Smugglers make £1million a day trafficking migrants from Bangladesh across Med
An investigation by MPs found that the amount of war refugees from Syria crossing the Mediterranean plummeted whereas more and more people from Bangladesh and Pakistan are making the dangerous journey
THE Mediterranean migrant crisis is being fuelled afresh by criminal gangs making £1million a day smuggling over tens of thousands from as far away as Bangladesh.
An investigation by MPs found that while the number of war refugees from Syria crossing to Italy is going down, illegal immigrants from the poor Asian country are spiralling.
The dangerous crossing from the lawless Libyan coastline will soon be dominated by trafficking gangs casting afar for new business.
In interviews with migrants in Sicily, the MPs’ report for the Conservative Middle East Council discovered organised people smugglers fly them from Bangladesh to Istanbul and Dubai, and then onto Libya.
Networks also operate in Pakistan, as well as the more stable African countries of Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Guinea.
The business reaps as much as £1m a day for the gangs, who dispatch 100 boats a day crammed with passengers.
The report was drawn up by CMEC’s director, the ex-Tory MP Charlotte Leslie, along with sitting MPs Kwasi Kwarteng and Leo Docherty.
Ms Leslie told The Sun: “The crisis is now far greater than a humanitarian one of people fleeing war, it is now far more complicated than that.
“It is now a booming criminal business.
“They go to places like Bangladesh to whip up business, and for them it’s a limitless market.
“Their clients have not suffered abuse and trauma, thought they might on their journey though.
“We are up against a constantly changing and nimble economic model, and we are struggling to keep up.”
Only 635 Syrian and 170 Libyans arrived in Italy in the first four months of 2017, but 10,000 came from Nigeria and 4,135 from Bangladesh – now the second highest nationality.
Of the 104,670 who crossed from Libya to Italy in the first nine months of 2017, 8,807 were Bangladeshi and 17,048 were Nigerians.
In contrast, the number of Syrians using the notorious central Mediterranean route was just 1,987.
Former Bristol North West MP Ms Leslie called on ministers to step up efforts to bring law and order back to Libya as the only way to stop the flourishing gangs.
She added: “Recognising the changing nature of the problem is essential.
“We have to get real about shutting down the militias who are doing the trafficking.
“That in turn means stabilising Libya, which is not at all in the traffickers’ interests.”
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