Thread by @emmevilla

🚢🤔📈🧐📉

So. The #Lifeline case has descended into another Aquarius case. Meanwhile, 16 leaders of EU Member States meet for an #EUCO informal meeting on #migrationEU.

Time for a brief recap of the role of #NGO-s doing #SAR operations in the Central Mediterranean? 👇

First: PERCEPTIONS MATTER. 📺🤔

Irregular sea arrivals to Italy are WAY down, and continue to be (-78% y-o-y), even as NGOs carried out over 40% of SAR operations in 2017 and 2018.
Still, 51% of Italians believe flows are as high or higher than last year's.👇

Second: DETERRENCE VS NGOs does not pay off (much).🚢⛔️📉

Over the last two weeks of the new goverment's "deterring measures", the decline in sea arrivals vs 2017 is broadly in line with the drop experienced since July 2017. With or without #Aquarius and #Lifeline arrivals. 👇

.@sapomnia pointed this out in a @wireditalia article – he gave me the idea for a constant monitoring (in ITA 👇)
wired.it/attualita/poli…

Third: DETERRENCE vs NGOs may BACKFIRE. 🚢⛔️📈

While nowhere near the levels before the drop in sea arrivals, the number of annualised deaths in the Central Mediterranean is edging up. Surely ot a crisis for now, but calls for weekly monitoring. 👇

Fourth: NGOs DID NOT AFFECT SEA ARRIVALS. 🚢📈📉

No need for complex models.

In the month between 16 July and 15 August 2017, almost all NGOs were still operating, carrying out #SAR at max levels, and yet arrivals dropped to a trickle.

Fifth: NGOs DID NOT AFFECT SEA ARRIVALS. 🚢📈📉

if you still need more evidence, here you go.

With monthly data from 2015 through April 2018, there is no apparent trend between NGO's search and rescue activity and arrivals to Italy (or departures from Libya, for that matter).👇

BOTTOM LINE: #MigrationEU policies today are almost totally shaped by crisis narratives. And crisis narratives can only lead to bad solutions.

The main issue today is not irregular flows.

It is INTEGRATION. And we are forgetting about it.