Re-Inventing Solutions to Recurring Atrocities

"We know where the smugglers keep their boats, where they gather. The plans for military intervention are there."
"We think it's the moment in which Europe decides, forcefully, to have an international police operation, which will undo this band of criminals."
Roberta Pinotti, Minister of Defence, Italy

"They talk about capturing and destroying migrant boats, but presumably they will have people on board, so they're not going to just shoot them out of the water."
"Others say the only way to stop them is to destroy all the boats in Libya, which is obviously nonsensical."
Matt Carr, author Fortress Europe

"This problem is totally unsolvable with military means."
"Fighting people trafficking means fighting the slave traders of the 21st century. It is not only a question of security and terrorism -- it is about human dignity."
Alain Coldefy, retired French admiral

"Let's also go after effectively the modern slave traders. Let's also try and stabilize these countries -- not just Libya, but also Nigeria, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia. It's these unstable countries that people are coming from that's part of the problem."
British Prime Minister David Cameron

"They wanted to put 1,200 people on the boat, they were shouting 'Hurry up' and beating us to make us get on board. But in the end it was completely full and they stopped at 800 people."
Said, 16-year-old Somalian survivor

Migrants from sub-Saharan Africa at a detention centre in Misrata, Libya. Photograph: Mahmud Turkia/AFP/Getty Images

It wasn't all that long ago when the newspapers were full day after day of stories about pirates off the coast of Somalia. The pirates, claiming that their fishing livelihood had been compromised by foreign poachers off Somalia's coastline waters, turned to piracy to compensate for their loss of fishing rights and income. Their piracy enterprise was funded by investors from the Middle East to whom was returned a percentage of their considerable take.

It was the huge sums of ransom money demanded from various countries' shipping enterprises where the Somali pirates retained ships, cargo and crew until the ransom came through that handsomely augmented their way of life, and enriched the coffers of those funding their boats, their arms. Until the international community came together because insurance costs had soared and losses were souring international shipping.

So, vigilance, time and investment in combating piracy proved successful  in putting the pirates out of business.

In the instance of the tens of thousands of refugees, some seeking economic opportunities but more seeking haven from endemic violence in the Middle East and Africa, it is human lives that are at risk more than commercial enterprise, even though the cost to Europe of policing its shores, of having to undertake humanitarian missions  to find and rescue floundering vessels at sea, in the cost of housing and feeding the refugees though mounting, hasn't yet the emergency status of the pirates' pillage.

But Hungary now, along with Italy and Greece is becoming yet another gateway to the more prosperous countries of Europe, Germany and France, where many of the migrants have a wish to infiltrate as refugees. Even while most countries of Europe are beginning to feel the strain, both of accommodating such refugees and coping with a public backlash, of indigenous citizens resenting the intrusion of foreigners who do not respect their laws and customs, and who begin to aggressively insist that Islamic Sharia law be paramount over the laws of the land.

Ethiopian and Bangladeshi-led smugglers specialize in not only shipping refugees through the Mediterranean, but overland on long journeys as well, trucking migrants through countries like Serbia where they operate "safe houses" in abandoned industrial buildings on the outskirts of towns. Where, if the migrants arrive with insufficient cash, they are kept as prisoners and the places where they are kept become torture chambers.

Where men lacking sufficient cash are beaten, and women are gang-raped. Unscrupulous, conscienceless people preying on the desperation of others. The world keeps re-inventing itself and its re-inventions bear close resemblance to what has been done before as miserable history keeps repeating. It is more familiarly known as 'man's inhumanity to man'.

The courtyard inside Zawya detention centre, where hundreds of rescued migrants were delivered earlier this week. Photograph: Yaseen Kanuni for the Guardian