The image above is from the EMERGENCY website. All of their contact information is here.
Dr. Linda di Benedetto's log entries will start below... waiting... waiting... waiting... aaah, there it is!
Aug 29 '21 |
  OK.
She got there! So far, it looks pretty easy. Oh,
it was Sunday. That car looks like a WWII German
VW jeep left over from the Afrikakorps. Well,
they're close to north Africa. |
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Aug 31 '21 |
The
gateway to Europe. Dedicated to all the immigrants
who have lost their lives at sea. Very very
emotional. |
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Sept 1 '21 |
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Sept 2 '21 |
Uh, captain, I'll
wait, thank you. What time does the next
turtle leave?
 Note the Arabic text on the boat. |
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Sept 6 '21 |
 News sources in general are now reporting on the grim situation on Lampedusa. The Immigration Reception Center (IRC) is overflowing, with now (Sept 5) more than twice as many refugees (568) than it was built to hold (250). Some have been transferred by ferries to Sicily. Desperate "boat people" keep arriving daily by the dozens, 300 in the last few days. One "solution" is to warehouse in cruise ships moored off-shore at Lampedusa those who do not require immediate emergency care. The problem is not likely to get better. |
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Sept 7 '21 |
  General info
about Lampedusa (L.) (image, right) . If
you are unsure of where L. is, it is the largest
island of the Italian Pelagie Islands
(the tiny box in the image (left). L., Linosa, and
Lampione are in the Sicilian province of Agrigento.
L. is the southernmost part of Italy and Italy's
southernmost island. Tunisia, which is
about 113 km (70 miles) away, is the
closest landfall to the islands. Sicily is
farther at 205 km (127 mls), while the island
nation of Malta is 176 km (109 mls) to the east. From January to
April 2015, about 1600 migrants died on the
route from Libya to L. , making it the deadliest
migrant route in the world. The 2017
Oscar-nominated Italian documentary Fire at
Sea was about this migrant crisis and
was filmed entirely on the island in 2014 and
2015. The film also won the 66th Berlin Film
Festival. The 2016 book Tears of
Salt: A Doctor's Story by Pietro Bartolo
and Lidia Tilitta tells of life on the island
and the migrant crisis through the eyes
of a local doctor. Dr. Bartolo (b.1956 in L.)
was the responsible doctor for the health
service and the outpatient clinic of L. from
1992 to 2019. He was there for the first
migrants who landed. In 25 years he
examined and cared for about 250,000 refugees on
the island. That position has now passed
to Dr. Francesco Cascio.SEP 9 - The Italian Coast said Thursday that it saved 125 asylum seekers on two boats off Isola dei Conigli, a small island near Lampedusa, after one of the vessels starting taking on water in choppy waters. The bad sea conditions made the operation complex and rescue swimmers were needed. All of the 125 people, including 49 women and 20 minors, are in good health although several are in a state of shock. |
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Sept 14, '21 |
 Reports for the 14th say five
more boats have landed, unloading 63 migrants
on the island. They keep coming, drawn by what
from north Africa looks like good weather
—high-pressure area and calm seas. That is
very deceptive. A few miles out, that high
barometric pressure has been dropping for
days, and you can get a waterspout,. That
sounds like the tiny thing in your bathroom.
It's a tornado. This is a photo taken
from Lampedusa on Sept.11. It missed Lampedusa
but struck the island of Pantelleria, killing
2 persons, injuring 9, and causing extensive
damage to property. They toss cars and people
around like matchsticks. Pantelleria and
Lampedusa are 150 km (93 miles) apart. The
twister then turned for Lampedusa, but
stopped. People at the reception center don't
panic. They stare at it and think, Please, not
this.updated at 20.53 on Sept. 14 from the station at Agrigento on Sicily. Incoming refugee boats poured into Lampedusa today with the landing of 25 boats, towed in by Italian coast guard patrols. The boats held from 6 to 16 Tunisians. There are now 613 refugees house in the IRC facility. It was built for 250. The coast guard also took into tow one large boat (9 meters/28 feet) with 48 men from Bangladesh and another 12-meter/36-ft boat with 102 men from Bangladesh, Eritrea, and Sudan. Many have been warehoused in the large quarantine ferry in the harbor. |
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Sept 15, '21 |
Yes,
it's this bad. photo from Sept. 15 |
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Sept 16, '21 Sept.17,'21 Sept.18, '21 |
 The plight of refugees is world-wide. The larger boat in the background off of Lampedusa is from the Spanish charity Proactiva Open Arms, in operation since2015. It is run from the Greek island of Lesbos. There are other organizations such as the UK-based International Maritime Rescue Federation. It's all less of a hierarchy than a group with everyone helping everyone else with the goal of preventing loss of life in the waters of the world. (photo: Juan Medina, Reuters) A Benefactor's Work is Never Done I remind you that EMERGENCY was founded by this man.  Gino
Strada (1948 – 13 August 2021) died a few
weeks ago. That left a big gap among doctors,
nurses, and healthcare providers, whose goal is
to help those who are in pain. The consolation
is that his life was exemplary. A doctor told me
the other day she wanted join EMERGENCY, the
medical humanitarian organization founded in
1994 by Strada, his wife, and colleagues and
that by now has treated millions of patients
around the world. After medical school
Strada went into emergency surgery. His concern
was war victims. In 1988, he began surgery with
the International Committee of the Red Cross in
conflict zones, including Pakistan, Ethiopia,
Peru, Afghanistan, Thailand, Djibouti, Somalia,
Bosnia. He launched projects in Iraq, Cambodia,
Eritrea and Afghanistan, now much in the news.
EMERGENCY was effective. By 2013 EMERGENCY was
running four hospitals and 34 clinics in
Afghanistan. Strada's life was a
handbook on doing the right thing: "Do you think
that health care is a human right? Do you think
all human beings deserve to be treated with
dignity? Yes and yes. He devoted his life to
those principles. He would be the first to say
he left a lot undone. But what he did get done
matters to the millions he helped."War is a persistent form of terrorism against civilian populations in which people are maimed by bullets, shrapnel, antipersonnel mines and so-called toy mines. Treating the wounded is neither generous nor merciful; it is only just. It has to be done.” -Gino Strada |
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Sept.19, '21 |
  This is what that
the Italian Coast Guard on Lampedusa does all
day, all night, 24 hours a day, 365 days a
year. The summer season and early autumn are
intense. The good weather and calm seas tempt
refugees to make the crossing. The Coast Guard
cruises constantly, searching every beach and
every rock, any place where a refugee might
just have been dumped, always keeping an eye
on the open water for loose swimmers.  When they find someone, they get that person into a life-jacket and into a small wooden boat. Coast Guard swimmers often go into the water to get those who cannot help themselves, such as (shown here) pregnant woman and young children. The Coast Guard gets the refugees back to the Immigration Reception Center where they will get immediate care if necessary. The center is already overflowing and there is a large cruise ship converted to a refugee hotel in the harbor. They're safe. That's a start. (photos: Juan Medina, Reuters) |
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Sept.21, '21 |
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A
REFUGEE?
