On June 14 a fishing boat with up to 750 migrants on board sank in the Mediterranean Sea, just off the coast of Greece. Reports suggest that more than 300 Pakistani nationals lost their lives in this appalling tragedy, which once again highlighted the inhumanity and illegality of people trafficking in a stretch of water which has claimed so many lives.
Between January and March of this year over 400 people died in the central Mediterranean, which has become the world’s most dangerous sea crossing. António Vitorino, director general of the International Organisation for Immigration, said in the aftermath of this most recent horror: “with more than 20,000 deaths recorded on this route since 2014, I fear that these deaths have been normalised”.
At around a similar time to the catastrophe in the Mediterranean, there were only four days between the two events, a submersible vessel operated by a US exploration company, imploded off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. There were five people onboard who perished on their way to examine the wreck of the infamous ocean liner, Titanic.
