Description
In the Mediterranean, human mobility continues to be a contentious issue of life and death: over 59,200 people lost their lives there since 2014. European states have increasingly delegated “rescue" responsibility to countries on the Mediterranean’s southern shore, such as Libya and Tunisia. At the same time, southern European states have tried to limit their responsibility for rescue. While externalization aims to limit departures, the criminalization of civil rescue aims to limit the presence of 'inconvenient observers' at sea, and their ability to rescue. All this exacerbated the 'rescue gap', culminating in the strategies of 'closed', 'unsafe', and 'distant' ports. This paper reflects on the struggles 'for life', understood as rescue and disembarkation in a place of safety. It also considers the different policies and practices of visibility of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea, and the contested relationship between visibility and survival. While the exercise of the right to escape is only possible under conditions of invisibility - as is protection from refoulement - only visibility can allow for rescue in case of danger. Yet, visibility may not be a sufficient condition to guarantee rescue. From the 'left-to-die boat' to the Easter Monday massacre and to Cutro, the competent authorities were fully aware of the exact geolocation of the people who lost their lives hours later. Through an analysis of the actors involved, this contribution sheds light on the struggles for (in)visibility by people on the move, as an essential instrument for exercising the right to leave and to life.
