Mediterranean boat people

More than 3,000 migrants have died so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean – the highest total on record. The official figure for 2014 so far is 3,072, though some claim the true number is three times as high.

Across the world, the official figure is 4,077, meaning three in every four of those who perished were trying to get to Europe. Since 2000, 40,000 migrants are said to have perished worldwide – more than half of them trying to get to Europe.

The worst incident of 2014 was the apparently deliberate ramming of a ship earlier this month by people traffickers off Malta, which resulted in 500 people being drowned.

The ship had been carrying Syrians, Palestinians, Egyptians and Sudanese, and survivors said it was rammed after a ‘violent confrontation’ on board.

More refugees than ever

This week 45 African men suffocated in the hold of a ship as they tried to get themselves smuggled into Italy. It is said they had begged to be released but that they were kept below in case the vessel capsized. Another 70 boat people were lost in the Mediterranean in a separate incident.

Over last weekend, patrol boats picked up 5,000 migrants, following a reversal in Italian policy. Until 2011, the country had tried to block them, sending those it caught back to Africa, but after 360 drowned off Lampedusa last year, it has started search-and-rescue missions.

Since then, the number of arrivals has ballooned to 65,000, compared with 8,000 in the first half of last year, while Greece has seen the number of illegal migrants more than double. Earlier this week, Italian police arrested five Eritreans they said were running a people-smuggling operation.

Across the world, 2013 saw 6 million people driven from their homes by violence and conflict, taking the global total for refugees to more than 50 million. The war in Syria has displaced 9 million people – nearly half the population.

Boat people - Haiti

There have been many sad stories about migrants in recent months – dying of thirst in the Sahara desert or drowning off the coast of Italy (see my blogs of Oct 4 and 31). In those cases, the victims were Africans, but a lot of Haitians are also desperate to leave their country, regarded as the poorest in the western hemisphere.

This week a vessel carrying migrants from Haiti capsized off the Bahamas. Up to 30 people may have been killed, and US coast guards reported 100 were clinging to the hull of the upturned boat. Rescue services have dropped food and life rafts, and a number of people have been winched up to helicopters.

In June of last year, eleven Haitians were drowned when their boat capsized also off the Bahamas, while in 2011, at least 38 died when their vessel sank off Cuba.

One of the worst incidents off recent years came in 2009 when about 70 migrants from Haiti were lost when their boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Boat people 2013

More than 200 people are still missing after the boat on which they were trying to escape Eritrea and Somalia sank off the Italian island of Lampedusa. So far 155 people have been rescued and 111 bodies have been found.

The 66 foot boat began taking on water as it neared the island, then it is said that some of the passengers started a fire to try to attract attention. As the flames spread, everyone moved to one side of the vessel, causing it to capsize.

On Lampedusa, a hangar has had to be turned into a makeshift mortuary, and Italy has declared a day of national mourning. The boat’s skipper has been arrested.

Since 1988, nearly 20,000 people have died trying to get into Europe, more than 2,350 of them in 2011 alone. (See also my blogs of April 2, 2009 and December 16, 2010.)

*Piece from a Spanish website about my Historia Mundial de los desastres. http://www.cookingideas.es/el-pais-que-surgio-de-una-tormenta-20130809.html

Boat people

The deaths of at least 28 people, and possibly many more, in the shipwreck on Christmas Island is a reminder of the lengths to which people desperate to leave their country will go. A flimsy wooden boat carrying suspected asylum seekers from Iraq and Iran was dashed onto jagged rocks in very high seas.

More than forty people have been rescued, but it may be that the boat was carrying more than 100. It is believed it may have been on its way from Indonesia to Australia. The engines seem to have failed, and the craft was quickly smashed to pieces. It seems to have managed to evade detection and the alarm was raised only when local residents heard screams from the passengers.

Perhaps the biggest unofficial exodus by sea ever mounted was by the Vietnamese boat people. During the late 1970’s, an estimated 2 million fled South Vietnam as the Communists took over.

Apart from the usual hazards of taking to the ocean in small and often unseaworthy vessels, they had to run the gauntlet of pirates, and even if they made it to refugee camps, they were often ill-treated there too. An estimated half million died.

Boat people 2009

The Libyan navy has called off its search for 250 or more migrants feared drowned after their flimsy boat sank in the Mediterranean. The vessel had made barely 30 miles from Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, before it was capsized by strong winds. Designed to carry 50 people, it had on board nearly 300, all hoping to make new lives in Italy. Only 23 survivors have been found.

Another boat carrying 350 lost engine power and was drifting helplessly when it was spotted by an Italian tug and towed gingerly back to Tripoli. Migrants pay out about £1,000 each to make the hazardous crossing and 13,000 are estimated to have died during the last ten years. Many of the bodies are found by fishermen in their nets. Passengers on the rescued vessel came from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt, Somalia, Eritrea, Ghana, Nigeria, Tunisia, Algeria and Morrocco.

There is usually a lull in the winter months, but this year observers say that, with the recession biting, the sailings have gone on all year round, and 31,000 people are estimated to have crossed from North Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa in 2008 alone.

During the 1980’s, the name “boat people” entered the language to describe those who fled South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975. More than half a million tried to escape in similar flimsy boats. Often they fell victim to Thai fisherman turned pirates. From 1981 to 1983 alone, more than 750 were killed, and a further 600 disappeared. More than 800 women were raped.