To get a handle on how vast the
problem is, we should know the answers to a few
questions:Q1— How many people are there in the world? A— Almost 8 billion Q2— What's the difference between "refugee" and "internally displaced person"? A— Refugees cross an international border and are at risk in their own country. Displaced persons have not crossed a border, but have also fled their homes. Q3— How many of each are there? A— At the end of 2020, there were 82.4 million forcibly displaced people in the world, more than a quarter are refugees. That has doubled since 2010 and is higher now than ever before. So, about 20 million refugees. Q4— What is a refugee camp? A— A temporary settlement for refugees and people in refugee-like situations. They have fled their country. Camps with over 100,000 people are common, but as of 2012, the average camp houses around 11,400. They are built and run by a government, the United Nations, international organizations (such as the Red Cross), or non-governmental organization. Q5— Where are these camps? A— In the world? Many nations on all continents except Antarctica have them. Q6— Where are they in Europe? A— Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Turkey, France, Denmark, Austria, Germany, Sweden, Montenegro. Q7— In general, what services do camps provide for refugees? A— Ideally, a headquarters to coordinate services; health care (regular and emergency, both physical and emotional, particularly important); hygiene facilities, such as washing areas, latrines, or toilets; places for water collection; food distribution; news (e.g. at least a radio); security and protection from theft; schools and training centers; cemeteries or crematoria; places for solid waste disposal. Q8— What is done at sea? A— There are at least 30 vessels dedicated to rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean. They are from Spain, Germany, Italy, Gibraltar, Luxembourg, France, Norway, Panama, Netherlands, UK, and Belize. There are also some single- and twin-engine planes that patrol. Q9— What happens to refugees when they are "finished" at a camp? A— Compassion and politics don't mix very well. Some camps go back decades. Some refugees have spent their entire lives in a camp. More to the point, in Italy they might move into Italian society. Many have useful skills: language teachers, medical skills, skilled laborers, whatever. They can apply for residence and citizenship. Then they are part of us. That would be ideal. |
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Sept.22, '21 |
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO RESCUE SOMEONE AT SEA?  Lampedusa
was the scene of a highly publicized sea-rescue.
German sea-captain, 31-year-old Carola
Rackete (image) in June of 2019 as captain of
the Sea-Watch 3 and her crew
took 53 Libyan refugees from their sinking boat
in the Mediterranean. She spent weeks looking
for a European port that would accept
them and finally, on June 29, landed them at the
island of Lampedusa, flouting Italian
authorities who had forbidden her from docking.
(My original entry
is here.) The rest is heavy legalese. Q1— What is a sea-resue? A — Saving someone who is in danger at sea in a sinking boat or already in the water. Q2— What laws govern this? A — International maritime laws specifically direct captains of vessels to rescue "those in peril on the sea." A captain who ignores that risks fines, prison, and his/her license as a captain. Q3— What do courts and scholarly legal opinion say about the affair. A — Capt. Rakete was justified. She had no choice. The law says "rescue and disembark safely" at the nearest friendly port. That was Lampedusa. She had critically ill refugees. She made the right decision. Q4 — Did they know she was coming? A — She radio'd ahead. An Italian Coast Guard boat went out to check and took about 10 refugees in critical health back to the medical facility on Lampedusa. Q5 — So what's the problem? A — Matteo Salvini, former head of the anti-immigration Lega (Northern League). He hates the south and refugees. He has told ports not to take refugees, but this time is charged with kidnapping —forceful detention— because he did not let them "disembark safely" in a sea-rescue. He says it is a citizen's duty to defend his country. His duty as a member of the legislature, however, is to help his country fulfill its commitments. His trial started in September of 2020 and will go on forever. He could go to jail, I doubt that will happen. He could lose his right to ever again hold public office. Maybe. Q6 — What happened to Capt. Rackete? A — Released after 3 days of house arrest. She is strong and believes in "doing the right thing". You will not shove this woman around. She is a committed political activist. She says, "I'm white, born in a wealthy nation, my papers are all in order, I studied at three universities and was successful when I was 23. I should help those who are less fortunate." Q7 — Where do we stand now? A — Conclusions? If no one really wants these people ... I don't know. Nationalism in the world is on the rise, as are authoritarian governments. Einstein once said that "nationalism is like a childhood disease. It's the 'measles of the human race." |
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Sept.26,'21 |
The forgotten victims at
the bottom of the sea off of Lampedusa.
 Nine bodies (some are women and
children) have been on the bottom 500 meters off
of Lampedusa 90 meters down (180 feet)
since June 30 when their boat went down. It is
not clear from the video how many are below
board and how many are outside, next to
to the wreckage (there are at least two tarps on
the sand) but 9 victims in all have been
counted. The state will not pay for the
recovery. Some private citizens have offered to
pay, but the Coast Guard can't
accept money from private sources. The Coast
Guard video is very brief, nothing grisly, just
the wreckage and open hatches. The bodies
are down there, seen by a robot camera. No one
pays much attention to things like this
anymore. They're so common. That's grim. |
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Sept.28,'21 Sept.30,'21 |
Kelly
T. Clements, assistant secretary to the UNHCR
(United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees)
said recently: "Over the past
decade, the population of forcibly displaced
people around the world has doubled to a record 82
million people. I don’t think you can go
to any region of the world that is not impacted,”
she said, pointing to the need for a
greater collective response as conflicts and
climate change destabilize more communities. "My
frustration is often we have little
snippets of attention — on Venezuela, on Syria, on
Myanmar — whatever is the hot topic of the moment.
But then the world turns away.”Lampedusa is always a case-in-point. This comes from yesterday, 28 Sept.: "700 refugees in few hours. After a few of bad weather, calm seas have seen renewed arrivals, mostly in a single old 15-meter (45-foot) metal fishing boat, spotted four miles from shore by a vessel of the Guardia di Finance" [whose normally look for smugglers of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms) and escorted into disembark at Lampedusa. Those who require immediate medical care will get it. The others will be warehoused in the large cruise ship in the harbor. It may not be, as Clements suggests, that the world is "turning away". The world is swamped. From the UNHCR: "The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are the key legal documents that form the basis of our work. With 149 States parties to either or both, they define the term ‘refugee’ and outline the rights of refugees, as well as the legal obligations of States to protect them. The core principle is non-refoulement, which asserts that refugeea should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom. This is now considered a rule of customary international law. UNHCR serves as the ‘guardian’ of the 1951 Convention and its 1967 Protocol. According to the legislation, States are expected to cooperate with us in ensuring that the rights of refugees are respected and protected." Both documents are at this UN link. |
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Oct .1, '21 |
 To stress how massive and
continuous the effort is to save refugees in the
Mediterranean, there are at this moment 35 rescue
ships cruising, looking for refugees in the water
or on boats. They all deserve praise, but one will
make the point. On Sept. 29, the humanitarian
vessel Geo Barents
(shown) docked in the coastal town of Augusta in
Sicily, disembarking 60 African migrants over a
week after rescuing them in the sea off Libya. Geo
Barents is the current rescue vessel of Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF) (Doctors
Without Borders). It is the sixth vessel that Médecins
Sans Frontières has used since its
founding in 1971 in the aftermath of the
Biafra secession in Nigeria (1967-70). The MSF HQ
is in Geneva and works in 70 countries with over
35,000 personnel, mostly local doctors, nurses and
other medical personnel, logistical experts, and
water and sanitation engineers. Private donors
provide about 90% of their funding. This is the
seventh year in which MSF has operated in the
Mediterranean. Their "home port" of choice is
Augusta. Geo Barents is a
solid ship, built in 2007 for geological research
and now adapted for search and rescue. The ship is
77 meters long, and has two sections for refugees
- one for men, the other for women and children.
