When the EU replaced Italy's search & rescue-focussed Op Mare Nostrum in 2014 with it's border security-focussed Op Triton, deaths in the Mediterranean increase

When the EU replaced Italy's search & rescue-focussed Op Mare Nostrum in 2014 with it's border security-focussed Op Triton, deaths in the Mediterranean increased markedly, in some cases by as much as 1,600% between years.[0] This also led to a thriving coastal slave trade in Libya, to which Frontex happily return people if they are detected close enough that the Libyan Coast Guard can reach them first. Whether this particular incident was intentional or accidental, and whether those responsible will be punished or not, the whole regime has been consciously constructed to produce exactly this kind of result. To quote the book Necropolitics, by Achille Mbembe: > In an increasingly Balkanized and isolated world, where are the most deadly migrant routes? It is Europe! Who claims the largest number of skeletons and the largest marine cemetery in this century? Again, it is Europe! The greatest number of deserts, territorial and international waters, channels, islands, straits, enclaves, canals, rivers, ports, and airports transformed into iron curtain technologies? Europe! And to top it all off, in these times of permanent escalation—the camps. The return of camps. A Europe of camps. Samos, Chios, Lesbos, Idomeni, Lampedusa, Vintimille, Sicily, Subotica—the list goes on. [0]: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNHCR2.png#mw-jump-to-license https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNHCR2.png#mw-jump...