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PARIS: Humanitarian operations to rescue migrants attempting the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea do not encourage further crossings, a modelling study said on Thursday.
The finding contradicts claims that charity-run ships which find and save migrants in the Mediterranean incentivise people to risk their lives trying to get to the European Union.
Instead, migrants are driven to make the perilous voyage by intensifying conflict, natural disasters or economic hardship in their country of origin, according to the study.
More than 20,000 migrants have died trying to cross the central Mediterranean route from North Africa to Italy since 2014, according to the UN´s International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
A range of charity-run ships have been working to rescue migrants, who are often on rickety boats, from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Recent Italian governments, including that of current far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have sought to block or impound the rescue ships, saying they encourage migrants to attempt the crossing — and boost the fortunes of people smugglers.
However, the new study published in Scientific Reports found no evidence of this so-called “pull factor”, said co-author Ramona Rischke of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.
“This suggests that search-and-rescue operations first and foremost save lives and do not attract migration,” she told journalists. The researchers analysed data from the EU´s border patrol agency Frontex, the coastguards of Tunisia and Libya, the IOM and UNITED for Intercultural Action — a non-profit that records the identities of those lost at sea.
They then used predictive modelling to simulate the flow of migrants on the central Mediterranean route between 2011 and 2020, searching for factors that impacted the number of crossings.
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