UN officials and governments trying to stop migrant smuggling are targeting the criminal gangs said to be raking in billions of euros a year at the cost of a growing number of lives. But some say this approach plays into the hands of smugglers.
At Camp Lipa in Bosnia some migrants from countries such as Nigeria, Pakistan or Afghanistan stay for only a few days. Their destination is the European Union, and they will risk nearly everything to reach it.
Others stay longer at the camp. Staff there told the news agency KNA, these are the people smugglers who use the place as a base to do business: they help migrants evade the border guards and get into the EU through Slovenia – for a fee of about 1,200 euros.
The United Nations is intent on stopping this growing and dangerous business. Its Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna is working to tackle migrant smuggling on dozens of migration routes, worth an estimated 5-6.5 billion euros a year.
In late September and early October, the International Criminal Police Organization, INTERPOL and UNODC conducted a huge operation against human trafficking and migrant smuggling called Liberterra II. As well as rescuing more than 3,000 victims of trafficking the UNODC said it "identified" 17,800 irregular migrants during the operation.
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Smuggling vs migration
Migrants themselves are not the target of anti-smuggling activities, the agency’s Ilias Chatzis, points out. "We must not confuse people smuggling with migration. Migration is a phenomenon and has existed for thousands of years," Ilias told KNA.
The criminals are the ones who exploit people financially and smuggle them across national borders, exposing them to danger, he explained.
According to Ilias, who heads the human trafficking and migrant smuggling unit, authorities have been unable to pinpoint a single "mastermind" on Europe’s migration routes.
The people smugglers operating on these routes from West Africa to the Canary Islands, across the Mediterranean and in the Balkans are "a patchwork of criminal gangs that cooperate with one another" and also smuggle weapons and drugs, he said.
Routes longer and riskier
As European countries build barriers and increase surveillance and policing at their borders, migrants are taking more complex routes to reach their destinations.
One migration route to Europe leads from the Caribbean via West and North Africa. Another common route for migrants from Bangladesh hoping to reach the United States takes them via the United Arab Emirates to Gambia and Brazil, though many end up off course.
Often, evading border patrols has dangerous or even deadly results. In West Africa, Senegal’s navy, with EU support, has stepped up patrols to intercept boats departing for the Canary Islands. This is said to have caused migrants to attempt much longer journeys to the remote island of El Hierro, with many dying at sea.
People smugglers interested only in profit are frequently blamed for planning these increasingly risky journeys. "For the smugglers, it's a business. They have little interest in the safety and well-being of the migrants," said Chatzis.
In September, smugglers transporting migrants from Turkey threw 31 people, including children, out of their rubber dinghy near the island of Samos in an attempt to escape the coast guard.
The following month, dozens of migrants died off the coast of Djibouti after Yemeni smugglers forced them to jump into the open sea, possibly to avoid being caught by authorities.
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'The wrong target'
These tragedies have prompted governments and agencies to double down on anti-migrant smuggling efforts. Yet many believe the measures so far have been ineffective.
Sara Kekus, a political scientist and human rights activist at the Center for Peace Studies in Zagreb, Croatia, told KNA that policies to stop migrants from reaching Europe – such as pushing migrants back at external borders, obstructing search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and deals with third countries like Albania – are actually giving a boost to smuggling gangs.
David Suber, from University College London, also thinks that the EU’s anti-smuggling efforts have led to the "professionalization" of smuggling. "Overall, …, policies intended to stop irregular migration and break the smugglers' business model are failing across the board," Suber told Germany’s Integration Media Service in February.
The more European countries strengthen their borders and target smugglers in the hope of reducing irregular border crossings, says Suber, the better smugglers become at bypassing controls and adapting to new situations.
The solution to putting smugglers out of business is to grant humanitarian visas and working visas to refugees and migrants, and to support circular migration, Suber told the Integration Media Service. "If a person could apply to enter the EU to work legally and then travel back to their country because there is a fair system allowing future re-entry, what would smugglers be there for?"