Desperate people, hazardous escapes

Libya to Italy in search of freedom

Besieged by civil war, poverty and violent
repression, huge numbers of people are risking their lives making the hazardous
journey from Tripoli or Benghazi across the Mediterranean to Italy. Crammed
into unsafe, poorly maintained vessels, thousands of vulnerable men, women and
children are leaving their homes in search of peace, freedom and opportunity.

They come from countries in turmoil: Syria,
Eritrea and Ethiopia, Somalia and Libya among others; they have lost hope of
life becoming peaceful and just in their homeland, and see no alternative but to
pack a bag with their past and set off into the unknown. They are scared to
leave and terrified to stay.

There
is no functioning state in Libya; armed militia patrol the streets
and the Islamic State or Da‘esh
are increasing their presence in the country. Around half
a million people wait in Tripoli for a boat to Europe, nationless and ‘illegal’; they are vulnerable to a range of dangers in various uniforms.

Sekou
Balde from Senegal told The
Telegraph “he was stabbed six times, by a gang of four Libyan soldiers who
demanded money after they raided the house near Tripoli. ‘My brother was shot
dead in front of me—boom, boom—as well as two of my friends,’ he said.”

Thousands
of people arriving in Libya are held in ‘migrant detention centers’, run
by the Department for Combating Illegal Migration. Between
1,000 and 6,000 inmates are kept in each of the 19 centers, where violent abuse
and mistreatment is commonplace.

Human
Rights Watch (HRW) report that in
these prison-like places, guards have "tortured and otherwise abused
migrants and asylum seekers, including with severe whippings, beatings, and
electric shocks.” Bribes of anything up to $1,000 for release are
commonplace.

Nightmare journeys

The
journey to a new peaceful life is protracted and unmapped, with no guarantee of
safely arriving on Europe’s shores, let alone being welcomed. Over the weekend of 14 February, 2,600
people were rescued in the Mediterranean off the
Italian island of Lampedusa, near where 360 had died last October. The
crossing is said to be the most dangerous in the world: 1,700
people died
this year making the journey, and over 3,200 last year.

Criminal gangs are the agents for the
journey: there is no travel itinerary, travel insurance, swanky departure lounges, café’s and
friendly cabin crew, just criminal gangs who charge a fortune and will beat and
abuse anyone who challenges them. The costs are astronomical—averaging between
$5,000 and $10,000—and the routes many and varied.

They walk, these frightened men,
women, children, often for miles, often barefoot or in plastic sandals; sleep
on the streets or in the bush; travel from country to country. They are unwanted,
intimidated and exploited; risking rape, abuse and death; every step perilous,
every day pregnant with uncertainty.

After
months of grinding hardship following on from years of struggle, homelessness,
imprisonment, repression and fear—a boat manned by thugs, a worn out vessel for
the drained and degraded. No space to breathe, to rest, no food—even no water.
The children cry and are cold and scared, the sea rough and unforgiving, the dark
suffocating.

The
risks, however great, are no deterrent to those seeking to escape conflict,
suppression and hardship. From Syria, where
civil war still rages, 24,000 journeyed to Italy in 2014, and in Libya, which is on the verge of imploding, the
risks are greater than anything the Mediterranean has to offer.

So
too in Eritrea—29,000 left for Italy in 2014—where a lifetime of forced
military service for both men and women, poverty, arbitrary
detention, torture and repression have driven over 200,000
to flee the country in the past decade—more than 3 percent of the population.

And
then there’s Somalia, still in the grip of a
civil war that kills civilians, where soldiers rape and abuse women, and almost
half the population lives under the shadow of suffocating poverty. And Egypt—another
military dictatorship—is suffering the most serious human
rights crisis in its history, according to HRW.

Is it any wonder, then, that so many are trying to find sanctity
and refuge in Europe? You would have to be crazy to stay!

Prejudice and indifference

The men, women and children making, what
are by all standards, nightmare journeys, are not
responsible for the poisonous environment that they have been forced to live
in. They are innocent people, who are simply trying to find a peaceful place where
they can live, prosper and bring up their families. In so doing, they are being
exploited and mistreated by criminal traffickers, police and bandits alike.

Leaving the familiarity of home, these
desperate people are generically called ‘migrants’. A charged term filled with
all manner of hate and prejudice; it denies the individual and tarnishes
everyone with the brush of appropriation, the sour stench of suspicion. It is a
lazy label of intolerance, which fosters abuse and mistreatment.

The migrant is ‘the other’, the one who
wants to take something from us; who
will exploit our social systems, pollute or dilute our culture, soil our
communities and threaten the safety and sanctity of western democracy. They
have become a series of inconvenient statistics for western politicians to hurl
at one another and an excuse for right wing prejudice and hatred.

Compassion, tolerance and understanding
need to flow unreservedly towards the needy and fragile, not intolerance, paranoia and hate.

As Pope Francis cried
out on the shores of the Mediterranean:

“In this
world of globalisation we have fallen into a globalisation of indifference… Forgive us our indifference towards so many brothers and sisters."