Coffins on Ostend beach draw attention to boat migrants

The Pozzallo Pirates activist group placed 18 coffins along the beach of Ostend, Belgium, on Sunday morning to raise awareness for the many refugees who die trying to cross the Mediterranean to get to Europe, reports deredactie.be.

Many islands in the Mediterranean are continuously faced with boats full of people trying to enter Europe from Northern Africa under life-threatening conditions. Many refugees die along the way. The activist group wants the European Union to do more to save migrants’ lives.

Italy’s Mare Nostrum project, which has helped as many as 150,000 refugees in the past year alone, is to be replaced by the European Triton initiative. According to the activists, the new project will have only a third of the operating resources of Mare Nostrum, and will invest primarily in border patrol and not enough in rescue operations.