Refugees at Sea

[GordMay]

More than 100 migrants feared dead as boat capsizes off Libya

The ship was reportedly carrying some 130 people, with rescue teams saying little hope of finding survivors.
The shipwreck was the latest along the Central Mediterranean migration route, where about 350 migrants have died this year.

More ➥ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/...izes-off-libya

[GordMay]

‘Complete disregard for migrants dying on the Mediterranean’

Rescue coordinator, onboard the "Ocean Viking", shares his frustration with authorities’ lack of will on the Mediterranean.

Here ➥ https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2...-mediterranean

[Tillikum]

Quite in keeping the with "complete disregard" for the conditions that prevailed in their countries of origin.

[double u]

...doesn't "migrant" imply the consent of the country of destination?

[double u]

just for the record:
Al Jazeera is owned by Scheik Hamad bin Chalifa Al Thani (Qatar Media Corporation)
(Qatar is world famous for the numbers of refugee/migrants it has received with open arms!)

[Rohan]

Originally Posted by GordMay

‘Complete disregard for migrants dying on the Mediterranean’

Rescue coordinator, onboard the "Ocean Viking", shares his frustration with authorities’ lack of will on the Mediterranean.

If these NGOs were truly so concerned about migrants dying, they would stop working as a taxi service for these human traffickers. I would really like to ask that guy if he's not in cahoots with the criminals, then why does his NGO ferry everyone the much longer route to Europe, instead of returning them safely to the closest shore in Africa? Not only would more lives be saved that way, but they would be able to make far more trips back and forth. But their real goal is political - to bring in as many Africans as they can into Europe to force demographic and political change.

For those that don't know, here's how the scam works. The criminal networks charge money to cram as many migrants as possible onto rickety boats and rafts that have no chance of making the journey, then tow them just beyond the 12 mile limit. There they strand them, sometimes even deliberately puncturing their boats, send out a distress call for the nearest vessel to come pick them up. Sometimes they call NGOs on satphone to pick them up.

If it's Libyan navy, they bring them back to Africa. If it's a European vessel, the migrants won't divulge where they are from, so they only thing they can usually do is bring them hundreds of miles to Europe. If it's an NGO vessel, of course that's the intent all along.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by double u

...doesn't "migrant" imply the consent of the country of destination?

Its standard practice for the uneffected Liberals to bleat about this.. you won't find them getting the views of the Greeks, Sicilians, Italians and others having to put up with the mainly young males making this trip about the violence and crime they inevitably bring with them.
Breaking..
A female police employee was stabbed to death by a Tunisian man at a police station southwest of Paris today.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by double u

...doesn't "migrant" imply the consent of the country of destination?

Not to me. You can have both legal and illegral migration into a country.


And the question of legality doesn't even apply until you reach a specific destination.

[Joh.Ghurt]

Originally Posted by GordMay

‘Complete disregard for migrants dying on the Mediterranean’

Indeed. The masters of the boats and ships selling passages to those people have a total disregard for the SOLAS-accords. This is shameful.

For the migrants and all other potential passengers (or crew) on a ship, stay away from any vessel not conforming to there SOLAS standards where appropriate. You're playing with your life.

As to organisations like Ocean-Vikings looking for trouble, they shouldn't be surprised when they find it and get no sympathy. The difference between a rescuer patrolling for victims to rescue and a human trafficker is about as muddles as the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist.

[silkie]

Emigrants when they leave, migrants on arrival. These unfortunates didn't make it to "migrant" status, IMO.
Not that words change anything in these situations.

[Cyrus Safdari]

Their countries of origin are usually undergoing strife so can't really be expected to be enforcing maritime rules and in the case of Libya lets remember how it got to be that way. People leave their homes and families (whom they love just as much as you do yours) take to seas in rickety boats out of desperation, and hiring smugglers is inevitable part of the process. And if you were in their placed, you'd do the same. Maybe your grandparents did the same.
https://www.history.com/news/wwii-je...-st-louis-1939

About 1% of the worlds population are refugees. Half are women and children. Plenty are Westerners themselves
Up to 42 per cent of refugees and migrants in the Balkans are women (17%) and children (25%). ·


FYI the countries who take in the most refugees aren't even Western. Among the the top ten recipients of refugees, there are 1or 2 European countries (Germany, Sweden) that take most refugees.
https://www.nrc.no/perspectives/2020...most-refugees/

https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html

Some countries facing difficult situations themselves have hosted millions of refugees for decades and provided them with jobs, housing, education, medical insurance...

https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/publicat...-surprise.html

[StuM]

Originally Posted by silkie

Emigrants when they leave, migrants on arrival. These unfortunates didn't make it to "migrant" status, IMO.
Not that words change anything in these situations.

