Making sense of a tragedy at sea

It is hard not to feel that the capsizing of the migrant ship is tragic in its proper, Greek sense: tragic because it was inevitable

Survivors of the smuggler's boat that overturned off the coasts of Libya lie on the deck of the Italian Coast Guard ship Bruno Gregoretti.
(Image credit: (AP Photo/Lino Azzopardi))

Last Sunday, a ship crowded with migrants capsized and sank in the middle of the Mediterranean. As many as 900 are feared dead. The details are as grisly as one might surmise: While some bodies have been seen floating in the water, apparently most of those who died — packed into the ship like sardines — were trapped in a locked hold of the boat.

This is part of a steady drip, drip of such enormously depressing news. According to humanitarian groups, already 1,727 migrants have died at sea this year. Critics say that the EU's program to rescue migrants lost at sea is underfunded and skeletal — and the EU evidently agrees, having put forward a plan to extend it in an emergency session.

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Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry is a writer and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His writing has appeared at Forbes, The Atlantic, First Things, Commentary Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Federalist, Quartz, and other places. He lives in Paris with his beloved wife and daughter.