The Migrant's Dream

Libya continues to be a gateway for thousands of undocumented African migrants who are willing to risk its violent militias, harsh detention centres and often fatal rides on overloaded, rickety boats to set sail for Lampedusa – for them the closest point in Europe. Even Asians have been found to use Libya as a transit point.

As they dream desperately of greener pastures, the migrants do odd jobs to earn enough to pay for the boat ride. Work is scarce and the competition severe due to the growing number of migrants gathering. The charge for a seat on one of the many boats leaving the Libyan coast is around 1,000 dollars. Even if an exhausting day of work is fully paid for, it could take years to save a sum like that.

 A human trafficker admitted to IPS of to earning around 20,000 euros from each successful trip to Lampedusa.

 Local fishermen know only too well the risk of getting into a packed, fragile, raft-like boat. As Abdala Gheryani, who works at the tiny fishing port of Gargaresh, says, “Every now and then I find corpses trapped in my nets.”

 A detainee at the Libyan detention centre, explains “We were around 50 in the same cell, but at least the guards never hit me. For the black guys, though, it was completely different. They would be tortured and beaten in the most brutal way and on a daily basis.”
Women, he adds, were asked for sex in exchange for their release.

His testimony is corroborated by an Amnesty International (AI) report released last June, where the human rights NGO called on the Libyan government to end indefinite detention of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, including children, who had ended up there solely for immigration purposes. After visiting seven “holding centres”, AI also documented several cases where detainees, including women, were reportedly “subjected to brutal beatings with water pipes and electric cables.”

Another Of Capitalism's Tragedies

Following reports of a second ship capsizing off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the international community to protect the rights of migrants and take action to prevent such tragic incidents.
"The Secretary-General is deeply saddened to hear reports of the loss of lives as another boat carrying migrants capsized yesterday off the coast of Italy, only a few days after the tragic incident near Lampedusa which had already claimed more than 300 lives," Mr. Ban's spokesperson said in a statement.
According to media reports, at least 27 people died and 221 were saved on Friday after their boat capsized near Lampedusa.
The incident occurred just over a week after more than 300 migrants, mostly Ethiopian, lost their lives when their boat caught fire half a mile from the coast, leading the vessel to capsize in the same area.
"The Secretary-General calls on the international community as a whole to take action to prevent such tragedies in the future, including measures that address their root causes and that places the vulnerability and human rights of migrants at the centre of the response," the statement said.

from here

Global Capitalism, of which Ban Ki-moon is an ardent supporter, is guilty of causing the conditions forcing thousands upon thousands of people to flee their homelands each and every year. Most of the migrants travelling by boat are from the African continent, from lands whose leaders' strings are pulled by the west. Some are desperate to leave because conditions on the ground are insufferable as a result of ongoing conflict inflamed by outside interference; others leave in the hope of reaching a hospitable land where they will find work in order to provide for themselves and their families. The action the international community is interested in enforcing is preventing the would-be migrants leaving their homelands, not in assisting them to improve their condition. This is how capitalism works.
JS

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