Another Tragic Incident in the Aegean

[savageseadog]

Typical half-baked response by someone not wishing to engage brain. If these people are trying to get out of Turkey, they will be Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, all of them fleeing war zones and trying to stay alive. I don't know what the solution is but the complete lack of empathy and understanding shown by s'dog here, repeated n million times around the world can only make it harder for governments to form any useful policy. Camps in Africa? Military intervention? Where? To what end? Who pays?

I'm talking about the situation in all the Med

 

[Davy_S]

I think the truth of the matter is people become desensitized to the problem, no human being could not be saddened by the death of young children in this type of situation, but this is offset by other behaviour by migrants, for example, gangs of males hanging around the port of Patras, openly breaking into cars and stealing, I am sure others living near to Calais will have seen similar behaviour, whilst all the time the people smugglers get richer, and was Turkey not offered cash incentives to stop migrants leaving its shores?

 

[Tintin]

How have we become so insular, so insensitive, to the suffering of others, that we would turn them away and block them from escaping war and tyranny?

 

[macd]

Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Palestinians, Libyans, Tunisians, are all amongst the mixture of people fleeing war and conflict. There is of course one thing in common with those countries. They are all muslim.

...whereas almost all the countries which have bombed the crap out of most of them are Christian. If your point is that religion is poison, +1.

 

[JumbleDuck]

As I said earlier there are some absolute idiots posting on this forum.

True. And, of course, we recognize that people living in dictatorships have to be careful about what they say.

 

[JumbleDuck]

How have we become so insular, so insensitive, to the suffering of others, that we would turn them away and block them from escaping war and tyranny?

Beats the heck out of me. I wonder if the same callous attitude would be shown to white people.

 

[Metabarca]

I'm talking about the situation in all the Med

But you were nevertheless lumping together people fleeing wars with those trying to get into Europe as economic migrants.

 

[JumbleDuck]

But you were nevertheless lumping together people fleeing wars with those trying to get into Europe as economic migrants.

I don't think it is easy or useful to draw a distinction. Many "economic migrants" are fleeing countries where the infrastructure - water, sanitation, power, health, education - has been more-or-less destroyed; demanding that they stay put (and wait for typhoid fever to get them) just because they aren't in immediate danger of being shot is pretty unreasonable.

What we should be doing is (a) everything we can to stop so many countries being living hells and (b) stopping making countries living hells in the first place. We should also offer aid and support to the developing countries which house the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers. Last year, Uganda alone (population 40m, GDP $2,300pp) took in half as many from South Sudan as the whole of Europe (population 512m, GDP $43,000pp) did from everywhere. Quite apart from the humanitarian obligation,it is absolutely not in our or anyone's interests to have further developing world economies collapse.

I'm sorry. This is very off-topic. Dragging it back with a comparison, this is not the time to worry about whether the call should be Pan-Pan or Mayday. We need to launch the lifeboats.

 

[Irish Rover]

True. And, of course, we recognize that people living in dictatorships have to be careful about what they say.

Does it take much practice to type when your head is up your anus?

 

[JumbleDuck]

Does it take much practice to type when your head is up your anus?

 

[vyv_cox]

There should be a blockade of the coast to stop all immigrant boats that would stop the deaths.

There is. The narrow stretch of water between Turkey and Greece is one of the most heavily patrolled in the world. There are patrol boats from most EU countries, plus others. We have seen an offshore rig support vessel from Aberdeen, NATO warships, smaller vessels from Latvia, Denmark, Sweden and many others. Numbers of migrants are considerably less than they were but some still try, as the OP's post says.

 

[steve yates]

Oh dear me, the so called "children" that were let in by Mother T turned out to be not children, then if we look closer we see lots of males and come to the conclusion that perhapsall is not what it seems!

What on earth are you babbling about?

 

[RichardS]

What on earth are you babbling about?

The under-16's who were taken in from Calais last year under a special dispensation. Once they were in the UK they were supplied with razors by the Red Cross.

Richard

 

[steve yates]

Jo's godson is 14, and he has a razor. Sounds like daily mail territory to me to be honest. BUT, even if it was true, so what? It's hardly a reason to spurn refugees.

 

[Irish Rover]

Jo's godson is 14, and he has a razor. Sounds like daily mail territory to me to be honest. BUT, even if it was true, so what? It's hardly a reason to spurn refugees.

Definitely not a reason but another convenient excuse for some.

 

[dom]

Definitely not a reason but another convenient excuse for some.

The plight of those wretched people perishing in rotten craft is a human tragedy by anyone's measure.

It is also the case that Europe simply does not have the capacity to offer a new home to all of these people, either economically or socially.

There is a widespread tendency amongst those frequenting liberal circles to dismiss concerns -- often by the very people who will pick up the bill, do the work, etc. -- as heartless dinosaurs.

As a consequence we have the hard right in power in Italy, Austria, etc., a German Government riven by disputes over immigration. We have Russia, having spotted the EU's weakness in this area, fomenting trouble in Syria for tactical purposes, and so on. Any relaxation of current policies would see either them, or any foreign power that so desired, forcing a mass migration to overwhelm any new system.

Who would be responsible for the ensuing human tragedy: I'd say 50:50?

There are no simple answers here and attempts to use these tragic cases to snatch the moral high ground seem self-serving in the extreme.

 

[Irish Rover]

I guess the first thing the west will need to do in future before starting a bombing campaign in places like Iraq or Syria is the secure the borders so no one can escape the carnage. That would definitely be very tidy and convenient for those of us who don’t want to face up to reality.

 

[dom]

I guess the first thing the west will need to do in future before starting a bombing campaign in places like Iraq or Syria is the secure the borders so no one can escape the carnage. That would definitely be very tidy and convenient for those of us who don’t want to face up to reality.

As it happens the west has for the most part avoided wading directly into the most recent Syrian conflict, save for isolated missions such as when President Bashar Al Assad used chemical weapons against his people.

But can I ask a question; instead of that last snide remark, what do you think the US/European policy response to Syria should have been? And what do you propose now?

 

[Irish Rover]

This thread is about the plight of refugees who are forced to risk their lives to escape war zones and persecution. Put yourself in their shoes and see how hollow all the excuses for turning them away really are.

 

[dom]

This thread is about the plight of refugees who are forced to risk their lives to escape war zones and persecution. Put yourself in their shoes and see how hollow all the excuses for turning them away really are.

Yes it is, and their plight is one of the shocking human tragedies of our time.

Your use of the word 'excuses' suggests you have a solution to this evolving disaster, one which others are resisting.

I was just wondering what it looks like and how it takes account of the current geo-political dynamic?