where there's no oversight, there's no transparency, and where we and others have documented absolutely inhuman and degrading treatment, torture, the worst kinds of abuse in these detention centers where people are essentially being held for ransom.

This is an outright violation. We can have a discussion about open borders, but the fundamental principle here is where you send people once you have taken them into your custody and then you have responsibility for them. What the EU has done is evaded that responsibility by using the Libyan coast guards as proxies so that they don't dirty their own hands. They're paying for this, but the ones that are doing the dirty work get away without accountability.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jenelle, this question of what happens once someone is with you, is in your custody once you have them, what happens once someone is brought aboard the Ocean Viking?

Jenelle Eli: Many of them are asking themselves that same question and are really nervous when they first get on board because the last thing they want is to be sent back to Libya. We let them know immediately in as many languages as possible that we will not be taking them back. Once they're on board our ship, we are at sea and we are calling various countries to ask for a port of safety. Like Bill said, that is part of international maritime law that people need to be rescued at sea and also brought to a place of safety.

When I was on board, it can take many, many days or even weeks to get permission to go to a port of safety and disembark your passengers. When I was there, we spent more than 12 days on board asking for a place of safety. At one point, we had three days left before we were going to run out of baby formula. Things aren't over as soon as they're rescued and they're on our ship, but it takes a lot of time and effort to make sure they're going to reach somewhere safely. Over the years, it certainly takes more and more days to make that happen.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It's taking longer to find a safe port?

Jenelle Eli: It is. Sometimes you'll get the port of safety in a day. Other times, it could take weeks. When I was on another rescue boat in 2016, we were able to make more rescues because we could go disembark our people, our passengers in a place of safety very quickly, and then we could go back out to see. Whereas now if your ship is full and you're not able to continue rescues, there are just people who could be left in very precarious positions on these little rafts and boats at sea.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Jenelle, are you all the only NGO operating ships in this way?

Jenelle Eli: There are several NGOs operating ships. They go out at various times, but it's such a very big rescue zone that you certainly can't cover it all and there aren't enough boats.

Melissa Harris-Perry: As I was listening to Bill talk about the danger of this Libyan Coast Guard, are you all endangered by this Libyan Coast Guard?

Jenelle Eli: What we worry about is people being intercepted when they're in international waters by militias. Certainly, team members that I've been on board with have seen this happen. It's so terrifying to imagine people trying to escape and then being intercepted before they're able to reach safety. Honestly, even when they come on board, sometimes they're not sure whether we are the Libyan Coast Guard or whether we're the Red Cross. When they're able to see our emblem, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, which is recognized all over the world, their shoulders relax and they realize that they're safe. It certainly is a really scary and complicated time for everyone. That includes the refugees who are fleeing and our crew as well.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Bill, a final question for you. What are humanitarian groups like Human Rights Watch calling on governments to do?

Bill Frelick: Well, basically, to do the right thing, to treat people with dignity, to give a fair hearing for people who are making claims for refugee status, claims that they will be persecuted or tortured or otherwise seriously harmed upon return. The things not to do, not to expose people to torture, not to send people back. We would actually like more robust rescue at sea. The assets of the European Union are there. Back in the 2013-2014 period, there was something called Operation Mare Nostrum, "Our Sea," where the Italian government was actually working in ways to proactively rescue people.

With the 2015 refugee crisis and the right-wing xenophobic backlash that you saw with the rise of nationalist groups in Europe and, frankly, throughout the world, that has changed markedly. Europe's taking a much tougher view as using proxies, whether they be Turkey or Libya or what have you, to create these buffer zones where people will not have the ability to get a foothold on the territory of the European Union, where they would be able to make claims. In some cases, this is happening directly with Greek and Bulgarian border guards pushing people back at the border with Turkey.

Poland, of course, gets very high marks for its welcome of Ukrainian refugees. On the Belarus border, it's violently pushing back asylum-seekers from Syria and Afghanistan and many of these other places. What we're basically saying is treat refugees around the world the way that the world is treating Ukrainian refugees to the credit of the European Union and others. There are other people, other refugees that are fleeing very compelling situations that deserve to have their stories heard, that need protection, and shouldn't find themselves subject to exploitation, abuse, and violence just because they're trying to seek asylum.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Bill Frelick is director of the Refugee and Migrant Rights Division at Human Rights Watch and Jenelle Eli is an emergency responder for the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Thank you both for your time.

Bill Frelick: Thank you for having us.

Jenelle Eli: Thanks for having us.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.