APRIL 19, 2015
ROME, ITALY (REUTERS)
As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying
migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, the Times of Malta reported
on Sunday.
Twenty eight people were rescued in the incident, which
happened in an area just off Libyan waters, 120 miles south of the southern
Italian island of Lampedusa, the newspaper's website reported.
The emergency was declared at about midnight. The boat is
believed to have capsized when migrants moved to one side of the vessel when a
merchant ship approached.
After the disastrous adventures of the drunk Texas cowboy
(George Bush), Condomlisa Rice, Dick Cheney and the other clowns of the US government)
in invading Iraq and destabilizing the region, causing the death of hundreds of
thousands of people and spending trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money,
these same or similar clowns decided to overthrow and kill Gaddafi of Libya. The result has been a further destabilization
of the region and the flood of immigrants in the Mediterranean countries of
Greece, Italy, Spain, etc.
In our opinion, even a little child could have predicted the
consequences of the actions of these elected or appointed morons. Yet we let them do whatever they wanted and
now we pay the price and we will be paying the price for many years to come.
In a final analysis, we believe that all these adventures of
the elected clowns or puppets were calculated to intentionally destabilize the
regions and created never-ending liabilities for the taxpayers. The price paid and continues to be paid though
is great, and that we have not realized
yet what has happened and all its consequences:
few countries pay attention anymore to what the EU, NATO or USA
say. Countries like Russia, China, India
are emboldened and created their own economic pacts. In response, the US is trying to create
additional economic expansion deals with Germany, Cuba, and even Iran.
//--------------------------------------------------//
EU FACES FURY AFTER NEW MIGRANT SHIPWRECK TRAGEDY
APRIL 15, 2015
REGGIO CALABRIA (ITALY) (AFP)
Rights groups lashed out at the EU on Wednesday for
scrapping rescue operations in the Mediterranean, saying it had endangered the
lives of thousands of desperate migrants making perilous journeys across the
sea.
The criticism came as Italian coastguards said no more
survivors had been found from a shipwreck off the coast of Libya on Sunday
which may have killed 400 people.
"European governments' ongoing negligence towards the
humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean has contributed to a more than 50-fold
increase in migrant and refugee deaths since the beginning of 2015,"
Amnesty International said.
"How many more people have to die before European
governments acknowledge that relying on a patchwork quilt of resources for
search-and-rescue operations is not enough?" the group's Gauri Van Gulik
said.
The EU stopped funding Italy's Mare Nostrum rescue mission
last year, in favour of the surveillance patrols currently being carried out by
its border agency Frontex.
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that Europe
should do more to end the wars that led people to embark on the world's most
deadly smuggling route.
Italian coastguard spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said that
even before the latest sinking more than 500 migrants, many refugees fleeing
wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, had died so far this year trying to cross
to Europe.
In a particularly tragic twist to Sunday's tragedy, the boat
appears to have overturned because of the excitement caused by the sighting of
rescuers.
Survivors who were brought to Italy told charity workers
that as many as 400 others perished.
According to the International Organization for Migration,
which has interviewed some of the survivors, between 500 and 550 people, many
of them young, were crammed onto the vessel at the time.
The charity Save The Children said some were thought to be
unaccompanied children.
- 6,500 migrants in two days -
Italian coastguards, who intercepted 42 boats on Sunday and
Monday alone carrying 6,500 migrants attempting to make the hazardous crossing
to Europe, confirmed that they had saved 145 people from the sunken boat and
found nine bodies.
Coastguard spokesman Commander Filippo Marini told AFP they
had not found any more "survivors or anything else which would indicate
more victims".
He said he could not exclude that more lives had been lost,
and said the kind of vessel from which the 145 were rescued usually carried
many more people. Search operations were continuing in the area Wednesday.
Human Rights Watch researcher Judith Sunderland said:
"The intolerable number of victims is only going to grow if the EU does
not guarantee rescue operations in the Mediterranean."
- 'A global issue' -
Without mentioning maritime rescue efforts, the EU's
Mogherini said: "There are instruments the European Union has that can be
used more and better."
She was referring to the Dublin Convention, which determines
which EU state should be responsible for each refugee.
With conflict and crisis acting as "the root cause of
people deciding to risk everything and travel", she also said rising
unrest -- and lack of policing -- in Libya was contributing to the surge in
people-smuggling to Europe's coastlines.
"The majority of the flow goes through Libya which
means that the other... thing we have to do is try to solve the Libyan
crisis," she said.
Calling for "more solidarity" among EU states in
dealing with the influx, Mogherini said the surge was "a global issue that
we cannot pretend not to see".
Italian authorities say more than 15,000 migrants have
arrived so far in 2015. There were 15,000 in April alone last year and an
average of 25,000 each month between June and September.
Italy is divided over what to do with refugees and migrants
once they arrive on its soil.
The interior ministry has ordered regional prefects to find
emergency housing for 6,500 migrants -- a move condemned by the opposition,
which argues the policy of rescuing immigrants encourages others to attempt the
risky sea journey.
Matteo Salvini, head of the anti-immigrant Northern League,
on Tuesday urged local officials not to cooperate.
Yet on the Libyan coast Wednesday, a group of 260 African migrants
were detained by the Libyan navy as they tried to make the same crossing to
Italy.
"I wanted to go to Europe because the situation in
Somalia is so difficult what with the civil war. But I got arrested," said
Abdel Rashid, a Somali.
This is not going to end well at all. In regions that have very high unemployment,
these illegal migrants are not welcomed.
Things will get worse, much worse.