Illegal immigrants from North Africa are captured at sea in the Mediterranean, or drown attempting to get to Spain or Italy, or are caught after landing on one of the small islands off the coast of Italy.
It’s routine. If you add up the numbers, hundreds of would-be citizens of EuroMed are captured or die every week trying to cross the Mediterranean.
And those are the ones who drown or are caught. No statistics are available on those who successfully make it across and wash up eventually in Naples, Barcelona, Paris, London, or Brussels.
So this story is just more of the same, but one of the details in it caught my eye. According to ANSAmed:
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Immigration: Illegal Immigrants Rescued Off Lampedusa
LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), MAY 21 — An inflatable boat with 58 illegal immigrants, including 12 women, on board was rescued by a motorboat of the Financial Guard 35 miles south-west of Lampedusa. The immigrants were the ones to send an SOS signal with a satellite telephone. The rescue operations, coordinated by the Palermo Port Authorities’ operative central, ended at dawn.
A satellite phone! These indigent people — desperate to escape the grinding poverty of their homelands and start a better life for their children in the welfare states of Europe — were crossing the Mediterranean in a flimsy raft while carrying a satellite phone.
Did one of them just happen to pack it into his bindle along with a clean burnoose and a bag of couscous? Or was it perhaps the property of a professional people-smuggler, the Mediterranean equivalent of a “coyote” in the American Southwest?
I hope the Financial Guard are asking some pointed questions during their interrogations of these “migrants”.
Hat tip: insubria.
12 comments:
Big Wow, Baron. Peasants in Bangladesh have cell phones now. In nations and continents without ground infrastructure or oppressive regimes controlling that infrastructure, satellite phones are the only alternative.
These "teeming masses" represent, in a way, the best and most ambitious in their native lands - the ones who have given up on making changes within Mauritania or Algeria and want a better life in Europe. If they are like American immigrants, they are not coming to Europe to destroy the golden goose they seek by turning it into a Sharia state.
Whether their children will try to do so is another matter - it appears that the ranks of terrorism and Wahhabism in Europe are swelled by second generation immigrants, not the ones represented by the folks in this boat.
So it's not surprising at all that one of them had a satellite phone. He or she was simply showing preparedness and readiness for the hazards they faced on their journey. It's the stupid ones who go on a raft in the Mediterannean empty-handed.
The 'best and brightest' of africa will still score below average on an IQ test compared to europeans. I'm sorry but some pc assertions become too obnoxious to let pass.
Coming here to work, but somehow they end up disproportionately on the unemployment, welfare, and crime statistics. What matters more their wonderful intentions or reality?
Won't turn it into a sharia state, but who cares since the larger problem is they'll turn it into an AFRICAN state, with no more room for europeans as their jobs, tax dollars, land, and everything else is given over to africans instead of their own children. This is called genocide according to the UN but so long as after the genocide there's no sharia I guess everything's fine.
Disrgarding the disproportionate unemployment, welfare, and crime statistics - tpfkag would have everyone relax since it's the second generation that is likely to develop into hyper fanatics. 'Big Wow' indeed.
My bet's still on a coyote having the phone. These migrants pay big bucks to get to Europe, the same way the Mexicans do to get into the USA.
It wouldn't make any sense to spend money that way, and then risk a satellite phone while crossing the open water, especially when cheap cell phones await the new EuroMed citizen on the northern shore.
PFKG has officially become a professional fly in the ointment. Have you been down to southern Florida lately? The Haitian boat people have really turned it into a paradise on earth. What with the large sewing circle groups of well behaved gangs and the drug resistant strains of TB and other diseases making a comeback like a washed up 80s rock band. Pure ecstasy.
As to the phones. Gordon does have a point. Even the poorest have cell phones. I dont know about satellite phones?There is an animated series called "the boondocks" created by an African American about a black family and has very dark humor. In one episode he refers to cell phones and other gadgets as "N****r technology". N****r technology is anything that allows one moron to talk to another moron about moronic stuff and doesnt plug into a printer. As long as that tech is out there you can bet even the homeless will have it. Oh, and by the way. I dont own a cell phone. But I can still be a moron sometimes.
JIhad terrorist smugglers R Us?
The Southern borders of Europe are literally assaulted by boats of Africans. It's like a siege. The authorities have not been able to control the situation from years. I witnessed a scene with a boat filled with Africans, some of them half dead because of exhaustion, two years ago - in Greece! The Greeks had no idea how to deal with them, because the majority didn't have identity papers. Yet some of them possessed cell phones.
Illegal immigration, contingent avoidable woes, and the EU annexing of other peoples fish stocks.
EURef, Stop Stealing Their Fish
I agree with Gordon. This people are poor Africans. I don't want them here though.
There are also many Africas trying to immigrate legally (and I don't want them either, but I think those should be granted some advantadge, don't you?).
The thing is, the second generation is the big, big problem. But the first contributes to it too. It's a vicious cycle.
We have to stand strong against the assault on our borders. Here, it has not happened yet. Only one time a group of half living Morrocans were found. All the left was screaming for Portugal to grant them citizenship even though the Moroccans said they just wanted go to Spain.
"The 'best and brightest' of africa will still score below average on an IQ test compared to europeans. I'm sorry but some pc assertions become too obnoxious to let pass."
Diamed, I saw a number that showed that 5~15% of Africans were above the European Average of 100 in I.Q. terms. But I do not really think these ones are the brightest.
Concerning the phone, many Africans sell their 165446ยบ children to slavery for a phone and then come to Europe.
The phone is for them more than a medicine. It is what is bringing the Europeans to rescue them. Not new, many do buy the phone. I recall a Portuguese documentary over a woman in Mali who sold two children for a phone and a trip trough the desert into Europe.
afonso: I put scare quotes around the 'best and brightest' line because I don't really believe they are the best and brightest. We're in agreement, no worries.
Cel/Sat phones are cheaper than dirt where their hosting entities are not heavily regulated by socialist governments. It's been about ten years since I was in the Philippines (not too long after Marcos); what I distinctly remember from a trip through a shantytown area was the prevalence of new sneakers and new cell phones -- everybody had them.
It will sound very cruel, but might we not stop a lot of this, if we let it be known that invaders will simply be shot on sight and then carry through with it? People would be much less anxious to come, to Europe or America, if they knew that they would be shot as soon as detected, rather than greeted with open arms and given public support. I know that this sounds very heartless, but it is our hospitality that is at the root of the problems.
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