Narrating Crises of Europe’s Southernmost Borders: the Cases of Melilla and Lampedusa
Mainstream media coverage of two crises unfolding at the European Union (EU) borders in Italy and Spain often neglects the human realities of migration. Migrants are made invisible, while attention focuses on criminality, security, and border control. When they do appear, they are frequently placed, often without scrutiny, into rigid categories that determine who is seen as deserving and who is not. These representations create hierarchies that influence the way we think about migration and who is considered entitled to move.
A comparative analysis of mainstream media narratives on two EU border crises, the 3 October 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck and the 24 June 2022 Melilla massacre, highlights the importance of examining how borders shape national and EU-level perspectives on migration.
Firstly, imperial and colonial legacies, such as in the case of Spain’s enclave of Melilla, translate into the securitization and militarization of how migration and people on the move are discussed at these borders. In addition, narratives that appear more humanitarian and less securitized, in the case of the mediatization of the Lampedusa shipwreck, often still contribute to hierarchies of deservingness, normatively prescribing who is considered entitled to migrate and remain on state territory, and who is not.
Both cases set a shocking precedent in the development of EU borders. The event of 3 October became the symbol of the tragedies in the Central Mediterranean and was later commemorated as Italy’s National Day of Remembrance and Hospitality (Giornata della Memoria e dell’ Accoglienza). The Melilla massacre, in turn, drew national and international attention to the border and its violence. Mobilized through the hashtag #24J, the event became a symbol of border brutality, calls for justice, as well as growing distrust toward national and EU border management.
Melilla: a Security Crisis Calling for a NATO Intervention
In the first 24 hours after the 24 June 2022 massacre, mainstream media reported the event through a highly securitized lens, largely relaying statements from government officials and police forces. The incident was presented as a security crisis. Migrants were described as “violent” and accused of “attacking” border security forces in what was labeled a “violent assault” on a frontier said to be “in danger.”
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), along with other ministers of his government, was frequently quoted emphasizing the need to “ensure Spanish territorial integrity.” Several reports went even further, relaying calls for support from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization under Article Five, which enshrines the “principle of collective defense”: an attack against one ally is treated as an attack against all (NATO, 2023).
The language used here is one of warfare. Migrants, when mentioned at all, are not presented as human beings, but rather as a dehumanized mass. Nothing is reported about where they came from, how they arrived, or about their names, ages, or origins.
Lampedusa: a Humanitarian Crisis, Heartless Traffickers, a Helpless Italy, and a Cruel EU
The first articles published in the hours following the 3 October 2013 shipwreck mainly framed the event as a “tragedy” involving “people who lost their lives.” Migrants were described as individuals “escaping wars, persecution, human rights violations,” only to start a journey that led them to “find death.”
Media coverage strongly emphasized calls to end the “trafficking of human beings,” frequently indicating that migrant smugglers were responsible for these “humanitarian tragedies” at sea. At the same time, media reports highlighted the local response to this “humanitarian crisis,” portraying Lampedusa as “welcoming” and concerned with the rights of people on the move. Residents of Lampedusa were described as doing everything in their power to help survivors.
The community of Lampedusa was depicted as devoted to welcoming people, to the extent that the island and its inhabitants were at one point even presented as potential recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize. Many articles called for action, mainly directed at the European Union, which was accused of having left Italy, and Lampedusa in particular, alone in managing such tragedies.
First statements also pointed to the need to pursue and take down smuggling networks. However, these figures remained vague and abstract; no precise information was provided about their existence, potential organization, and affiliation.
Where Are the Humans in Human Migration?
The mainstream narrative on the shipwreck of Lampedusa depicted the migrants primarily as “victim refugees”: victims of conflict, violence and smugglers, and, as refugees, deserving of access to Europe. Yet they continued to die at sea because of the lack of regular and safe pathways to migrate to the European continent. The intense media focus on the Syrian civil war in 2013 reinforced this framing, even though most of the migrants involved in the Lampedusa shipwreck were Eritrean refugees fleeing an authoritarian regime, rather than Syrians escaping civil war.
On the other hand, media coverage of the Melilla massacre made no mention of the realities from which many of the migrants (mainly Sudanese) were fleeing. This absence contributed to their portrayal as undeserving migrants. Insights from both cases reveal the extent to which migrants’ realities are unknown and invisibilized in mainstream accounts, which either overlook or deliberately choose not to report accurately the complex nature of this human migration.
While specific geographies and historical contexts matter in the creation of mainstream narratives of migration, the similarities across these cases point to a broader European approach to migration that has consolidated over recent decades. The persistent neglect of migration’s human dimension in favor of border control has created long-lasting, damaging consequences for the lives of people on the move, but also for border regions and the states that govern them.
Illustration: Jonas Raeber
Anna Marino is a Doctoral researcher at the nccr – on the move, the University of Neuchâtel working on the project “Narratives of Crisis and Their Influence in Shaping Discourses and Policies of Migration and Mobility,” which aims to better understand the role of crisis narratives in the context of human mobility governance.
