This
\nis a tragedy, people are losing their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean.
\nIt’s important for the European Union to take action! said NATO Secretary
\nGeneral, Jens Stoltenberg, who hailed the decision made in Brussels on Monday
\nto launch an unprecedented European naval operation to check the activity of
\npeople smugglers.
Against the backdrop of the insecure climate and political
\nturmoil in North Africa, particularly in Libya, smugglers who want to make easy
\nmoney take advantage of people in misery and develop a new type of business, by
\ncarrying thousands of people in illegal improvised boats. Overloaded and
\nunsafe, many of them sink, claiming thousands of lives.
Many Jihad fighters can hide among the immigrants. According to the mass media in
\nItaly, the country which is most affected by the flow of migrants, those
\nfighters try to reach Europe, to perpetrate attacks. Therefore, they conceal
\ntheir identity, shaving their beards and hiding among the migrants in order not
\nto be recognised.
Furthermore, they say the Islamic State terrorist group would
\nallegedly be involved in the issue, as it is the actual beneficiary of human
\ntrafficking on the Mediterranean, collecting a sort of tax or fee from the
\nsmugglers who organise the illegal boat travels.
Terrorists are also coercing
\nsome immigrants to join their group, training them before leaving for Europe.
\nThat is why the European naval operation, EUNAVFOR Med, is designed to spot the
\nships used by armed guides to drag smaller, improvised boats packed with
\nhundreds of immigrants, which they let to sail adrift at high sea. The mission
\nbased in Rome and led by Italian admiral Enrico Credendino is to be launched in
\nJune. It will mainly consist in deploying war ships and surveillance military
\naircraft belonging to the European national armed forces, off the Libyan coast.
That will be a naval and not a military operation, aimed at rescuing lives at
\nsea, Brussels sources say. France, Great
\nBritain, Germany, Italy and Spain have already pledged to contribute ships to
\nthe operation. Poland and Slovenia are expected to make available surveillance
\naircraft and helicopters. However, the European Union can’t receive and provide
\nshelter to all immigrants who flee their countries.
Those who say the doors
\nshould be left wide open are only cynical, because they are well aware of the
\nfact that this is an impossible scenario. According to the President of the
\nEuropean Council, Donald Tusk, by the end of the year, the European Commission
\nintends to put in place a permanent mechanism meant to redirect migrants
\ntowards the EU member states, based on mandatory quotas, in accordance with the
\nrespective European state’s economic development and number of
\ninhabitants.
Romania does not seem to
\nbe affected, at least for now, by the flow of North African immigrants, but
\npresident Klaus Iohannis has pledged that his country will be solidary with the
\nother European states in the effort to take over and shelter the
\nimmigrants.
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The flow of immigrants from North Africa prompts the European Union to take action.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":63904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[38078,29819,32363],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-63903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-eunavfor","tag-immigration","tag-trafficking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n