The vessel has facilities for MSF teams to carry
out medical assistance and can deploy two fast
rigid inflatable boats. Geo Barents
sails under the Norwegian flag. The latest
operation was the third this year and typical: she
sailed from Alesund in Norway on 13 May 2021, and
on 10 June 2021 made the first rescue of refugees
from the sea. By 14 June 2021, there were 400
refugees aboard, who were disembarked on 18 June
at Augusta. They crew and personnel will now
self-quarantine for ten days and then go off on
another rescue mission. As of Monday, 27 Sept.,
according to Italy’s Interior Ministry, 44,778
migrants had disembarked in Italy this year, with
the top nationalities Tunisia, Bangladesh and
Egypt. The total is nearly double the number of
arrivals in the first nine months of 2020 and five
times the number of 2019.(cont. below) |
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Oct .2, '21 |
(cont.)
 From Doctors Without Borders
(MSF): " With increasing numbers of migrants and
refugees arriving by boat on Lampedusa, our
teams plan to work on the island throughout the
summer alongside local authorities. We will
provide medical and psychological support at
landing points and at the reception center, with
a focus on identifying vulnerable people with
specific needs to ensure they receive
adequate care. We call for safe and legal
channels for people to reach Europe and a
European rescue system to avoid
unacceptable suffering." MSF has three teams
working in Lampedusa. The first – made up of a
doctor, a nurse and two cultural mediators,
working alongside doctors from local health
authorities – is involved in triage activities
and providing initial assistance, from
testing people for COVID-19 screening to
identifying people in need of emergency care.The
second team – a doctor, a nurse, a psychologist
and two cultural mediators – will be based at
the reception center during periods of
high arrivals on the island or when there are
specific needs. This team will provide medical
and mental healthcare and ensure that patients
can access further medical assistance and
continuity of care. The third team – made up of
psychologists and cultural mediators – will be
on standby to offer psychological first aid to
survivors of shipwrecks. [Lampedusa
is just beyond the light-green area "40 nautical
mile (74 km) from the coast, the major
sea route.)This is from the Save the Children “European governments showed leadership by supporting the Italian government in rescue operations in the Mediterranean – but they must think about what happens to vulnerable children when they get off the boats,” said Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children. “For many of these children, their journey has only just begun. We have a brief window of opportunity to save them from people traffickers when they land in Italy, before they disappear into a criminal underworld. Italy must be given more support to protect every unaccompanied child, at the point of arrival, and beyond. EU governments must share the responsibility for the care and protection of vulnerable children who cross the Mediterranean – especially victims of trafficking and violence. To prevent thousands of vulnerable migrants – including children – from becoming victims of violence, abuse, exploitation, and risking their lives to make the perilous journey to Europe, Save the Children is calling on Member States to strengthen resettlement and humanitarian admission program, as well as other safe and legal routes for migration to the EU. |
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Oct .4, '21 |
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Oct .5, '21 |
 The annual October 3
commemoration on Lampedusa has just finished.
The participants have dispersed. A few
live on the island, some were former refugees
come back for the occasion, many were
young people from various countries who wanted
to be in this noble, endless fight for
justice. The memorial is organized by the
Comitato 3 Ottobre, by their
self-description, "a non-profit organization
that aims to raise awareness on issues of integration
and acceptance through dialogue with citizens,
students and institutions. On October 3,
2013, in a shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa,
368 migrants lost their lives. 155
people survived including 41 minors. For this
reason, we have chosen October 3 as a symbolic
date, not only to commemorate the victims of
that shipwreck but to remember the thousands
of people who regularly die drowning in the
Mediterranean or remain stranded at the
eastern borders of Europe. On March 16, 2016,
the Italian Senate gave final approval to
establish the “Day of Remembrance and
Reception,” to be celebrated on October
3 every year." Comitato 3 has adopted
"Europe Starts in Lampedusa" as a slogan and
uses this image (above) as an icon. |
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| Oct .9, '21 | When is bad weather good?
At the moment (Sat. Oct 9), there has been a temporary lull in the flood of refugees coming into Lampedusa because the weather has turned for the worse. Choppy seas and bad weather along the coast of Libya and Tunesia keep the refugee smugglers from putting out to sea. That lull gives the Immigration Reception Center time to deal with their overcrowded conditions. They has 628 migrants in a space built for 250, so now they can thin out the crowd a bit and move some of them to their real destination, Sicily. Yesterday they put 110 migrants (among whom were 30 unaccompanied children) onto a "refugee ferry" for the run to Porto Empedocle on the southern coast of Sicily. All of this is handled by provincial administration in Agrigento. |
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Oct .13, '21 |
 On Oct. 11, sources in Sicily
reported that a large rubber raft (shown) had
capsized off the coast of Libya near
Zuwarah, a city 100 Km (60 miles) west of
Tripoli and around 260 km/160 miles from
the island of Lampedusa (where they were
certainly headed). The first SOS went out
from Alarm Phone, a volunteer organization that
looks for people in the water. There were
105 persons on board, including 10 children and
pregnant woman. There were no immediate
reports of the number of casualties, but the
fear is the toll will be high, potentially one
of the worst such incidents in years.
Reports indicate a Libyan coast guard vessel was
very late arriving on the scene. |
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Oct.20, '21 |
The
International Organization for Migration Established in 1951, IOM is the
leading intergovernmental organization in the
field of migration. With 174 member states, and
further 8 states holding observer status and
offices in over 100 countries, IOM works to
promote humane and orderly migration for the
benefit of all. It does so by providing services
and advice to governments and migrants. IOM
works to help ensure the orderly and humane
management of migration to promote international
cooperation on migration issues, to assist in
the search for practical solutions to migration
problems and to provide humanitarian assistance
to migrants in need, including refugees and
internally displaced people.https://www.iom.int/ Via L. G. Faravelli, Casale Strozzi Superiore. 00195 Rome Tel: (+39) 06 44 23 14 28 email: iomrome@iom.int |
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| The Geo Barents rescue
ship of Doctors Without Borders (image)
reports that in the last 48 hours they picked up
367 migrants/refugees from five different boats
adrift in the sea. The weather was stormy and
getting worse.The refugees had been without food
or water for days and all were suffering from
hypothermia (subnormal body temperature). There
were numerous children among those rescued,
including infants under one year of age.The
Geo Barents has now docked safely in the
port of Palermo in Sicily. |
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Nov.1,'21 |
These are a few passages from a
2016 article in Jacobin Magazine, a
journal for migrants and refugees. Not
much has changed in Italy.
