Operation Triton was an operation conducted by

Frontex The European Border and Coast Guard Agency, also known as Frontex (from French: ''Frontières extérieures'' for "external borders"), is an agency of the European Union headquartered in Warsaw, Poland, exercising in coordination with the borde ...

, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

's border security agency. The operation, under Italian control, began on 1 November 2014 and ended on 1 February 2018 when it was replaced by Operation Themis. It involved voluntary contributions from 15 other European nations (both

EU member states The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

and non-members). Voluntary contributors to Operation Triton included Croatia, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, Lithuania and Malta. The operation was undertaken after Italy ended

Operation Mare Nostrum Operation Mare Nostrum was a year-long naval and air operation commenced by the Italian government on 18 October 2013, which brought at least 150,000 migrants to Europe, mainly from Africa and the Middle East. The operation ended on 31 October 201 ...

, which had become too costly for a single country to fund; it was costing the Italian government €9 million per month for an operation that lasted 12 months. The

Italian government The government of Italy is in the form of a democratic republic, and was established by a constitution in 1948. It consists of legislative, executive, and judicial subdivisions, as well as a Head of State, or President. The Italian Constitutio ...

had requested additional funds from the other EU member states but they did not offer the requested support.

Assets

The operation's assets consisted of two

surveillance aircraft A surveillance aircraft is an aircraft used for surveillance. They are operated by military forces and other government agencies in roles such as intelligence gathering, battlefield surveillance, airspace surveillance, reconnaissance, observa ...

, three ships and seven teams of staff to gather intelligence and conduct screening/identification processing. Its budget was estimated at €2.9 million per month. UNHCR2

Since the operation began the number of migrants who drowned while crossing the Mediterranean increased dramatically, with the

April 2015 Libya migrant shipwrecks This article is a list of migrant vessel incidents on the Mediterranean Sea. The incidents have been referred to as part of the European migrant crisis. Prior to 2015 2015 2015 summary The number of reported deaths of migrants cros ...

resulting in over 1,000 deaths alone. The International Organization for Migration said that deaths at sea had risen nine times after the end of

. ''The New York Times'' reported that early 2015 saw a 1600% increase in the number of migrants drowning while attempting to cross the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

as compared with the same period in early 2014. In 2015, the Croatian warship joined the rescue efforts.

Funding

On 20 April, following the

, EU ministers proposed to double the size of Operation Triton but that would still leave the mission with fewer resources than the previous Italian-run rescue option (

) whose budget was more than 3 times as large, had four times the number of aircraft and had a wider mandate to conduct search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean Sea. On 23 April a five-hour emergency summit was held and EU heads of state agreed to triple the budget of Operation Triton to €120 million for 2015–2016. EU leaders claimed that this would allow for the same operational capabilities as Operation Mare Nostrum had had in 2013–2014. As part of the agreement, the United Kingdom agreed to send , two naval patrol boats and three helicopters to join the Operation.

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

immediately criticized the EU response as "a face-saving not a life-saving operation" and said that "failure to extend Triton’s operational area will fatally undermine today's commitment."

Events

On 14 June 2016, the Dutch

frigate A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

rescued 193 migrants, including 40 women and 16 children, who had been at sea for a week. The migrants planned to travel from Egypt to Sicily but panic erupted when the old ship they were on started showing signs of sinking. The Dutch frigate safely escorted them to an Italian harbour.

References

{{European migrant crisis 2014 in Italy 2015 in Italy Border protection European migrant crisis Operations of the European Border and Coast Guard