The Community of Sant'Egidio expresses its deep condolences to the families of the victims of the shipwreck of a boat in the Mediterranean Sea on 2 September. News was only received yesterday following the rescue of the only seven survivors, who had been clinging to the capsized hull for two days. When faced with the deaths of 21 people - including three children - from countries ravaged by terrible wars, such as Syria and Sudan, we cannot simply express outrage or coldly update the statistics on the victims of the voyages of despair in the Mediterranean.
We strongly appeal to all institutions, at national and European level, to resume rescue operations at sea with special effort, in order to save the lives of people in danger.
It is then necessary to encourage regular entry routes, including for work reasons, which Italy badly needs. Furthermore, for those fleeing countries at war, we must activate models that favour rescue and integration, such as the humanitarian corridors, which Sant'Egidio has been running together with various organisations since 2016 and which have allowed 7,700 people to arrive in Europe. The most recent arrival, a few days ago, was from Libya: twenty refugees who had been evacuated from detention camps, where they suffered serious mistreatment, but who, thanks to the humanitarian corridors, were able to reach Italy by plane and not put their lives in the traffickers' hands.