"Far from Rome’s central train station stands an abandoned office building occupied by about seven hundred refugees, mostly from Somalia and Eritrea. Aside from a large handwritten banner hanging from its windows that says, 'We are refugees, not terrorists,' the eight-floor structure looks like any other in the neighborhood, a business district with international embassies and well-kept parks... Italians pass by without shifting their gaze, apparently used to such scenes in a country that’s been receiving “irregular” migration from Africa since the 1990s. I ask around and find the building’s inhabitants have been living in Italy with full asylum rights for six, eight, at times more than ten years...A recent study by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) found that more than ten thousand refugees live in abandoned spaces, handmade shacks, or camping tents throughout the country... Relegated to the margins for extended periods of time, just one-third of documented refugees living in such places have regular access to services they are entitled to, such as health care. For some, the proximate cause of their marginalization is the visa program. At the moment, asylum-seekers arriving in Lampedusa or Sicily are granted documents for seven days, and then they must decide whether to make their asylum claims in Italy or attempt to migrate to another country. This arrangement was originally a response to unpredictable waves of asylum-seekers..." The article contains links to a number of private organizations that attempt to provide assistance to migrants, such as MEDU (Doctors for Human Rights) and the Catholic organization, Caritas, all of which constitute an independent humanitarian aid system running parallel to the state. At best, volunteers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are a stopgap — an unsustainable solution to a humanitarian crisis. With this comes news that Sicily’s regional government has announced that it will set up a migrant assistance center in every province of the island with the aim of integration between Sicilians and newcomers. |
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Nov.3,'21 |
The
Global Detention Project (GDP) is an
independent non-profit association under Swiss
law. It gets funding and support from members,
charitable foundations, academic institutions, and
private individuals. The passage below is from
their "Overview of Italy" in 2019 (modified to
show that Matteo Salvini is no longer the Italian
Interior Minister). The GDP tracks all
refugee movements throughout the world, This (my)
paraphrase is from Nov. 2021-jm. (The blue
pin-drop in the image marks the location of the
Immigration Reception Center on Lampedusa.)  "Italy
has typically been an important European
destination for asylum seekers and migrants
crossing the Mediterranean from Africa. Until
recently, Italy had aggressive and harsh migration
controls and was accused of gravely violating
human rights. When Matteo Salvini was the Italian
Interior Minister, Italy took extreme measures to
keep refugees from arriving by sea, including
blocking ports to vessels carrying refugees,
prosecuting those seeking to save lives at sea,
and supporting Libya's attempts to keep refugees
from fleeing in the first place. In 2018 Italy
changed its immigration laws, doubling the
maximum length of detention in pre-removal centers
(Lampedusa, is one such center. Refugees are then
"removed" to Sicily or mainland Italy.) This
places an extra burden on Immigration Reception
Centers since they are already overcrowded." |
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Nov.5,'21 |
Massive Sea-Rescue Saves 1,000
 Reported
on Nov.4. Ships of various non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) averted a disaster by
taking, collectively,1000 refugees from
dangerously overloaded boats that were trying to
make it to Lampedusa. Three ships were involved:
Sea-Eye 4, Mission
Lifeline, and Ocean
Viking. The spotting and rescue
efforts were coordinated by the air-ship and
air-air communications network "Alarm Phone".
Ships not directly involved continue to search
for more "boat people." The Sea Eye-4
picked up 800 persons from 7
different small boats, the largest of which had
two decks loaded with 400 persons.
Finger-pointing continues at Tunisia and Malta
as to whose territorial waters these boats were
in. "You didn't do your job." "No, you
didn't do your job."
Thankfully, the NGOs did theirs. The Sea-Eye
4 reports refugees in critical
condition, including pregnant women, hundreds of
children younger than four and unaccompanied
minors. |
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| Nov.9, '21 |
 I call your attention to this website of the Association of European Migration Institutions. It is a very valuable source. |
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Nov.13, '21 |
O Little Town of Lampedusa
 My neighbor has
just put up a Christmas tree. "It's that time
of year," he says. Really? It's the middle of
November. This image shows a presepe (also
presepio), a crèche, a manger
scene, depicting the birth of the Baby Jesus.
(My neighbor will both a tree and a presepe.)
The presepe starts appearing in the
homes of Italian Christians as the day
approaches. You put it together slowly over
many days, piece by piece, laying the Christ
Child in the manger as the last piece, "the
night before Christmas... no crib for a bed,
the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet
head." The one here, however, has
something special about it: it is made of bits
of wood found at the bottom of the sea or
washed up on the beaches of Lampedusa island,
the southernmost piece of Italy. It's part of
Sicily and almost in Libya. They are pieces of
boats that once bore refugees who often did
not survive the shipwreck. These "manger
boats" are made by prisoners doing "hard time"
in a Sicilian prison. Normally they make
violins and work under the tutelage
of a master lutanist and of a carpenter.
Christmas is different. With that:One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. —from A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. |
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Nov.16, '21 |
Europe - a
cemetery? “It’s important to have
personal openness to our brothers and sisters in
need,” Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, President
of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of
the European Union, told Vatican Radio. He
added: “The Pope spoke about the
Mediterranean becoming a huge cemetery. Now with
this you have E.U. borders becoming a huge
cemetery. I do not feel well living in a
European Union surrounded by cemeteries of
people who wished to share our way of
life. We cannot forget our principles when we
see people in need.”
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Nov.19, '21 |
 Securing the physical
safety of refugees at sea is the first concern in
all situations. Get them out of the water
or off the leaky boat, check for immediate medical
needs, disembark them safely, and assure
them they are now safe and forever free from
whatever abuses they have suffered. That's a lot,
but sooner or later the bureausaurus will
lumber in and ask to see some papers. There are a
few organizations that handle maritime
legal issues. One of them is the International
Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (logo shown),
based in Hamburg, Germany. It is typically
concerned with establishing territorial waters,
fishing rights, undersea mining rights, etc. but
their charter also expresses concern with
the legal status of refugees and making it easier
for them to become "legal" again, real persons with
a future. There are currently 168 signatories, 167
states plus the European Union. They have agreed
to abide by the rulings of the tribunal. As
of 2021, holdouts include the United States and
the Islamic Republic of Iran. |
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Nov.20, '21 |
STILL MISSING!
