A massive operation is under way to find and save a stricken vessel and its passengers. As time passes, anxious families and friends wait with growing fear. The US coastguard, Canadian armed forces and commercial vessels are all hunting for the Titan submersible, which has gone missing with five aboard on a dive to the wreck of the Titanic in the north Atlantic. The UK’s Ministry of Defence is also monitoring the situation.
It is hard to think of a starker contrast with the response to a fishing boat which sank in the Mediterranean last week with an estimated 750 people, including children, packed onboard. Only about 100 survived, making this one of the deadliest disasters in the Mediterranean. Greece and the EU blame people smugglers, who overcrowd boats and abuse those aboard them. But both have profound questions to answer about their own role in such disasters. Activists say authorities were repeatedly warned of the danger this boat faced, hours before it went down, but failed to act.
It is a policy decision. And sadly, it is a pretty popular one. Rescuing these people would mean that the rescuing country needs to grant them asylum. Doing so would incentivize more refugees to choose this dangerous path as it would be a passage to Europe.
This is one of the reasons why the far right political parties in Italy are so successful. They promise Italians that they would stop this type of immigration. And the rest of the EU accepts this quietly because it solves their own issues with immigration.