All at sea: A tale of two tragedies with starkly different rescue response

The level of contrast in all spheres of life across the world has been aggravating over the years. Two tragedies that unfolded over the past couple of weeks in as many different places serve to illustrate this. As authorities raced in a futile multi-nation effort last week to rescue five people on-board a missing tourist submersible bound for the Titanic wreck, questions were raised about why a similar response wasn’t activated to help about 750 asylum seekers who went overboard when a fishing boat sank into the Mediterranean ocean on June 14. The vessel was mid-route from Libya to Italy when it sank, with only around 100 passengers being rescued. The other hundreds of passengers were reported missing and are most likely dead. European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson claimed in a press conference that the sinking “seems like this is the worst ever tragedy we’ve seen in the Mediterranean.”
“The hunt for five wealthy people in the Titanic sub is full of drama but this raises questions about why it receives greater prominence than the sinking of a migrant boat in the Med with an estimated 750 poor aboard...,” Daily Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire had tweeted. People smugglers were blamed and arrested following the incident which saw women and children lose their lives. Most on-board were believed to be Pakistani nationals. It is understood authorities were repeatedly warned of the danger this boat faced prior to it setting sail, however they failed to act, which resulted in the boat sinking hours later. The Greek Coast Guard has come under fire for how it handled the situation.
According to Human Rights’ Watch, more than 250,000 migrants and asylum seekers have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean since 2014, with the efforts to find them minuscule compared to what was done to find the missing submersible, named Titan. Five people were on the sub which vanished off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, while on a dive to the Titanic wreck. The expedition costs about $US250,000 a ticket per person. The US and Canadian Coast Guard were both searching for the missing vessel and even France sent a ship with a deep-sea diving robot to help. The minister responsible for the Canadian Coast Guard, Joyce Murray, said the mounting bills for the US-led mission were “irrelevant” as long as there was a chance of saving those on the sub, The Canadian Press reported. “We are going to do everything that we can,” Murray said. “We have a chance to find this submersible and bring people to the surface ... I think there’s nothing that’s too much. These are human beings and we need to do what we can to save them.”
People have expressed their disappointment on Twitter about the huge difference in response to the two sea episodes. One person detailed the migrant fishing boat disaster, asking “where’s the outrage?” Another called it a “tale of two tragedies”. “Three billionaires lost at sea because they chose to go on a Titanic adventure [and] 100s of refugees lost at sea because they were forced to flee war and persecution,” she wrote. “Who is getting the most attention?” A third said: “Hard to reconcile the rush of rescue efforts to find billionaires who’ve paid $250,000 to see the Titanic and the stunning lack of rush to save refugees fleeing war and famine.” “Amazing to see the difference in coverage when a billionaire is on a submarine versus hundreds of refugees drowning on a boat off Greece,” wrote a fourth.
Former US president Barack Obama called out last Thursday what he perceived as a double standard in media coverage of the tragedy of the OceanGate Titan submersible versus the migrant boat that sank off the coast of Greece. That’s an untenable situation, as he put it.