 On Nov 15, 272 refugees were
rescued at sea from a number of different
craft 20 miles ( 35 km) off of Lampedusa.They
were taken to the Immigration Reception Center
on Lampedusa and are safe. As of today, however, Nov. 20, contact has been lost with 75 migrant "boat people" in trouble aboard an as yet unidentified craft. They were spotted yesterday about 80 km (50 mile) from Lampedusa by "Alarm Phone" a volunteer rescue service that tries to direct rescue vessels to the position of the emergency. Alarm Phone has complained that they are getting no cooperation from either Maltese or Italian authorities and that Tunisian authorities have called off their efforts. Last word from Alarm Phone: "These persons have not arrived at Lampedusa. They are missing. Don't let them drown." |
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Nov.21, '21 |
 Reports are confused but
apparently almost all of those 75 refugees have
drowned. A handful of survivors were picked up
by fishermen and handed over to Libyan
authorities. The UN says the number of refugees
lost at sea in the central Mediterranean this
year is now more than 1,300. The same Sea-Watch
4 ship that in the last few days has rescued 193
persons was kept from their search for the
missing 75 by this confrontation with the Libyan
Navy even though Sea Watch 4 was in
international waters.LIBYAN COAST GUARD: "SEA WATCH 4, SEA WATCH 4. CHANGE DIRECTION. LEAVE THE AREA NOW. IS THAT CLEAR?" SEA-WATCH 4, COMMANDER KLAUS MERKLE: "LIBYAN NAVY. THIS IS SEA-WATCH 4. THESE ARE NOT LIBYAN TERRITORIAL WATERS. WE ARE 40 MILES OUTSIDE OF LIBYAN WATERS ON INNOCENT PASSAGE AS PERMITTED BY LAW." LIBYAN COAST GUARD: "LEAVE NOW OR WE WILL TAKE YOU IN TOW." -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
- - -
The Alarm-Phone-Initiative
(Also known as: Watch The Med Alarm Phone
Project) has run since October 2014, staffed
by volunteers from Europe, Tunisia and
Morocco. It is committed to the sea rescue of
refugees. This Wikipedia
entry explains it in detail. This is a
further explanations by the Alarm Phone
site, itself, with videos in English and French. It is important to know that Alarm Phone does not rescue people. It calls vessels that can rescue you. The Watch the Med section monitors and summarizes ongoing refugee events in the Mediterranean. This is the Wikipedia general entry on Immigrant Rights Activism. This is the Wikipedia entry on Forensic Oceanography, a project that makes films and exhibits about the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. |
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Nov.23, '21 |
  This child was just born on this
boat in the Sicilian Channel! There are 106
persons in it. All have been taken
aboard the Sea- Watch 4, which now has
482 refugees aboard. Another 200 were
rescued by passing fishing boats off of Malta
and another 359 just disembarked at Lampedusa.
Depending on where the rescue takes place, some
might head for Lampedusa, others might make for
Sicily. The key words: "a safe port". SEA-WATCH 4 (history
of the vessel here)
|
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Nov.23, '21 Nov.24, '21 |
 Those 475 migrants, now at
least safe on board Sea-Watch 4, are still
looking for a "safe port". The captain patiently
explained (again) that Malta and Italy are
giving him the round-around: "International law
says that persons rescued at sea have to be
disembarked at the nearest safe port. We
are asking authorities to respect that law."
Meanwhile: The Children's Boat. There were 26
refugees on board. Three were adults! They were
spotted 2 miles out from Lampedusa by an Italian
Coast Guard vessel, checked for emergency
medical needs and
taken to the Immigration Reception Center on Lampedusa, a center built to house 250 but now with 667 "guests". |
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Nov.25, '21 |
What
is Frontex? and why do entities such as
Sea-Watch want it closed?
 Yesterday's refugee
tragedy in the English channel in which at least
27 migrants (including women and children) drowned
while trying to cross from France to Britain
reminds us of the scope of the refugee crisis.
Yet, there is an agency named Frontex
that, in theory, should be able to help. The name
is from French: Frontières extérieures for
"external borders". It is an agency of the
European Union in Warsaw, Poland, tasked with
border control of the European Schengen
Area, together with the border and coast guards of
Schengen Area member states. (The Schengen
Area is 26 European countries that have removed
passport and other types of checks at their
borders. It is a single jurisdiction for
international travel purposes with a common visa
policy.) Frontex was meant to be a European
Border and Coast Guard. Yet Sea-Watch
has accused Frontex of heinous violations
of human rights including "push-back",
i.e.returning refugees to places they have just
fled from. If true, that is indeed a grave
violation of human rights, not to mention common
sense and decency. |
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Dec. 1, '21 |
 The
author, Matteo De Bellis, is a researcher for
Amnesty International [AI], Italy. Dated
03 Nov. 2021"A year after signing a memorandum with Libya, we see it has not only failed but been arbitrarily betrayed by Libya and Italy. Italy has continued to furnish boats to Libya, in effect helping Libya expand its borders beyond accepted territorial waters. The situation for migrants and refugees is as bad as ever. If refugees fleeing Libya are sent back to Libya —men, women, and children— they are confined and subject to unspeakable acts of violence —murder, torture, and rape. The current Italian government has said it is working on getting a memorandum that all parties will abide by. [That AI comment is from early November. From what I can tell —as seen in the item just above (for Nov. 21) of the piratical behavior of a Libyan gunboat— Italy is still helping the pirates. |
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Dec. 6, '21 |
Pope Francis in Lesbos,
Greece and pleads for action on migrant crisis
 In Lesbos Pope Francis comforted
tmigrants at a refugee camp and blasted what he
said was the indifference and self-interest
shown by Europe "that condemns to death those on
the fringes" [...] "Please, let us stop this
shipwreck of civilization!" Francis said
at the camp, a cluster of white U.N. containers
on the edge of the sea lined by barbed
wire fencing and draped with laundry hanging
from lines. A maskless Francis walked along the
barricades, patting children and babies on
the head and posing for selfies. His 5-day trip
to Cyprus and Greece centered the
migrant issue. He called for European countries
to stop building walls, stoking fears and
shutting out "those in great need who
knock at our door" [...] "I ask every man and
woman, all of us, to overcome the paralysis of
fear, the indifference that kills, the cynical
disregard that condemns to death those on the
fringes!" [...] "Let's stop ignoring
reality, stop constantly shifting
responsibility, stop passing off the issue of
migration to others, as if it mattered
to no one and was only a pointless burden to be
shouldered by somebody else!" He called it an
“illusion” to think a society could
safeguard itself without helping those who
“knock at our door.” He said respect for human
rights should be upheld — “especially on
this continent, which is constantly promoting
them worldwide.” He denounced that the Mediterranean
Sea, "the cradle of so many civilizations," had
become a vast cemetery where smuggling boats
packed with desperate people sink. "Let
us not let our sea (mare nostrum) be
transformed into a desolate sea of death (mare
mortuum)." |
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| Dec. 12, '21 | Nelson Mandela:
"When the history of our times is written, will we
be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis? Or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?" |
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Dec. 13, '21 |
Investigative Journalism vs
the Bad Guys
W.B.Yeats wrote in The Second Coming of a terrible time when "...the ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity." I've just read The Outlaw Ocean (2019 by Ian Urbina)*. It tells of crimes offshore — the murder of stowaways, sea slavery, rape, and torture— --the wholesale, literal "drowning of innocence" in the ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. For my brief "fair use" comment, I cite briefly from The Outlaw Ocean below. -------------------------------------------------------------------------  "In
July 2018, an Italian oil supply ship crossing the
Mediterranean Sea saw a stalled rubber raft
carrying 100 desperate migrants. On the dangerous
journey from Libya to Europe, they had reached
international waters when the supply ship rescued
them. But the ship’s captain opted not to take the
migrants to a port of safety in Europe, as
required by law, but back to a gulag of migrant
detention facilities in Libya
where the United Nations and others have
documented systematic torture, rape, extortion,
forced labor and death [...] For the EU, and for
captains in the Med, the task of handling
desperate migrants fleeing hardships in their
native countries is only going to get worse.
