Approximately two years ago, 9 out of 72 migrants survived the perilous journey across the Mediterranean. It was not the waves or the wind that toppled the boat, causing massive drowning, but the lack of assistance by NATO, who stood by and watched the boat adrift in open waters for 16 days. One survivor of this tragedy described the scene: “Every morning we would wake up and find more bodies, which we would leave for 24 hours and then throw overboard,” said Abu Kurke, one of only nine survivors. “By the final days, we didn’t know ourselves … everyone was either praying, or dying.”Such are the realities of migrants crossing bodies of water by boat. They are regarded at international conferences with humanitarian terms, such as “refugees” and “asylum-seekers”, but in reality, when gun-boats and helicopters circle their make-shift rafts, they are treated as security threats, and carded away to unsanitary detention centers.
I wrote about this topic last year when it occurred and, today, migrants have taken to sue the authorities who were suppose to help them, as dictated by the international treaties and controls they ratified:
