Let refugees drown, European Union decides

This 3 July 2015 British ITV TV video says about itself:

The migrant baby saved from death in the Mediterranean

ITV News Correspondent Emma Murphy spends three days saving migrants from the sea with a privately funded rescue operation.

That was three years ago. Since then, Italian governments, both the present far-right one and the preceding ‘centrist’ one, and the other European Union governments, have branded privately funded rescue ships in the Mediterranean as supposedly ‘criminal’ and have forcibly stopped them.

And now …

Translated from Dutch NOS TV today:

Europe stops picking up refugees in the Mediterranean

The European Union is no longer going to save refugees in the Mediterranean. The so-called Operation Sophia will be temporarily stopped. The decision still needs to be approved by the member states today. The current agreement will expire on 1 April. …

Operation Sophia started in the summer of 2015, after a large number of rickety boats had sunk at sea in a short time. The EU intervened at the time, because the Italians had stopped their own rescue operation (Mare Nostrum) because of the high costs (€ 9 million per year).

€ 9 million.

Total government spending in Italy then was € 82355 million.

So, 0,01% of total government spending for saving the lives of the refugees from the NATO regime change wars. That seemed to be too much … really?!

Operation Sophia was primarily intended to disrupt human smuggling. Boats had to be confiscated and destroyed. Later on the training of the Libyan coast guard was added, so that the refugees would no longer leave the African continent. ….

So that the Libyan coast guard, of one of the rival governments in Libya killing each other’s paramilitary men and civilians, would be able to kill, torture and/or sell into slavery the refugees.

France has doubts about scaling down the operation and the Netherlands is also not enthusiastic about stopping the patrols at sea. However, it is expected that nobody will object now, because they have been difficult negotiations.

A few months ago, there was already a hint that this would happen.

Translated from Dutch NOS TV, 23 January 2019:

There are a different opinions within the European Union about the ‘Sophia’ military mission, which is intended to stop the smuggling routes in the Mediterranean. It was the idea that warships, in addition to rescuing shipwrecked people, would gather information about the networks of human smugglers and possibly disable their equipment. In practice, according to the Germans, very little of this happens and the ship is mainly used for picking up migrants.

According to international law, all ships, warships or civilian, are obliged to rescue human beings from drowning. The German government illegally sabotages this.

Stefan Liebrich, member of the Die Linke [Left] party, calls the recent German decision a tragedy. “As long as Sophia is not replaced by another mission, it will mean more people drowning.” …

The German frigate that was supposed to replace the [frigate] Augsburg will soon be used for NATO war games, according to the Germans more important work than sailing the Mediterranean.

Yeah, right. Preparing to kill all life on earth in World War III is SO much more important than saving refugees from drowning [sarcasm off].