Climate change is expected to displace 150 million
people across the globe in the next 50 years.
desertification, rising seas abd famine will
drive the
desperate to places like Europe and the U.S.,
testing the moral character and political
imagination of countries better prepared to
survive an overheated planet. Those working
commercial ships in the Med will find themselves
in an impossible bind [...] Most migrants trying
to cross the Med never make it onto merchant ships
because they are caught by the Libyan coast guard.
Though it
routinely opens fire on migrant rafts and has been
tied to human trafficking, the coast guard
continues to draw strong EU support. This year,
the EU shipped six new speedboats to the coast
guard, which uses them to capture migrants [...]
In Tripoli, I interviewed dozens of migrants who
had been imprisoned [and]...got my own taste of
Libyan impunity. A week into my reporting on a
killing, I was abducted in my hotel room, and held
for almost a week by Libya’s
intelligence service, run by a militia called Al
Nawasi. I was blindfolded, two of my ribs were
broken, and I was held incommunicado for five days
before my release. My crime? Reporting on
migrants. Our four-person team was later forced at
gunpoint by our captors to sign a confession
document made out on the Libyan government’s
official letterhead.*Ian Urbina is an investigative journalist and the director of the Outlaw Ocean Project. |
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| Dec. 20, '21 | Little joy for many migrants
and refugees this festive season
18 Dec 2021by Dr Hans Kluge, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Regional Director for Europe. [ed. note: edited to focus on Dr. Kluge's points about the Mediterranean refugee crisis.]  Many welcome the first
signs of winter and the end-of -year festivities.
But for others, the onset of winter marks the
start of a life-threatening period. We see
it daily across Europe: The lives, health and
well-being of refugees and migrants are at risk because
of geopolitics. Hundreds of people risk their
lives to cross the seas in Europe, over the
English Channel or in the Mediterranean.
Now their deaths barely make headlines. Just in
the last month, 90 people have lost their
lives in the Med and at least 34 in the English
Channel. The U.N. estimates a staggering 274 million people in the world will need humanitarian help in 2022, a 17 percent increase from 2021. Humanitarian aid to countries in need can also help address why so many people leave in search of a better life in the first place. On all these fronts, WHO is working with partners to lessen human suffering, deliver supplies, and address immediate national needs such as sanitary facilities, setting up medical units, and improving measures against COVID-19, such as testing and vaccination. But these measures are no substitute for more sustainable solutions. This is a make or break moment. No matter political consensus or lack thereof, refugees and migrants must have humanitarian aid and access to healthcare. Our region faces a new wave of COVID-19 with the emergence of a new variant and sharply rising cases, so we must ensure protection against the virus for the most vulnerable. Health should never be a matter of politics, and access to health must be safeguarded as a fundamental human right. The WHO Regional Office for Europe has long championed migrant and refugee health with support to countries in preparing for large arrivals of refugees and migrants, and developing health systems that are inclusive and migrant-friendly. It is a our principle to leave no one behind. But we need to speed up this work, with broader political backing. This is why we are inviting health ministers from the European as well as the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions to a high-level summit in March 2022 to find a common way forward and mobilise commitment to ensure the health of refugees and migrants. Good health is something that everyone, everywhere, should be able to enjoy. A change of season should not be a matter of life or death. Health is not a privilege: it is a fundamental right for all people, including refugees and migrants. Let us give all human beings respect, dignity, and access to healthcare, not only this winter, but for years to come. |
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Dec. 28, '21 Dec. 29, '21 |
I
 n his Christmas message earlier
this week, Pope Francis lamented the "pandemic
of loneliness" and personal alienation.
"Our capacity for social relationships is sorely
tried; there is a growing tendency to withdraw,
to do it all by ourselves, to stop making
an effort to encounter others and do things
together." He surveyed crises around the world.
In sign of a gradual return to normalcy, the
pope this year celebrated Christmas Eve Mass in
St. Peter’s Basilica with a socially
distanced congregation of about 2,000 —10 times
as many as were permitted to attend the Mass last
year.This comes at a time when the refugee situation in the Mediterranean is utterly catastrophic, the worst in many months, boats swarming out of Turkish ports -- no one knows exactly how many --trying to pass through the Greek islands and make their way to Italy, either Sicily or Lampedusa. Reports are conflicting, confused, and disjointed. For example: "The Greek coastguard is scouring the Aegean Sea for survivors after the latest in a series of refugee boat accidents that killed at least 30 people in just days. Late Friday, the coastguard found 16 bodies, including those of three women and a baby, and rescued 63 people from a boat that overturned and sank near the island of Paros (image). According to those rescued, around 80 people had been on the vessel." [...] "11 bodies were recovered from another boat that ran aground on an islet north of the Greek island of Antikythera on Thursday evening..." [...]"Overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, a boat thought to have been carrying up to 50 refugees sank off the island of Folegandros, with an unknown number of persons still missing..." It is a complete disaster. This is not going away. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Geo Barents, the Doctors Without Borders hospital-ship has disembarked 558 migrants in Augusta on the southern coast of Sicily. Officials there await the arrival of 440 additional refugees aboard Sea Watch 3. All arrivals have been --or will be-- ID'd and tested for covid. Of the 550, 174 were unaccompanied children. Many of the 550 shows signs of fuel burns, respiratory infections, and having been beaten. Most of the migrants are from sub-Saharan north Africa. |
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Jan. 12, '22 |
 The image shows the cover of the Human Rights Law Review, Volume 19 Issue 3 November 2019. Here is the link to that issue. It concerns the violations of human rights in extraterritorial migration controls and the complicity and responsibilities of nations towards refugees and migrants. There is also this Wikipedia entry on the responsibility of the international community towards refugees and migrants. They both give you an idea of internationally wrongful acts, including refoulement;* arbitrary detention; violations of the right to life; cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; and violations of the right to leave. *refoulement: lit. to force back: The expulsion of refugees from a place where they can rightfully claim refugee status to a place where they may face persecution or other threats, such as the country or disaster area from which they originally fled. |
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| Jan. 22, '22 | 142
men, women and children (many sick and weak) have
disembarked at Lampedua from a single rescue ship.
the total for the day is 208, counting those from
smaller vessels that arrived. A vessel took 70 of
those migrants in the worst condition to the port
of Pozzallo (southern tip of Sicily in the
province of Ragusa. |
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| Jan. 28 |
"Give us a port! Give us a port!"
Last night 98 refugees
disembarked at Lampedusa, and the Geo Barents, the
rescue ship of Doctors Without Borders, is off the
coast of Sicly, and has radio'd. "We have a ship
full of kids. Give us a port! Give us a port!" The
youngest is about 2 months old and is one of the
few accompanied by a adult. The rest are
unaccompanied kids. |
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| Feb. 6 |
3,000 Unmarked Refugee Graves in Sicily An unmarked grave is
one that lacks a marker, headstone, or nameplate
indicating that a body is buried there. In
cultures that mark burial sites, the phrase
'unmarked grave' has a few metaphorical meanings.
