A SCOTS charity boss is preparing for the worst as up to one million migrants try to cross the Mediterranean for a new life in Europe this summer.
Rob MacGillivray, 58, from Ardrossan, previously served as director of operations for Save the Children in Sierra Leone during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.
This summer he will direct the charitys lifesaving efforts aboard a ship out of Sicily.
He is wary of Europes level of preparedness to deal with what he fully expects to be an increase in the ongoing crisis as a result of government leaders being focused on the ongoing political discussions surrounding Brexit.
He said: This crisis in the Mediterranean has never gone away or waned, only peoples concentration on it.
Brexit and other political issues are significant in detracting attention and we fully expect an increase in the crisis this summer. However there is still no joined up response from within the EU and it seems that the concentration of the media and people in general has shifted.
In the first instance the EU needs to step up to the plate and fund and support increased search and rescue operations for 2017.
Ebola very quickly became a global concern once people realised that those outside the country could be infected and as a result it was contained and dealt with. Meanwhile the Mediterranean migrant crisis has been ongoing since 2015 and there is still no real international team in place to tackle it.
Mr MacGillivray is joined in fearing the worst for the summer by the former head of the British embassy in Libya, Joe Walker-Cousins, who has warned that famine and war in Africa had led to more than one million migrants to make their way to Libya with a view to crossing.
He said: My informants in the area tell me there are potentially one million migrants, if not more, already coming up through the pipeline from central Africa and the Horn of Africa.
Nearly 600 migrants drowned on the central Mediterranean route in the first three months of this year and The International Organisation for Migration estimates 21,900 refugees reached Italy over the same period, up from 14,500 last year. After working at Italian ports supporting refugee and migrant children for the past eight years, Save the Children launched its search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean last September and its ship remained in the water until the end of November.
During this period, 2,700 migrants were rescued, including more than 400 children, 80 per cent of which were unaccompanied.
Mr MacGillivray said: The issue of unaccompanied children is very distressing as they are open to many dangers not just the crossing itself but trafficking and exploitation. People need to ask themselves just what it would take for them to put their children in a raft or dinghy on their own. Just how desperate a situation could it be for a parent to choose this option.
A four day-old baby was one of over 480 migrants rescued by humanitarian ships on Saturday during search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.
The baby was traveling on one of two rubber boats carrying over 200 migrants from North and Central Africa, Sri Lanka and Yemen and seen drifting some 22 nautical miles north of the Libyan town of Sabratha, the most frequently used departure point used by people smugglers in Libya.
Of the 5,096 refugees and migrants reported dead or missing at sea last year, 90 per cent travelled along the Mediterranean sea route to Italy, according to the UNs refugee agency.
Meanwhile, 97 migrants are today missing and believed drowned after their Europe-bound boat sank on a crossing of the Mediterranean, the Libyan coastguard has said. Fifteen women and five children are among those missing.
Coastguard spokesman Ayoub Gassim said 23 migrants were rescued around six miles off the coast after authorities received a distress call on yesterday morning.
He said the boat, which was loaded with African nationals, completely collapsed.
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Migration crisis 'left ignored as EU focuses on Brexit' - Herald Scotland