In towns and cities around the Nile delta, fishermen are selling their boats to a local mafia outfit, which controls a burgeoning human trafficking racket.
Tag: boat people
Libya is where refugees now gather to attempt the perilous crossing to Europe. But Egypt is often the source of both crafts and crews. Only economic solutions can stop human smuggling.
THIAROYE — Sitting on the corner of his bed, behind the curtains drawn to hide the blazing sun, Saada Ndiaye is waiting for the moment to come. That moment is his would-be departure to Spain, via a clandestine and uncertain path from this small town in Senegal, and onward through Morocco. Ndiaye, who introduces himself […]
Portrait of Yar Yar Kan, one of the many Rohingya Muslim minority rejected by the Burmese — and shunned by other Asian countries in an attempt to emigrate.
Libération, Aug. 21, 2015 “Facing the exodus,” writes French daily Libération on the front page of its Friday edition, which includes a 16-page feature on migrants. As an unprecedented number of refugees risk their lives to reach Europe’s shores, the newspaper analyzes the human and financial cost of policies implemented in France, Germany and the […]
LANGSA — It was 8 p.m. and the sea was calm in the Strait of Malacca, at the northern tip of Indonesia’s Sumatra island. Ibrahim, a local fisherman, was pulling in his first catch of the night when he received news that a nearby boat was overcrowded and in trouble. “We met another small fishing boat and they asked us to help,” Ibrahim recalls. “The fisherman said there were more than 1,000 people that needed help, but his boat could only take around 20 to 30 people.” He immediately released his catch and headed towards Malaysia. Half an hour later, […]
ERDOGAN’S PARTY LOSES MAJORITY Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered a major setback in yesterday’s general election, losing their parliamentary majority, Hürriyet reports. While it still received more votes than any other party, losing the single-party majority bodes poorly for Erdogan’s wish to introduce a strong presidential system. […]
ANCIENT SYRIAN CITY FALLS TO ISIS After days of fighting, “Palmyra’s fate is now in the hands of IS,” the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Le Jour writes on Thursday’s front page. Coalition forces thought a few days ago that they had managed to beat back the ISIS terror group from the ancient Syrian city, but the […]
MALAYSIA AND INDONESIA TO RESCUE MIGRANTS Malaysia and Indonesia have pledged to provide temporary shelter to the estimated 7,000 migrants believed to be stranded at sea, a move that AP characterizes as “a potential breakthrough in the humanitarian crisis confronting Southeast Asia.” Most of the migrants are members of the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in […]
25,500 FLEE ISIS-OCCUPIED RAMADI At least 25,000 people have fled Ramadi, Iraq, after ISIS fighters captured it from government forces after fierce clashes Sunday that killed at least 500 people, the UN reports. EXTRA! “I won’t be Charlie Hebdo anymore, but I will still be Charlie,” the cover headline in today’s Libération reads, quoting Charlie […]
“Out at sea with nowhere to go,” reads the Friday front-page headline in Malaysian daily The Star, alongside a photo of Rohingya migrants waiting on a boat adrift off the coast of Thailand. According to the UN, about 6,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Bangladesh are stranded at sea, a budding humanitarian […]
Young men who left Eritrea, by way of Libya, may have all ended up in Lampedusa, but they took many different paths getting there.
EMERGENCY EU SUMMIT AFTER MIGRANT TRAGEDY European Union leaders are holding an emergency summit in Luxembourg to discuss a common response to the ongoing migrant crisis. But the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini warned ahead of the meeting that there was “no easy solution, no magic solution,” the BBC reports. This comes just one […]
Newspapers around the world featured the tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea on the front pages of their Monday edition, after as many as 700 migrants reportedly died when their boat capsized. Sunday’s tragedy is believed to be the worst maritime disaster in Europe since World War II. ITALY FRANCE GERMANY CHILE U.S.
The news quantified…