A deliberately unmarked grave, for example, may
signify disdain and contempt. The underlying
intention of some unmarked graves may be
to suggest that the person buried is not worthy of
commemoration, and should therefore be ignored
and forgotten. Unmarked graves have long been used
to bury executed criminals as an added degree of
disgrace. None of that applies here. These
poor people drowned in the Mediterranean refugee
crisis.The International Red Cross says
that since 2013 one-thousand persons have drowned
and remained unidentified. They had no
papers when they drowned and now have no death
certificates, just a number in a book of the
nameless dead who were put in a mass grave.
Above the ground, they put a certain number of
crosses spread apart to make it look like
each one represents someone buried beneath. It's
an illusion, though. Perhaps a kind one.
It's not clear what the text in the photo means. A
woman's voice is saying, "...and now my sister's grave
is no longer there." There are more than a few of
these communal graves in Sicily. |
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Feb. 19 |
  Complicity Starts
Here. I can find no other word for it. Italy,
through its military naval facility in the
Gulf of Naples, is contributing to the
misery of the refugees trying to escape
from Libya north to any safe port, usually in
Italy and usually the island of Lampedusa.
They are often stopped by Libyan gunboats,
which intercept their small lifeboats and take
them back where they are beaten and punished
by unspeakable means --men, women, and
children. The gunboats were built in Italy in
the first place, then supplied to Libya, and
must be regularly repaired and serviced, which
Italy does at their naval yards in the Gulf of
Naples, just down from Cape Miseno (which
marks the western end of the gulf. The map on
the right shows the entire Gulf. Some familiar
landmarks include the large island of Ischia
(bottom right quadrant) and its tiny neighbor
Procida; the cone of Mt. Vesuvius (upper left
quadrant); the entire Sorrento peninsula (top
center) with the Isle of Capri off to the
right. The urban mass at left center is the
city of Naples. From the tip of the Sorrento
peninsula down to the bit of land in the white
circle is 28 km/18 miles. The white circle
enclosesthe small port where the Italian naval yards are located. The gunboats are like the ones shown in the image, above. A line from the circle to the gap between the peninsula and Capri is to the SE. |
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Feb. 28 Mar.2 |
Unity and Solidarity
 The general refugee
crisis in the world has become worse because of
events in Ukraine. The United Nations warned
Friday that up to 5 million of Ukraine’s
44 million people could become refugees if Russian
attacks go on. It’s mainly women, children
and the elderly fleeing. Ylva Johansson, the
European commissioner for home affairs, told
Euronews on Wednesday that the European
Union (E.U.) was “quite well prepared” to absorb
Ukrainian refugees as a matter of “unity” and “solidarity.”
The image shows a pro-Ukrainian demonstration in
Torino. There have similar one throughout Italy.
The Italian government has said it supports
measures to expel Russia from the SWIFT global
payment system. Italian PM Draghi spoke by
phone with Ukrainian President Zelensky and
assured him of Italy's support, adding that
"Ukraine must become part of the E.U."
Draghi also said Italy will provide Ukraine with
assistance to defend itself and the two leaders agreed
to remain in close contact in the immediate
future.
a photo of the
demonstration in Naples is here----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is an excellent and comprehensive article on migration in the Mediterranean on Wikipedia here. |
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Mar.7 |
Finally, an Oligarch When you Need One. The current flight of
Ukrainian refugees is the largest forced migration
of human beings since right after WWII. It
has totally overshadowed the never-ending flight
of refugees from North African ports trying
to get to Italy.The Geo Barents,
the rescue ship run by "Doctors without Borders"
said yesterday it now has 111 refugees on
board after plucking 31 migrants from a rubber
raft that had already capsized near Malta. It will
now head for the closest "safe" port,
probably in Sicily. Also involved in a rescue
mission near Malta was the Quantum Blue,
the 104 meter (341 ft.) mega-yacht (image,
right) belonging to Sergey Galitsky,
the Russian oligarch (owner of a large supermarket
chain in Russia). I'll give Sergey
the benefit of the doubt and say he probably feels
pretty good about himself right now. That's
OK. The ship is underway to Monaco.
Call and say "hi" to Ollie Gark himself.
Call-sign: ZGEM4. Sails under the flag of the
Cayman Islands. Costs less. |
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| Mar.24 |
About Physicians for Human Rights (the link has complete information about this group. Please read it.)  "We investigate and document
human rights violations, give voice to survivors
and witnesses, and plant seeds of reconciliation
by ensuring that perpetrators can be held
accountable for their crimes. We believe that
medical ethics are deeply bound to the
protection of human rights. PHR uses our core
disciplines – science, medicine, forensics,
and public health – to inform our research and
investigations and to strengthen the skills of
frontline human rights defenders." |
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Apr.10 |
 The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global humanitarian aid and relief, nongovernmental organization. Founded in 1933 as the International Relief Association, at the request of Albert Einstein, and changing its name in 1942 after amalgamating with the similar Emergency Rescue Committee, the IRC provides emergency aid and long-term assistance to refugees and those displaced by war, persecution, or natural disaster. The IRC is currently working in about 40 countries. It resettles refugees and helps them become self-sufficient. It focuses mainly on health, education, economic well-being, power, and safety. The staff is made up of first responders, humanitarian relief workers, international development experts, health care providers, and educators. The IRC has assisted millions of people around the world since its founding. In 2016, 26 million people in about 40 countries benefited from IRC programs. Their HQ is in New York City. Their website is here. They welcome donations. If you can give, give. At least read what they do. Be aware. |
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| Apr.22 |
Just a reminder, lest we forger. With the refugee
attention of the world focused on Ukraine at the
moment, 476 human beings, have died so far trying to get to Italy, largely from Libya. It's a trickle, but they are still innocent persons drowned at sea, The situation shows absolutely no sign of easing. With summer approaching, it will get worse. Do what you can. Please. |
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| May 30 |
IDMC The Internal
Displacement Monitoring Centre or IDMC is an
International non-governmental organization
established in 1998 by the Norwegian
Refugee Council in Geneva. It is focused on
monitoring and providing information and analysis
on the world's internally displaced persons
(IDPs). The IDMC contributes to improving national
and international capacities to protect
and assist the millions of people around the globe
who have been displaced within their own
country. IDMC also develops statistics and
analysis on internal displacement, including
analysis commissioned for use by the United
Nations. This
is their home page, where you can download
their Global Report on Internal
Displacement (GRID -image), the world’s leading
source of data and analysis on internal
displacement. This year’s report, released
on 19 May, includes a special focus on internally
displaced children and youth. |
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| June 6 |
adapted from Wash Post text by Ishaan Tharoor with Sammy Westfall Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine has sparked the largest
refugee crisis in Europe since
World War II. In just over
a hundred days, close to 7 million Ukrainians have
fled across their nation’s borders, with most
finding sanctuary in the European Union (EU).
