Boats 4 People : The Oloferne sets sail again in sea that is open for some and a unsurpassable border for others

Press release n°4

Palermo, 8 AM. The solidarity boat sets sail, heading towards Monastir, where on the 13th of July B4P will join the International Committee of the World Social Forum for many events. As the port of Palermo vanishes into the distance, the calm liquid horizon of the Mediterranean opens before the crew. But the B4P campaign precisely denounces the fact that this horizon is an unsurpassable border for the majority of the populations located on the Southern shore of the Mediterranean. And that this sea in appearance so calm has swallowed the lives of thousands of migrants - 13.448 between 1988 and May 2012 according to Fortress Europe, and 6.255 in the Sicily Channel only. To this terrible number, which certainly represents only a fraction of reality, have just been added at least three Tunisians, who’s small boat capsized in the night of the 3rd of July near Monastir, when 22 people attempted to join a larger fishing vessel bound to Italy. The Coast Guards of Monastir managed to rescue 14 people and arrested the passengers and the presumed smugglers. In the next days, B4P will attempt to shed further light on this incident reported by the Tunisian press, but we already wish to express our solidarity with the families of the dead and disappeared and to reiterate that it is the EU’s policy of closure and the criminalisation of migrants that is the root cause of these deaths, forcing migrants to resort to clandestine means. To bring an end to these deaths, we demand the EU and states of the Southern shore of the Mediterranean to bring and end to their violent control of the sea.