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26 Mar 07 - 04:34 PM (#2007790) Subject: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: beardedbruce Smugglers toss hundreds of refugees to sharks POSTED: 4:06 p.m. EDT, March 26, 2007 Story Highlights• 29 refugees killed, 71 missing after 450 thrown into sea • Smugglers trying to flee Yemeni security patrol • U.N. agency reports refugees raped, beaten, victims of theft • Thousands of refugees trying to escape harsh conditions of Somalia, Ethiopia GENEVA, Switzerland (AP) -- The number of people confirmed dead after smugglers forced hundreds of refugees overboard off the coast of Yemen has risen to 29, the U.N. refugee agency said Monday. Seventy-one people are missing. Knife-wielding smugglers forced 450 Somalis and Ethiopians overboard into stormy seas along a remote stretch of Yemen coastline at Ras-Alkalb in the Gulf of Aden last Thursday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in a statement. The smugglers forced their passengers overboard so they could make a speedy departure after being spotted by Yemeni security forces, UNHCR spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort said. It was the latest case of smuggler brutality involving boats carrying people across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia. It brings the total number of dead and missing among people trying to reach Yemen so far this year to 262. "We are horrified by this latest tragedy," said Erika Feller, the agency's assistant high commissioner for protection. The victims are people "who are desperate to escape persecution, violence and poverty in the Horn of Africa," she said. About 290 people survived the latest incident, which occurred as four smugglers' boats approached the coastline, UNHCR said. Passengers who resisted the smugglers were stabbed or beaten with wooden and steel clubs, then thrown overboard where some were attacked by sharks, the agency said it learned from survivors. "Several recovered bodies showed signs of severe mutilation," UNHCR said. "Survivors also reported that several Ethiopian women and at least one Somali were raped and abused by the smugglers during the voyage from Bosaso in Somalia's Puntland region. Survivors also alleged that some Yemeni security forces confiscated their money once they reached shore." Since January 2006 at least 30,000 people have fled violence and hardship in Somalia and Ethiopia for Yemen, according to UNHCR. About 500 people have died and at least 300 are missing and believed dead. Two more boats carrying 330 Somalis and Ethiopians arrived in Yemen on Saturday, but no casualties were reported, the agency said. |
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26 Mar 07 - 04:49 PM (#2007808) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: GUEST,meself What a world. |
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26 Mar 07 - 04:52 PM (#2007811) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Peace And the UN is once again doing its best. Yep. It sure is. |
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26 Mar 07 - 04:58 PM (#2007821) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Peace But hell, they are just Black/Brown-skinned Africans. They would have starved to death sooner or later anyway. So who gives a shit. Yeah. |
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26 Mar 07 - 05:15 PM (#2007831) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Liz the Squeak And here we are celebrating 200yrs since the abolition of Slavery. Doesn't seem to have changed all that much really. LTS |
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26 Mar 07 - 06:30 PM (#2007897) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Peace I do not understand why there is no interdiction of these slavers. The blockade of Iran is economic. Take a few frigates from there and allow them to intercept these ships. But of course, there would be no way to make a buck from it, so I guess that won't happen. The UN--an organization in which I used to invest hope for a fair world--well, I'll put it this way: it sucks. |
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26 Mar 07 - 06:42 PM (#2007908) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Herga Kitty Liz - it wasn't the abolition of slavery, but of the "Slave Trade". Neither prohibition seems to have been respected though. Kitty |
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26 Mar 07 - 07:00 PM (#2007929) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: McGrath of Harlow The point is, this was the very same thing the slavers used to do in a similar situation, when in danger of being intercepted. |
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26 Mar 07 - 07:40 PM (#2007966) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Rapparee Nothing will change until people put people over greed. |
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27 Mar 07 - 07:49 PM (#2008954) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Jack Campin http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/Politics/sharks.html |
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28 Mar 07 - 07:25 PM (#2010047) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Gurney I am puzzled by the references to slavery. The people smugglers are not slavers, as the refugees pay to be smuggled, or indenture themselves. Not supporting them, you understand, they are arseholes who deserve whatever happens to them, but they are not slavers. The morality of the smugglers is similar to slavers, but my pedantry prevails. Indenture has been a means of affording transportation to many 'rich' countries, and the race of the indentured has nothing to do with it, as descendents of many German-Americans settlers can attest. |
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28 Mar 07 - 07:37 PM (#2010057) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: McGrath of Harlow Modern versions of slavery and people smuggling are closely connected. Very often people who think they are headed for a chance to earn a living find themselves in situations that are in effect a kind of slavery, where they may be without pay or any escape, and subject to violence. The distinction between some kinds of indentured work and slavery is very dubious - it's worth remembering that when rationalising and legitimising the institution of slavery in the United States the courts avoided using the word slavery or slaves, and used terminology about bonded labour and so forth. |
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29 Mar 07 - 12:26 AM (#2010276) Subject: RE: BS: refugees feed sharks... From: Gurney McGrath, I appreciate your points. However, as I see it, there is considerable difference between a slave who was captured from his home and transported for a lifetime of manual labour, and an intending illegal immigrant who takes a chance that a criminal 'fixer' wont treat him too badly. The people doing the dumping at sea would be thugs hired by the fixer, who would himself be 'innocent' if not beyond reach of the law in his own country. There used to be a legal definition called outlawry, where people that the law couldn't reach were tried or declared in their absence and stripped of legal protection Primitive, but there are a lot of people deserving of it today. |