Rickety boats used to smuggle migrants into Europe ‘made in China’
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s commissioner for migration, calls on Beijing for help in closing down supply of cheap rafts tied to thousands of deaths in Mediterranean Sea
The European Union has a long list of products it says China sells too much of in its markets. Add inflatable boats to the list.
“The rubber boats used by the smuggler networks in the Mediterranean are fabricated somewhere in China,” Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s commissioner for migration, home affairs and citizenship, told journalists in Beijing on Thursday after he met China’s Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun.
At least 1 million people, mostly from the Middle East and North Africa, crossed the Mediterranean bound for Europe in 2015, with the number fell to 327,000 in the first 10 months of last year. Many of the crossing attempts are made using small boats far too small and unstable for open rough waters, and deaths from drowning are not uncommon. Last year, some 3,800 fatalities were recorded.
But the rafts are relatively inexpensive and easily purchased. A search on Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba.com found more than 2,500 companies selling different types of inflatable boats with the unit price as low as US$10. Alibaba Group owns the South China Morning Post.
It’s not known how many boats made in China are being used by smugglers to move the refugees, but Avramopoulos said he had requested cooperation from the Chinese authorities to “track down this business and dismantle it, because what they produce is not serving the common good of the country. It is a very dangerous tool in the hands of ruthless smugglers”.