European Immigration: War, poverty, repression: Why so many North Africans, Syrian Somali's risk their lives to migrate to Europe - by Carol J. Williams

Human Drama On Europe's Mediterranean Sea Coast

Pope Francis lamented the mass drowning of African boat people off the Italian island of Lampedusa as "shameful" evidence of human indifference to those in despair.

President Giorgio Napolitano of Italy, where tens of thousands of desperate migrants cast up on remote shores each year, deemed the deadliest migration accident in the Mediterranean Sea this year a "massacre of innocents."

But U.N. officials tasked with protecting those fleeing their homelands put into unemotional perspective the tragic end to a boatload of migrants' dangerous gamble for a better life: an everyday occurrence.

Poverty, injustice and armed conflict have long been the instigators of African migration to Europe. And in today's ever more unstable world, where Islamic militants terrorize much of Africa and political instability grips the Arab world, the numbers willing to risk perilous sea voyages for a chance to start over in affluent Europe have exploded.

"Lives are lost every day in the most cruel of circumstances because people flee out of despair and try to cross the sea in rickety boats," said Volker Tuerk, director for international protection with the Office of U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

"Because of human misery, because of despair, for reasons of persecution in their home countries, these people have nothing else but to take an unseaworthy boat to a European haven," Tuerk said. He called on the European Union to halt overcrowded boats leaving Northern Africa and come to the aid of those who encounter peril when they do manage to set off.

The search for better jobs and higher incomes still drives much of the human tide across the Mediterranean.

But the economic migrants are now joined by swelling crowds of Syrians fleeing their civil war-racked country, by Somalis escaping lawlessness and sectarian strife, and by political refugees from the "Arab Spring," the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East that have traded authoritarian rule for near-anarchy in countries such as Libya, Egypt and Yemen.

Note EU-Digest: this tremendously serious human tragedy can not be solved by the EU alone. The ever increasing and massive immigration into Europe from North Africa, Somalia, Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Syria is the direct  result of the unstable environment that exists in the area. The external and internal stakeholders in this turmoil (and we all know who they are)  should be seen as the main culprits of this drama which is growing proportionally each day. 

The positive side of this tragedy is that the EU, like America in the past, provides the only glimmer of hope for these thousands of desperate immigrants who are seeking freedom of oppression and a better life.

Europe must welcome them. 

Read more: War, poverty, repression: Why so many Africans risk their lives to migrate to Europe - latimes.com

Italy: Lampedusa tragedy: migrants to Europe need more than sympathy - by Hugh Muir

In all the coverage today of the sinking of the migrant boat off the coast of Italy – and with up to 300 dead, there will be a lot of it – one quote needs to stay at the forefront. "This is not an Italian tragedy, this is a European tragedy," said Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano as he arrived on the island of Lampedusa. "Lampedusa has to be considered the frontier of Europe, not the frontier of Italy." c

Italy says it is facing a continual problem with these boats, as the ambitions of thousands who want to make a life for themselves are commandeered by the ambitions of crooks and traffickers willing and able to make a quick buck. Neither phenomenon will abate of its own accord.

There will be more days like this, more tragedies in places such as Lampedusa. The last decade saw welcome growth in the developing world as poor countries, principally India and China surged, taking 620 million out of poverty compared with 1990 and the UN's millennium development goals helped galvanise international institutions. But the improvement has been patchy. Even in those countries where poverty has been impacted, many who have been pulled out of officially classified poverty remain vulnerable in terms of living and social conditions. They may not die of poverty, but it's no way to live.

And what are we doing about this constant and inevitable knocking at the door of Europe? How do we reflect the truth that an undeveloped population – blessed or perhaps cursed with modern communications – will strike out for a better life in the developed world. We confront the problem with an unedifying hotchpotch of neuroses and political spasms that ensure we never truly see it in the round, never discuss it rationally and never get to grips with it.

Read more: Lampedusa tragedy: migrants to Europe need more than sympathy | Hugh Muir | Comment is free | theguardian.com