Boat Packed with Migrants Sinks off Zuwara, Libya; Hundreds Feared Dead

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Newsweek/Reuters

A boat packed with migrants sank off the Libyan coastal city of Zuwara on Thursday and officials said hundreds might have died.

A security official in Zuwara, asking not to be named, said there had been several hundred people on board and some appeared to have been trapped in the hold when it capsized.

"Some 100 illegal migrants have survived," he said, adding that rescue operations were continuing.

Another local official and a journalist based in Zuwara confirmed the sinking but had no information on casualties.

Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/boat-packed-migrants-sinks-zuwara-libya-hundreds-feared-dead-366324

[closeupready]

1. Horrifying and sad.

K&R

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

2. Didn't the Italian Coast Guard just find hundreds of bodies

in the hull of a ship they stopped off the coast of Italy?

Smugglers buy old, unseaworthy ships that sell for cheap, and desert the immigrants when they get close to land. They charge so much money and cram so many people on the boats, that they just buy another boat for their next shipment of human cargo.

These people are in the same league as rapists and murderers. Hell, they are murderers.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Life has to be so painful when people will take risks like this to find help. Rest in peace. n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. They are NOT migrants.!!!! They are refugees.

And the media, in misusing that word, is minimizing and distracting from the cause and enormous scope of the problem.

The UN Convention defines the term “migrant” as “where the decision to migrate is taken freely (…) and without intervention of an external compelling factor". This is a definition which clearly distinguishes migrants from refugees or others compelled to leave their homes. This is no “flood of migrants”. It is a refugee crisis brought on by a state of profound global economic and social imbalance.

In the international response to the so-called “migrant crisis” that is finally obvious from European suites, there is no global discussion over the roots of the problem, no unified solutions envisaged, and no willingness to recognise the true causes and devise a long term strategy to reverse them.

Instead, short term visions have dominated with discussions focused on the Faustian question of whether to send rescue boats to aid drowning people, debates over how many “African” migrants European societies can absorb and the construction of ever higher walls.

So far, solutions to the crisis have been framed by discussions of marauding “hordes” at the doors of fortress Europe, threatening our “standard of living”.
And yet, the truth is the majority of migrants who have reached the EU so far this year have come from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and Syria, countries profoundly affected by conflict and human rights abuses. They are not so much criminals as victims, who according to Judith Sunderland, a researcher for HRW, make the crossing “because they have to, not because they want”.

Despite Europe’s grandstanding on the issue of absorbing migrants, it is actually the world’s poorest nations which have so far shouldered the burden of dealing with millions of refugees, while Europe has offered to resettle a mere 20,000.
Meanwhile, thousands have died at sea thanks to what French-Senegalese author Fatou Diome has denounced as a “dissuasion tactic,”
Europe’s unofficial “let them drown” policy, as even limited rescue efforts have been hampered by cooperation issues between different countries.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/where-morality-migrant-crisis-520227141

[GliderGuider]

9. Yes, refugees!!!!! So it begins.

Political refugees are joined by economic refugees, who are joined by food and water refugees, who are joined in turn by climate refugees. With each new ripple the flood rises. And this is just the bow wave; the tsunami itself hasn't even reached the shoreline yet.

God help us all.

[mainer]

6. Did this happen under Gaddafi? Were people so desperate they risked their lives at sea?

Does anyone know? I just don't remember it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. No, but hardly any of the people are from Libya itself

See #7 - "Those on board had been from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco and Bangladesh, the security official said". People can get into and out of Libya very easily, and no-one can control the people who arrange the boats, however bad their condition or overcrowded, so it's the point many are going through.

There has been a similar process of people trying to get to Australia from Asian countries for a few years.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/22/could-australia-stop-the-boats-policy-solve-europe-migrant-crisis

[pampango]

10. It didn't happen under Gaddafi. The EU paid him to stop refugees and immigrants.

Gaddafi wants EU cash to stop African migrants

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi says the EU should pay Libya at least 5bn euros (£4bn; $6.3bn) a year to stop illegal African immigration and avoid a "black Europe".

Speaking on a visit to Italy, Col Gaddafi said Europe "could turn into Africa" as "there are millions of Africans who want to come in".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11139345

European Union pays Gaddafi to fight immigration

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi signed a contract of £50 million with the European Union to stop immigrants from entering Europe through Libya.

Every year, thousands of people attempt to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy and many die en route, while those who are caught are taken back to camps in Libya where conditions are alarming. In 2008, Italy and Libya agreed a deal that allows the Italian navy to intercept illegal immigrants and return them to Libya. The move already triggered sharp criticism from the UN’s refugee agency and human rights groups.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had demanded for £4.1 billion a year from the European Union to stop illegal immigration which “threatens to turn Europe black”. ... Furious, Italian members of parliament (MPs) slammed his demands made in his farewell speech for cash to stop immigration and compared them to a Mafia extortion racket.

In the speech Gaddafi, 67, told his audience in Rome that Italy needs to convince her European allies to accept this Libyan proposal of 5 billion euro to Libya to stop illegal immigration, otherwise Europe runs the risk of turning into black. “We need support from the European Union to stop this army trying to get across from Libya, which is their entry point. At the moment there is a dangerous level of immigration from Africa into Europe, and we don’t know what will happen. We don’t know if Europe will remain an advanced and cohesive continent or if it will be destroyed by this barbarian invasion.

http://voixdexils.ch/2011/01/31/european-union-pays-gaddafi-to-fight-immigration/

Gaddafi wanted £4 to £5 billion a year from the EU to stop migrants and refugees but he settled for £50 million. I think he should have contacted the Donald to do his negotiating for him, since we all know Trump is a fantastic deal maker.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. About 200 bodies found so far

The bodies were found by a Libyan coastguard vessel around a kilometre from Zuwara, a port in western Libya that is a major departure point for migrants hoping to reach Italy.

A security official in the western town of Zuwara, from where the overcrowded boat had set off, said there had been around 400 people on board. Many appeared to have been trapped in the hold when it capsized.

According to a representative of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who was helping to coordinate the humanitarian response, around 40 bodies were found inside a half-sunk fishing boat as it was brought towards the shore by the high tide. Up to 160 others were discovered floating nearby, while around 201 survivors were rescued. Some of the bodies were taken to shore, but many were left to float in the water overnight, as coastguards did not have enough light to work by.

Those on board had been from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco and Bangladesh, the security official said.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/27/at-least-30-dead-after-boat-carrying-migrants-sinks-in-mediterranean