Lost at sea
Sixteen families are grieving in Scotland today, after a helicopter carrying oil rig workers crashed into the sea yesterday and all on board were feared lost.
Just a few days earlier, in the Mediterranean, more than 200 people - perhaps more than 300 -- are feared to have drowned. More than 100 bodies have already been recovered. But you very possibly never heard about it.
They were African migrants, on their way in grossly overloaded rubber dinghies from the coast of Libya, heading for Europe. We don't know their names; their families will probably never know for sure what happened to them.
Why do they do it? They know the risks - they know that over the past decade, thousands have died, trying to make the crossing. Yet still they come.
Listen below to my interview with a migrant from Eritrea, who managed to make the crossing successfully.
(broadcast on Newshour, BBC World Service, 31 March 2009)
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Both tragic events, one is a lot closer to home than the other: but you are quite right to contrast them in that way.
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Robin:
Both tragic events...I would like to extend my deepest condolences and prayers to the families...
~Dennis Junior~
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Robin:
Why do they do it? They know the risks - they know that over the past decade, thousands have died, trying to make the crossing. Yet still they come.
I think that they should that there are many risks of making a voyage like that one that happen, in Libya....
~Dennis Junior~
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Why do they do it? To get a better life, that is why. I heard that the journey those African immigrants are taking was once called 'a journey of aspiration, not of desperation'. After all, the would-be immigrants are paying thousands of US dollars (or pounds) to the trafficants for the journey. I rather believe that they can use those money to improve their lives in their own countries, not going abroad. Perhaps people are right when they say that the wellfare system in Europe is the magnet that attracts the immigrants. Free housing, income support, not having to work- of course people will be paying all they have to get into a place like that. After all, Lybia is not really a poor country- in the 80s of the last century there were a lot of doctors, nurses and engineers from the Communist block going to work in Lybia and they earned very good money. So I do not believe that you cannot make a proper living in Lybia.
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I guess a lot of people are blinded of what the opportunities they can work up in their own country by the well living conditions they see abroad. And this does happen to almost all 3rd world countries.
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