More Than 100 Bodies Found After Migrant Boat Capsizes Off Libya
Source: ABC News
The bodies of more than 100 migrants have been pulled from the waters after a boat capsized off Libyas shores, a Libyan navy spokesman told The Associated Press today.
At least 104 bodies were retrieved near the western port city of Zuwarah after the Libyan Coast Guard discovered the empty vessel Thursday that may have capsized a day earlier, Col. Ayoub Gassim told the AP.
The death toll is expected to rise in the coming hours, as these boats are typically packed with up to 125 people.
Its the latest tragedy in the migrant and refugee crisis that has claimed more than 1,000 lives in recent weeks, as people fleeing war and poverty in their home countries flood to Europes shores.
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Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/International/100-bodies-found-migrant-boat-capsizes-off-libya/story?id=39582259
By MORGAN WINSOR and BRIAN MCBRIDE Jun 3, 2016, 9:06 AM ET
Wilms
(26,795 posts)LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Libyan civilians have been dying prior to US involvement. As per Human Rights Watch, the death count is much smaller now than under his regime. Let's not fall into logical fallacy (post hoc ergo prompter hoc) territory simply to validate a bias.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Wilms
(26,795 posts)ronnie624
(5,764 posts)Last edited Sat Jun 4, 2016, 02:42 AM - Edit history (1)
It can be argued with ease, that the turmoil throughout N Africa and the ME, results directly from decades of Western interventionism.
ronnie624
(5,764 posts)An honest picture would trace the generation of refugees much further back into history. Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk reports that one of the first videos produced by ISIS showed a bulldozer pushing down a rampart of sand that had marked the border between Iraq and Syria. As the machine destroyed the dirt revetment, the camera panned down to a handwritten poster lying in the sand. End of Sykes-Picot, it said.
For the people of the region, the Sykes-Picot agreement is the very symbol of the cynicism and brutality of Western imperialism. Conspiring in secret during World War I, Britains Mark Sykes and Frances François Georges-Picot carved up the region into artificial states to satisfy their own imperial goals, with utter disdain for the interests of the people living there and in violation of the wartime promises issued to induce Arabs to join the Allied war effort. The agreement mirrored the practices of the European states that devastated Africa in a similar manner. It transformed what had been relatively quiet provinces of the Ottoman Empire into some of the least stable and most internationally explosive states in the world.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/05/noam-chomsky-how-imperial-violence-backfires-lessons-from-the-middle-east.html
This is part of the blowback that Stephen Kinzer sketched and predicted in a 2012 article in the Boston Globe. He noted that the West was responsible for spreading Jihadists throughout Mali and the rest of North Africa, through to Somalia. It is the direct result of an episode that may at first seem unrelated: the US-led intervention in Libya last year. Rarely in recent times has there been a more vivid example of how such interventions can produce devastating unexpected results. He sees it as part of the larger pattern; building a jihadist army in Afghanistan, the United States helped create a transnational terrorist force that has plunged an entire region into war. The invasion and occupation of Iraq set off a shattering civil conflict. Now Mali can be added to the list of countries that have been pushed into instability by American-led military action. As the Telegraph concludes about the recent havoc in Libya, it was created by the West because the West abandoned Libya. Ironically the same West that toppled Qadaffi also collaborated with him and caused the current mess.
https://sethfrantzman.com/2014/09/05/how-the-west-is-responsible-for-all-the-problems-in-the-middle-east/
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)They cross from Libya on massively over crowded boats after paying huge money to criminals (like coyotes). Vice.com has a series just on the migrant crisis that goes really in depth to the risks these people take to make it to europe.
Equinox Moon
(6,344 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)as Big Lies go, thats a lethal whopper.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)They live in such abject poverty that they are willing to risk their lives for a better life. Much like people from South America coming here.
reddread
(6,896 posts)damn.
so many countries.
so little time.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)nyabingi
(1,145 posts)was one of Hillary's proudest accomplishments as SoS. Hell, she even thought it was funny.
I'm sure she feels deeply saddened about the deaths of these people fleeing the mess she made of their country.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Sunlei
(22,651 posts)no more "streetview" for Zuwara anymore eh Asaad? 80,000 people used to 'live' there.
Are they sure these are migrants bodies? or are Putin & Assad body dumping at sea these days?
OnlinePoker
(5,719 posts)Assad is in Syria.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)They just cross from Libya.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)beach is empty for miles, 2 cars at the airport, it's empty, fishing boats tight cluster in the harbor, no activity.
Typical long line of beach dwellings and not a boat outside of any of them. It's like the whole area is empty/closed.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Most cannot swim and trying to swim while saving your children is near impossible. European countries have been trying to save people but often reach them too late.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)I just found it odd the drowned group were all on the coastline of a town that seems empty of the 80,000 people.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)War hawks have to profit though so fuck the Libyan people - hahaha, right?
MisterP
(23,730 posts)to keep the people from the shore or something
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)The migrants crossing from Libya are mostly Eritrean and Somalian. They pay big money to have criminals pile them into massively over crowded boats in a desperate attempt to reach Europe.
It's not about Assad, Putin or Clinton. It is about extreme poverty and the search for a better life.
There is a TON of information and documentaries on the internet free of charge.
pampango
(24,692 posts)Thanks for injecting some facts into the discussion.
Onlaketime
(65 posts)Half are from other impoverished countries in Africa and the other half are from wartorn Libya itself which was overrun with jihadists and warlords after NATO bombed and destabilized it. The country is in dire straits these days with the US and NATO backing members of al Qaeda that operate there now from what I've read. Ghaddafi kept the immigrants from central and East Africa from using Libya as a crossing route to Europe. That barrier was removed when Britain and France bombed Libya into chaos and brought the warlords to power. That is the real story. And yes, Hillary Clinton was instrumental in causing all that chaos and harm at the end of the day, which is why I think we need Bernie Sanders as the next President of the United States more than ever.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)I am not in any way downplaying what happened in Libya. I am just correcting the belief that the people dying on these boats are Libyans. Very few, if any are. They are mostly African migrants from more southern parts of the continent. It's incredibly sad and there are so many of these people camped in the hills, stuck because they can't afford the trip on these over crowded leaky boats or are in migrant jails in Libya.
Here is some good reporting on the issue: https://news.vice.com/show/europe-or-die
I am not a Hillary supporter in any way, I just hate seeing stories incorrectly used to push an agenda.
Onlaketime
(65 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)We need to GTFO and leave it to the middle eastern countries to resolve their own issues. Everytime we step in we make it worse.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)So fucked up.