Crossing from North Africa to Europe in a ramshackle boat is a perilous undertaking. Boats carrying refugees regularly get into trouble. Sailors are obliged to help ships in distress. But a rescue often brings awkward consequences. So people look the other way.

At the end of March, 61 boat refugees starved to death crossing the Mediterranean Sea, British daily The Guardian reported this week. The passengers set off from Tripoli, but got into distress. They were given some water and biscuits by an Italian helicopter crew. But the promised rescue never came.

In January, the crew of the Momentum Scan – a Dutch merchant ship – picked up 241 Afghan refugees from a sinking fishing boat in the Adriatic Sea. More than 20 of those on board drowned. Some were crushed between the two ships. The refugees were put ashore in Greece.

Excuse
“In January, there were other ships in the area but they kept a safe distance,” says Kees Koolhof, manager of CFL, the shipping company that owns Momentum Scan. According to him, many captains in the busy Mediterranean shipping lanes are concerned about the number of boats carrying refugees.

For any shipping company, a rescue at sea means a loss. They have to sail out of their way, and the delay costs money. It can even put the cargo at risk. Captains give this as a reason to avoid having to help. “Often as an excuse,” says Mr Koolhof.

Rules
The international shipping union Nautilus International says it doesn’t know of any confirmed examples of ships ignoring distress calls. According to international rules, anyone at sea has to come to the aid of a ship in distress. You can only ignore a mayday signal if you’ve been given permission to do so by the coastguard.

Dangerous
According to Nautilus, ships rarely ignore distress calls, but Kees Koolhof disagrees. Apart from the costs involved, a rescue brings genuine problems:

“If you pick up 10 or 20 people at sea, you just sail on to the next port. But even with a small group, there’s a problem on board, because the crew are already in the minority. You don’t have enough beds and blankets, or enough food and medicines. And it can also be dangerous. At some ports, people don’t want to disembark, because they know they’ll be sent back to the country they’ve come from. Then they’ll fight for their lives.”

Horror stories
Rescuing the 241 refugees cost shipping company CFL 50,000 euros. What’s more, companies can also be obliged to pay other costs for stowaways on board, for air tickets and hotel costs and so on. Kees Koolhof:

“If you read the horror stories about it... You hear about countries that refuse to accept stowaways, so people get wary of taking people on board. Sometimes captains are fired by shipping companies. There are enough stories, for example, of stowaways even being thrown in the sea.”

Foundation
A well-known example is the Norwegian container ship Tampa, which was refused permission to dock in Australia in 2001. The crew had picked up more than 400 refugees at sea, most of them Afghans heading for Australia via Indonesia. Indonesia had already refused to take them. The container ship was held up for weeks.

CFL didn’t abandon the 241 shipwrecked refugees it rescued in January. They have applied for asylum in Greece and are now living in a park, in the open air. The company has set up a foundation to support them, the Momentum Foundation, which provides them with food, clothing and medical care.

Let them drown
Kees Koolhof says he knows it’s unusual to offer such help.

“As a Dutch shipping company you see it as logical to help people in distress. But there are parts of the world where a human life has less value. Shipping is a tough world, but it’s also a reflection of society. After our rescue in January, there were 400 comments on the website of Dutch daily De Telegraaf. ‘They should have let them drown,’ said many.”

(mb/hs)