‘Stop the migrant boats’ urges Abbott – but EU takes humanitarian line
As crisis in the Med grows, Australian PM’s advice is ignored. reports from Sydney
Senior EU officials yesterday denied seeking Australia’s advice on how to prevent further humanitarian disasters in the Mediterranean – adding that Europe would never emulate Australia in forcibly repatriating asylum-seekers.
After the mass drownings last month when a migrant boat from Libya sank en route to Italy, the Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, urged the EU to follow his country’s example and prevent boats from entering European waters. “The onlywayyou can stop the deaths is to stop the boats,” he said.
Yesterday, after more than 6,700 people were rescued from boats off the Libyan coast, Mr Abbott claimed there had already been “contact at official level between Australian people and Europeans”.
Calm seas and mild temperatures have brought a spike in arrivals. The Italian navy said one rescued woman gave birth to a girl aboard one of its patrol ships on Sunday.
Mr Abbott said Operation Sovereign Borders, Australia’s operation against asylum boats, was “an object lesson in how to do the right thing by poor, misguided people who for all sorts of reasons want a better life but very often end up dead if they succumb to the lure of people smugglers”.
However, the European Commission’s spokeswoman, Natasha Bertaud, said that since the EU upheld international law protecting refugees from “refoulement” – being sent home to face persecution – “the Australian model can never be a model for us”. She denied there had been contact with Australian authorities.
Mr Abbott’s conservative government has deployed naval vessels to intercept asylum boats in the Indian Ocean and send them back to Indonesia, the most common transit country for people trying to reach Australia from south Asia and the Middle East.
Thosewho do reachAustralian waters are flown to Pacific islands for processing and told they will never be resettled in Australia. Instead, they are offered resettlement in countries such as Cambodia.
While refugee advocates