Europe’s Neglect in Managing Border Control

Last month’s Venice film festival applauded “Me, Captain,” a fictional portrayal of African migrants seeking refuge in Europe. The film portrays two Senegalese teenagers facing violence, extortion, detention, and forced labor in North Africa, earning it a Silver Lion and standing ovations.

Despite the film’s moving depiction, Guardian reports from Tunisia expose a harsher reality, with Europe deeply involved. In July, the European Union inked a deal providing financial aid to Tunisia’s authoritarian leader, Kais Saied, in exchange for curbing irregular migrants attempting the Mediterranean crossing to Italy. Sub-Saharan African migrants encountered harsh pushbacks, abuse, and intimidation.

Over 4,000 individuals were detained and abandoned in barren desert areas along Tunisia’s borders with Libya and Algeria, some enduring assaults and theft by border officials, and many succumbing to thirst. The Guardian unveiled the story of a Cameroonian asylum seeker who identified a viral photo of a deceased mother and daughter found in the desert—a tragically recurrent occurrence.

This inhumanity toward vulnerable individuals isn’t novel; in Libya, EU-supported cooperation led to rape, beatings, extortion, and deportations. Saied’s rhetoric fueled racist animosity towards black migrants. Nevertheless, European leaders like Ursula von der Leyen, Giorgia Meloni, and Mark Rutte utilize him as a border enforcer, while Rishi Sunak and Meloni backed such agreements at a European summit. An accord with Egypt might follow suit.

This complicity in human rights abuses under the pretext of border security contradicts European principles. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, stressed the necessity of democracy, human rights, and cooperation in these pacts.

The 21st-century migration challenge poses a threat to the ethical foundation of European politics. A fortress-like mentality, once inconceivable, now prevails due to geopolitical instability, global inequality, and the climate crisis driving mass migration. While it presents complexities, moral dilemmas, and opportunities for an aging continent, an approach of “whatever it takes” allowing desperate deaths in the desert is a disgrace, not a resolution.