Immigrants on arrival at their intended destination. Migrants while they are moving (they may migrate through several countries with no intention of stopping. They didn't make it to "immigrant" status.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by StuM

Immigrants on arrival at their intended destination. Migrants while they are moving (they may migrate through several countries with no intention of stopping. They didn't make it to "immigrant" status.

The Migrants ➛ Emigrants ➛ Immigrants, that we are talking about, are usually Refugees:

Refugees are defined and protected in international law. The 1951 Refugee Convention is a key legal document and defines a refugee as:

“... someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion ...”

When people flee their own country, and seek sanctuary in another country, they apply for asylum – the right to be recognized as a refugee, and receive legal protection, and material assistance. An asylum seeker must demonstrate that his or her fear of persecution, in his or her home country, is well-founded.

By the end of 2017, there were 25.4 million refugee men, women and children registered across the world. About 68% of those displaced across borders come from just five countries: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Myanmar.

While there is no formal legal definition of an international migrant, most experts agree that an international migrant is someone who changes his or her country of usual residence, irrespective of the reason for migration or legal status.

Internally Displaced Persons [IDPs] are people who have been forced to flee their home, but never cross an international border. IDPs, often include people displaced by internal strife and natural disasters. Unlike refugees, IDPs are not protected by international law, or eligible to receive many types of aid, because they are legally under the protection of their own government.

About 45.7 million People are internally displaced around the world. Countries with some the largest internally displaced populations are Colombia, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Yemen.

[double u]

and refugees have the right to chose their country of sanctuary? to keep going through as many countries as necessary until they find one they like? After having passed through any number of countries where they would be safe they are still "refugees"?

[Joh.Ghurt]

Originally Posted by Cyrus Safdari

Half are women and children. Plenty are Westerners themselves

Lets move back to facts about boat migrants and not throw around unrelated numbers. Migrants on the land-borders have a slightly different gender-ratios. But we're here in forum dealing with cruising and boats.

Where I sit I can see and hear often enough the results of the migration. I'm not in a hot-spot, but a bit off the beaten path for migrants, so we don't get it here in full force. As soon as the wind calms down in the Alboran Sea, I hear about every other day on channel 16 the advisories to keep a sharp lookout for small rubber-boats with 90 to 120 people. And from time to time (about 3-4 times a year) the local press has notices about corpses found on the beach. Abandoned life-jackets can be found more often.

Look at this statistic specially at the arrivals in Italy and Spain. For those countries, most arrivals are via boat either to Lampedusa and Sicily, or across the Western Mediterranean for Spain. Greece is a mixed bag, as they also have arrivals via land. This statistic isn't an outlier it seems to be pretty close what one experiences in those areas.

Discounting children, about 11% or 13% are women, 89% or 87% men, mostly young men. This numbers are well reflected in the pictures of the boat you see (for fun try to count the women in the crowd), the amount of male immigrants in the camps here in Spain and also the death-toll when one of those boats sink.

The media however is always looking for the one image with the drowned child or woman to stir up the emotions. Nobody really gives a damn about the drowned young men. It isn't surprising, that finding the distribution of men and women rescued is reported so rarely. The usual story is: A woman was found dead, 150 people have been rescued and 10 death. People tend to assume, half of those were women, but it ain't so.

For the children it's safe to assume that they have the same gender distribution as the adults and the vast majority are male teenager between 15 and 18. As the crossing to Spain is longer and harder than the one to Lampedusa, less children in number for Spain in the statistic mentioned above.

I guess you fell in the usual trap where all the numbers are mixed until the preferred narrative is reached. Sure, the big refugee camps in Jordan are full of women and children, and along land-borders the amount of women is also higher (but still 2/3 male refugees minimum). But this isn't true for the boat migrants in the Mediterranean.

And no, the migrants in the boats are exclusively Africans, Middle Easterns and a few Central Asians. No westeners ever.