Ukraine has four E.U. member states as its
neighbors, all of whom opened their borders. The
EU used a special power to grant Ukrainians
blanket protection, giving those who receive it
the right to move freely within the EU, permission
to work and access to health care, education and
housing. It is “a very generous offer, said
Margaritis Schinas, vice president of the European
Commission, said. “It’s Europe at its best.” He
says also that many of these refugees may not
return to their homeland. “This offer is so
generous that no matter what happens in the war,
at least 2.5 million to 3 million people will
stay...Many Ukrainian refugees are highly educated
and skilled people who can immediately be taken
into our systems... Many of them have already
found housing and accommodation, while thousands
of citizens across the EU, Britain and the United
States, among others, have registered to host or
sponsor them. Their schoolchildren can access
their materisl digitally." Ukrainians have caused
minimal strains in host nations.image: logo of the IOM (International Organization of Migration). |
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| Sept 20 |
Refugees in the Mediterranean, a forgotten war
by Lorenzo Marone The massacres have been pushed away; no one cares about the "boat people" children, dead from starvation and thirst. 19 September 2022 (published in la Repubblica. Permission to translate pending and assumed.)  There's a silent drama still
going on and still killing people that we don't
talk about as much as we should, that we
don't even want to look at anymore. Some will
say my words add nothing, and yet my words are
still not enough because the greatest
risk today is indifference. This silent drama is
a war going on around us and we don't notice it;
it's being fought without soldiers,
helicopters or missiles and only takes the lives
of innocent civilians, a war that the powers-that-be
didn't want and are not interested in. Seven
more children have died in recent days of
exhaustion and deprivation, their skin
ripped raw by the salt-laden winds. The
survivors, witnesses, remind you of those
from a Nazi death camp.
The attempted crossings have gone down in number
since 2015, but are more fatal. Sine the
beginning of this year, more than a
thousand persons have died, about the same as in
one of the Twin Towers destroyed in New York
City on Sept. 11, 2001. Lucky
survivors taken aboard a roaming rescue
vessel
It's a catastrophe that knows
no end; estimates says that since 2014 about
25,000 migrants have died trying to cross
the waters to find a new life for themselves.
The water takes them down where we can't see
them so we forget about them and find
their bodies months later, like that mother
and her baby still clutching each other in the
hold of a boat. When you talk of
shipwrecks, you envision waves as high as
buildings, but on these migrant crossings you
can lose your life even when the waters
are not rough because you are stuffed by the
hundreds into cheap rubber rafts, so-called
"boats," that cost €100 on the Alì Babà
website. You'll die smothered in a shallow
pool of water at the bottom of the
raft. If you fall, you'll be crushed, and
others won't help you out of fear of
winding up down there with you.
This is a Slaughter of the Innocents and
civilian Europe has washed its hands of the
affair and is off to vote for those who
doesn't care about it.
|
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Sept 24 |
At least 77
people die when a boat carrying migrants
sinks off Syria
The incident was the deadliest so far as a surging number of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians have been trying to flee crisis-hit Lebanon by sea for a better future in Europe. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs while the Lebanese pound has dropped more than 90% in value, eradicating the purchasing power of thousands of families that now live in extreme poverty. Victims' relatives have started crossing from Lebanon into Syria to help identify their loved ones and retrieve their bodies. The vessel left Lebanon on Tuesday and news of what happened first started to emerge on Thursday afternoon. The boat was carrying Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinians. Twenty people were rescued and treated at al-Basel hospital in Syria's coastal city of Tartus. There were conflicting reports on how many people were on board the vessel when it sank, with some saying at least 120. Details about the ship, such as its size and capacity, were also not clear. The Lebanese army has stormed the homes of several suspected smugglers, detaining four in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest and most impoverished. Three others were detained in the nearby village of Deir Ammar. The suspects were involved in smuggling of migrants by sea while others were planning to buy boats for the same reason. Lebanon, with a population of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees, has been in the grips of a severe economic meltdown since late 2019 that has pulled over three-quarters of the population into poverty. |
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| Mar 29 2023 |
MEDITERRANEAN REFUGEE CRISIS CONTINUES -strung together from Wash Post reports
26-28 Mar 2023 In the volume of
migrant boats crossing the Med, Italy sees a
daunting trend taking shape.People are
reaching the country by sea at a pace unmatched by
any other winter and early spring on
record. Six times in March alone, more than 1,000
people have landed ashore in a single day — a
total that used to account for a month’s
worth of arrivals. At the same time, Italy has
launched complex rescue missions, responded to
shipwrecks and seen its reception centers for
asylum seekers fill to the brink. And this is
supposed to be the slow season.Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni says the migration pressure on Italy is “unprecedented.”If this year fits the pattern of others — with crossings rising during the warmer months — Italian officials worry that it all spiral out of control, rivaling or even eclipsing the migration apex of 2015 and 2016, when an exodus from warring Syria and Afghanistan spurred political strife in Europe and a populist backlash against Middle Eastern and African asylum seekers. above:Mourners
surround the coffin of a migrant who, along
with 58 others, died when their ship crashed
before reaching the
Italian shore last month. (photo:Remo Casilli/Reuters) The situation isn’t an exact match for seven or eight years ago. That was a period of relative free-for-all migration, with huge flows into Italy and especially Greece. Since then, Europe has invested billions in clamping down, building fences, beefing up coast guards and offering financial incentives to transit countries to tighten the doors. Those efforts have resulted in a continent that is harder, but not impossible, to reach. Migrants are still finding paths. And right now, those paths lead predominantly to Italy, a country that hasn’t gone as far as other front-line nations, Greece and Spain, in using brute force to deter arrivals. So far this year, Italy has seen 26,800 people arriving by boat, four times the pace of 2022, and 1.5 times the record mark of 2016, when 181,000 people reached the country’s shores. So far this year, about 80 percent of people crossing the Mediterranean have headed toward Italy, with Greece and Spain seeing far lower shares. Critics of Europe’s migration strategy say it’s wrong to frame the uptick as an emergency, noting that last year, the continent accommodated some 5 million Ukrainians — a figure that dwarfs any flows from Africa and the Middle East. Some but not all people crossing the Mediterranean are fleeing conflict or persecution. Last year, Italy saw arrivals chiefly from Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh, countries whose citizens do not generally qualify for international protection. Italy makes for an unlikely preferred migrant destination, given that, for several years, it had been a crucible of Western European anti-migration sentiment. In 2018, the far right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, authored a close-the-ports crackdown that spurred legal challenges but bolstered his personal, get-tough brand. Meloni was in the opposition at the time, speaking regularly about dangers of “invasion.” But even with Meloni in power, the public sentiment has softened. The shift was crystallized after a deadly shipwreck last month along Italy’s Calabrian coast. Bodies, including of children, washed ashore. Many were Afghans escaping after the Taliban takeover, and their personal stories made headlines in Italy for weeks. Italy’s much-respected president, Sergio Mattarella, stood vigil in a sports hall lined with coffins, saying the disaster had “moved” the country. Meloni seems to have registered the change. She has so far avoided explicitly anti-migrant talking points and instead tried to bargain with Europe for more support. An overwhelmed Italy, she has argued pointedly, will have a harder time stopping migrants from leaving Italy and heading north to other parts of Europe. |
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Please, is there
nothing to lighten the despair? these tales of
refugee woe and agony? Well, yes. The ones who
are rescued and taken to Lampedusa are safe. No
more beatings, torture, rape. Whatever their
future, they're safe. And maybe this.to top of this page