Europe struggles to solve a migration crisis with no end in sight

Austrian police found 71 migrants dead in a confiscated food truck left yesterday on Austria’s main highway. As officials began the difficult task of counting the decomposing bodies, Hungarian officials in Budapest took into custody 16 more cars and vans carrying 112 migrants. They also announced the arrest of 21 suspected smugglers, believed to be part of a huge ring moving migrants through the Balkan countries northwards toward Hungary, Austria, and other EU nations.

European leaders are scrambling to come up with a solution to the human tide washing across their borders. While they must deal with the immediate needs of people filling refugee camps and shelters, leaders in northern Europe, where most of the migrants are headed, are struggling to find a long-term fix for a very complex problem.

With its huge southern maritime border, whatever strategies Europe implements, the flow of human misery is not likely to stop. Europe’s border agency, Frontex, said last month alone 107,500 migrants fled to Europe from Islamic violence in the Middle East and Africa. Pew Research reported the European figure is just under a quarter of the total migrants apprehended at the United States’ southern border last year.

Despite their tenacity, migrants regularly fail to reach Europe without official intervention: About 110,000 migrants have been rescued off Libya’s coast and brought to southern Italian ports this year. This week, the UN reported two smuggler boats holding 500 migrants capsized off the western coast of Libya, with only 100 survivors rescued so far.

Refugees and migrants take the sea route from Libya, fleeing chaos and violence there, allowing smugglers to use the North African country’s coast as a jumping off point for Europe, less than 200 miles away.

The Italian coast guard, navy, and border police boats rescued more than 11,000 migrants adrift at sea in just six days in April. And this week, a record 4,400 migrants were picked up in a single day in 22 separate rescue operations. People risked being crammed into motorized rubber dinghies and ramshackle fishing boats in a desperate bid to reach Europe’s southern shores.

Many don’t arrive alive. Yesterday, 105 migrants died at sea when their boat capsized off Libya, suffocating many in the boat’s airless hold. The hull of the 66-foot craft contained about 60 people but was only 3 feet high, containing two small windows and the engine.

In Sicily, Palermo police squad head Carmine Mosca said Friday survivors of the deadly Mediterranean crossing recounted how their traffickers beat them back with knives if they tried to come out of the hold to get air. Palermo prosecutor Maurizio Scalia said seven Moroccans, two Syrians, and a Libyan made up the crew. As in most rescue operations, the bodies will be autopsied in Italy.

Migrants also regularly try to push into Europe from Turkey. The Greek islands of Samos, Lesbos, Chios, and Kos—only a few nautical miles from Turkey—have seen an influx of more than 50,000 migrants already this year. Besides jarring the locals, tourists to Greece say their holidays are being blighted by human need. Disgruntled British holidaymakers in the Greek islands don’t want to think about migrants while on vacation.

But the migrants press north, and European countries are squabbling about which states should offer them new homes. Slovakia announced last week it would only take in Christian refugees and migrants from Syria—which was nearly 15 percent Christian until the current war. Slovakian Interior Ministry spokesman Ivan Netik said Muslims will not be accepted due to their unlikelihood to integrate. Netik said the policy aimed at “community cohesion,” despite UN pressure to be “inclusive.”

Many in Europe ask why Muslim countries have not arranged to take in migrants from fellow Muslim countries, since only Lebanon and Jordan have offered serious help.

“The ironic and rather sad reality is that European nations will be more willing to take them in and show compassion,” said British-Egyptian Ahmed Hassanen, writing on Quora.com.

London Councillor David Lindsay said part of the strategy for dealing with Europe’s migrant crisis is to see it as a more global—and spiritual—problem. He noted the huge influx of migrants may result in social dislocation rather than relief, and that more needs to be done close to crisis areas, perhaps even drastic measures.

“Instead of having naval forces picking up those who make the journey, prevent them from getting in to international waters: a naval blockade of Libya,” he said.

Lindsay recognizes there are long-term issues for the vulnerable who come to Europe, especially to Britain.

“I am sure that in God’s economy some are here with God’s spiritual blessing despite being here illegally, while others who may have all the right papers and be U.K. citizens … should be elsewhere.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.