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Migrants were photographed and logged as they disembarked from an Italian Coast Guard ship on Friday at a port in Catania, Sicily. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
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CATANIA, Sicily — To human rights advocates, one of Europe’s biggest mistakes in the Mediterranean migration crisis came last November with the shutdown of the Italian patrol and rescue program known as Mare Nostrum. Led by the Italian Navy, the program saved thousands of migrants at sea.
But ending it, largely for budget reasons, had effects beyond scaling back humanitarian efforts. Even as the Italians were saving lives, they were using the program to identify and prosecute the smuggling networks behind the surge in human trafficking across the Mediterranean. The program helped Italian prosecutors convict more than 100 people for human smuggling and indict three smuggling bosses in Egypt.
Italian ships patrolled international waters — making it possible to capture some smugglers in the act — while police investigators were stationed onboard.

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“Police were able to intervene directly,” said Giovanni Salvi, the chief prosecutor in Catania. “They could immediately identify the telephones that were being used, the numbers and the traffickers. We could get wiretaps. That allowed us to record conversations between the ‘mother ship’ and the bosses in Egypt.”
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Graphic: What’s Behind the Surge in Refugees Crossing the Mediterranean Sea

The program that replaced Mare Nostrum, known as Triton and run by the European Union, is far less ambitious and restricted to the waters immediately off the European coast, and it does not include a robust law enforcement component. The decision by European leaders not to pick up the monthly bill of 9 million euros (about $9.8 million) to keep Mare Nostrum operating has drawn scathing criticism in the aftermath of last weekend’s deadly shipwreck, which left more than 750 migrants dead.
European leaders this week effectively conceded their mistake and pledged to triple funding for search-and-rescue missions while also dedicating new resources to fighting the smuggling rings. But as the flow of migrants continues unabated, the new European response is being criticized as shortsighted and still lacking the scope of Mare Nostrum, which itself was never intended as a comprehensive solution.
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And Europe continues to struggle with how to apportion money and personnel among saving lives on the sea, prosecuting human smugglers and dealing with the causes of the migrant surge closer to their source in poor and war-torn regions of the Middle East and Africa.
Many analysts, as well as United Nations officials, say Europe needs a more holistic response, including overhauling its asylum system and expanding channels of legal immigration, because the problem of illegal migration will only worsen.
“There was a lot of expectation from the public that the European Union wasn’t going to give just a short-term response but a medium- and long-term vision,” said Thomas Huddleston, an analyst with the Migration Policy Group in Brussels. “We didn’t get that.”
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Members of the Italian Navy rescuing migrants from Gambia, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Nigeria in the sea between Italy and Libya in October. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times for
He added, “The real question is, What is the goal of this response?”
In Sicily, where the brunt of the crisis is being felt, smuggling boats have continued to arrive, day and night. On Friday, Mr. Salvi heard testimony in a closed hearing against the Tunisian man accused of piloting the boat that capsized in the fatal shipwreck, as well as a Syrian man who is alleged to have been working as an accomplice.
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Mr. Salvi’s office, if more accustomed to pursuing cases against the Sicilian Mafia, now has a special team of prosecutors that works with the Italian police to confront the smugglers. Mare Nostrum, which is Latin for “our sea,” was hardly a cure-all, Mr. Salvi said, but it provided investigators with the advantage of scope and immediacy. On at least five occasions, Mare Nostrum ships working in international waters seized “mother ships” — the large vessels that carry out migrants before transferring them to smaller boats in international waters.
Meanwhile, police investigations could start aboard rescue ships, as officers began questioning migrants, and identifying smugglers, as soon as people were rescued. By contrast, no police investigators were on the Italian Coast Guard ship that responded to the fatal shipwreck last weekend. Once the 28 survivors were rescued, Mr. Salvi sent a helicopter to the scene to retrieve a Bangladeshi survivor for questioning in Catania. In addition, investigators were airlifted to the coast guard ship as quickly as possible.
“We lost some hours — it is very important for us, those first hours,” said Mr. Salvi, even as he stressed that Europe needed to stop addressing migration as an emergency. “We have to consider this a structural problem that will continue. We have to deal with this in a more comprehensive way.”
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About 80 African migrants were brought to Catania on Friday. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
In addition to tripling funding for the current Triton program, which is led by Europe’s border agency, Frontex, Europe is taking other steps to address the problem. Britain and Germany have pledged to contribute ships to participate in expanded patrolling.
There is also discussion of trying to blockade Libyan ports or destroy smuggling boats before they are put to use — a proposal some analysts regard as fanciful. “The plan to destroy smugglers’ boats is highly dubious,” said Masood Karimipour, regional representative in Cairo for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. “There is no shortage of rickety fishing boats or rubber dinghies. These quick-fix tactics make for catchy headlines but are not effective and sustainable solutions.”
He added, “You can’t shoot your way out of a humanitarian crisis.”
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The scope of smuggling operations in North Africa is immense and multifaceted, defying easy solutions, analysts say. Tuesday Reitano, a policy analyst who has studied North African smuggling networks, credited Italian prosecutors for going after smuggling bosses. But she warned that migrant smuggling had become hugely profitable, with different militias or African clans controlling pieces of territory.
“For West Africa and the Sahel, this is the next cocaine flow,” said Ms. Reitano, who is the head of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s secretariat, citing the illegal profits once made in the region’s drug trade.
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Mohammed Dunkara, 16, of Mali, being transferred to an Italian Navy ship in October. Credit Lynsey Addario for The New York Times