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Saudi Female Student Death Blamed On Gender Segregation

Saudi Female Student Death Blamed On Gender Segregation
RIYADH – Amna Bawazeer, a student at an all-women's university campus in Saudi Arabia, had lived and studied for years with a heart condition. But activists say that her death from a heart attack on campus Thursday was the fault of Saudi Arabia's strict gender segregation laws.
After Bawazeer collapsed suddenly while attending school, female administrators of the girls campus of King Saud University panicked, attempting to aid her on their own, Al Arabiya reports. And when male paramedics finally arrived, they were not allowed to enter the campus.
Some reports say the emergency workers, who included Bawazeer's brother, were forced to wait outside the university for as long as two hours before they were let inside to try to aid Bawazeer. University officials deny that there was any delay letting them in.
Bawazeer was later pronounced dead, sparking an outpouring of grief and anger on Arabic news sites and social media.
A Yemeni media twitter account lamented, "Amna Bawazeer is the victim of extremism in Saudi Universities."
— اعلام الثورة المرئي (@CVMRYemen) 7 Février 2014

A Saudi woman tweeted, "As usual, our news is painful. We try to cope with this society because it is our destiny. May Amna Bawazeer rest in peace and may her soul remain with God in paradise."

كالعادة اخبارنا مؤلمة لنحاول التأقلم مع هذا االمجتمع لأنه قدرنا ...اللهم ارحم امنة باوزير واسكنها �سيح الجنان

— reemalhejazeah (@reemalhejazeah) 7 Février 2014
(photo: Tampa Bay Times/ZUMA)

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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