BANJUL (Reuters) – Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the deaths of African migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean by boat to Europe.
Nearly 2,000 migrants had died by early May, according to the International Organization for Migration, with about 800 killed in a single shipwreck in April.
Many thousands have reached southern Europe by the sea route. Gambia, with a population of only 1.9 million, is one of the leading countries of origin of the migrants.
“We have a right to call the ICC to investigate not only cases of Gambians but the case of thousands of African young people who have died on the European coast under unusual circumstances,” Jammeh said.
Jammeh, who met visiting ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at the weekend, did not say who should be investigated or for what crimes.
In his comments, broadcast on state television yesterday, he criticised rescue efforts in the Mediterranean by European nations.
“If it is not done deliberately, how is it possible that each time a vessel is capsizing, there is the Italian navy to rescue only a few people,” he said.
At the United Nations General Assembly last year, Jammeh called for an investigation of what he called the “manmade sinking, capsizing” of boats carrying Africans.
The ICC did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
