Human traffickers have found a new way of smuggling people inside a target country. Recent incidents involve abandoning the ship full of hopeful migrants, leaving their fate to whoever will rescue them.
The European Union has already commissioned a team to investigate the recent rise in "ghost ship" incidents. The most recent of these cases is the "Ezadeen", a merchant ship that was left adrift the Adriatic after its entire crew member abandoned the ship leaving the 450 on board migrants on their own. The Italian Navy took control of the ship on Friday after one of the Ezadeen's passenger managed to send a distress signal saying they are on their own and no one is steering the ship.
The Ezadeen incident is the second incident to occur in just a matter of three days. The Italian authorizes earlier have seized a freighter carrying migrant, in a manner that resembles the same crew modus as the Ezadeen. The Ezadeen is a 49 year old livestock freighter sailing under the Sierra Leone flag. Reports claim that it departed from the port in Turkey and was left on autopilot until Italian navy finally took control of the ship. Medical reports showed that all those on boards were in good health and most of them came from war torn Syria.
The United Nations agency for refugees reported that more than 200,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in various European countries in 2014; the figure was significantly higher compared to last the 2013 figure of only 60,000. Of the 200,000 refuges, 160,000 of them came from Asia especially from war torn states like Syria and Eritrea.
A spokesperson from the European Commission said that "The rescues of the Blue Sky M two days ago and of the Ezadeen show that smugglers are finding new ways to enter EU territory. To prevent such events and to protect the lives of migrants, fighting smuggling will continue to be a priority under the commission's agenda for comprehensive migration in 2015."
