Getting rid of Gaddafi was the worst decision anyone could have made. He was right all along.
Indeed. Libya was a rich country and the biggest sponge of sub Saharan Africa migration as it was always in need for labour.
With the collapse of the country, all warring factions now make pretty good profits in the people smuggling trade.
The whole issue starts with the NGOs. Most of them are operating as the extended arm of the smugglers. Couple are under investigation that actually are getting funded by the smugglers.
It is been proven that the NGO ships know where and when they will be a boat full or immigrants, the moment they go out of the Libyan territorial waters, they take them on their ship, while some times when weather is bad they just take them in just a mile off the shores withing Libyan waters.
Then they go and dump them to Italy.
The EU should start accepting these people in their home countries. They should setup immigration programs at the EU embassies in Africa and then fly the migrants in so they don't need to make this crossing. And then distribute them among Europe on a per capita basis. One look at the population projections for Africa show just how bad this problem is going to get. It'll get exponentially worse as the populations increase. For example, if the population of Nigeria doubles in the next n years I would expect the number of refugees to increase exponentially as global warming exacerbates the problem, causing famine, water shortages and war. Rather than waste time picking the refugees up in boats why not just fly them into Europe in an orderly manner? That way you cut out the people traffickers and get these young labour that Europe desperately needs in much more quickly. Just imagine if you fly the refugees directly in you can probably increase the numbers coming in much more.
EU decided to do exactly what you said. Distribute them across all the countries, this is not something new.
However. You have Britain vehemently saying no, not only to African immigrants but Syrian, Iraqi, Afgan, Yemeni also.
Romania, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia and all the rest of Eastern countries, say no also. Especially Hungary is the spearhead of the disagreement of the EU threatening to even leave the Union with the rest.
Also they have closed their borders to any refugees or immigrants. That created a domino effect, closing all borders to Greece (via FYROM) and Italy effectively. Also France has closed the borders to any such traffic from Italy. Austria even built a wall for heaven sake.
So that has effectively made Italy and Greece the two big refugee dumps of the biggest migration since WWII. And both facing the same issue.
They are not Israel or Australia to start sinking boats and drowning people. So they have to accept everyone that lands on their shores. Italy of course can refuse the NGO ships.
Greece doesn't have this option. The distance between the Turkish shores and the Eastern Aegean Greek islands is pretty small. What they do is board the people into the tiny boats and the moment they see Greek or EU naval patrol they just sink the boat. As a country obligated by the Geneva and UN Human Rights conventions you have to save those people or else they will become fish food. (plenty of fat sharks in the area these days, last estimate their population has gone up tenfold the last 3 years)
Then moment are on your island is your problem actually. You have to register them, and give them asylum if they ask for it and they are coming from a country that indeed asylum is applicable, and let them free.
(only countries that could justify asylum are Syria, Yemen and Libyan nobody else).
Otherwise you send them back to the country they came for. This is an issue for Greece because Turkey threatens with war if that happens. Even the €2bn annual payments by the EU to Turkey to stop the migrants from leaving their shores, doesn't work. Already their PM Yildirim said last week that because Greece gave asylum to 8 Turkish Nationals they completely throw any deal with the EU, not that they followed it.
However the significant majority of those landing in Italy and Greece do not want to stay in Italy and Greece. So they do not want to apply for asylum, hence they stay in camps.
Initially both countries (Italy & Greece) partially assist them to move to their north borders so they can continue their trek to Germany. (please note it was Merkel who announced to the world that Germany has it's borders open to everyone, easy to say when between you and them are seas and dozen countries).
At the height of the crisis in 2014-15, EU had even put on freeze the Dublin agreement in relation of the immigrants. Something that both Greece & Italy were fighting because of Germany diplomacy they found themselves in the crap. However Germany has effectively now activated the Dublin agreement, sending back to Italy and Greece (countries were the immigrants first entered the EU) everyone they do not like in their country (especially criminals). Same applies to the other EU countries.
So both Italy & Greece have become effectively the EU refugee campsites. Especially in case of bankrupt Greece the situation is even worse having to provide everything to them including air condition units for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter! At the expense of the already financially wiped tax payers.
The situation is so bad especially in Lesbos, that the tourist economy of the island has collapsed completely, nobody can walk outside at night while robberies and theft are sky high.
Even farmers have issues having their livestock getting wiped out. Let alone conflicts between the refugees because some believe on different Islamic sect resulting even to deaths and chaos. (was one few weeks ago).
Complains and protests by the locals demanding from the central governments find a better solution, are just the sound of far right nazi sympathisers according to the lefty Greek government.
Some smaller islands like Kos has bigger issue because the immigrants stuck on the island are larger than the local population.
As for their numbers. In Greece alone there are 911,471 illegals (mainly in camps) as of March 2018, in addition to 517,000 that have received asylum and now classed as legal immigrants, just the last four years.
Please note the Greek population is bit over 9.5 million.
I doubt a far richer country like Britain can cope with that. But yet who cares here. When the main interests of US & UK are to remove Assad, put a puppet on it's place to control the gas & oil pipelines that must be built to stop Russia from selling gas & oil to EU. Then of course take control of the Iranian reserves.
