Up to a million migrants have gathered in Libya, from where they will attempt to sail across the Mediterranean for Europe and, ultimately, the UK.
New estimates reveal that there are two million migrants massed in the North African country and that half of them plan to sail to the European mainland and travel on to Britain in the hope of building a new life.
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), most have travelled from sub-Saharan states such as Ghana and Sierra Leone, attracted by Libya’s reputation as a centre for people smugglers. Most are expected to wait until the spring, when the seas are calmer, before making the crossing on unseaworthy and crowded vessels.
European border authorities have opened negotiations to police Libya’s vast desert borders. Last week, the Italian government struck a deal with Libya to hold back the thousands who try to reach Italy.
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…European leaders tried to reach an agreement with Libya, a country that until recently was named by Britain as a state sponsor of terrorism. Of the thousands of African boat people who enter Italy each year, about 80 per cent are believed to make their way to France or the UK, with the latter their preferred destination.
The risks, however, are great. Researchers for the programme managed to track down a number of those seen in last year’s startling images of refugees clinging to a vast tuna net cast loose on the Mediterranean.
The photograph, taken by the Italian port authorities last May, showed 27 refugees whose decrepit wooden dinghy had sunk off the Libyan coast. Eight months later, nine of the men are living in a former Italian military camp paid for by the government.
Atiko, a 23-year-old Ghanaian who still dreams of making it to England, is scraping a living from begging. He said that scrimping for food was preferable to stealing.
‘Begging is better for me. That will be better for me to do to survive,’ he said. ‘In my country, they used to speak English and I can say that I am not good enough in English, so I would like to be in Britain to polish my English,’ he added.
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Most of those questioned by researchers admitted that England was their dream destination. ‘England is my target … I would be very happy if I am living in England,’ said one…
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‘The numbers setting sail from Libya are so great that half of the military budget of Malta - 350km from North Africa - is spent trying to deal with migrants sailing north.’
Italian authorities recently constructed special hotels on Lampedusa, a splinter of rock only a few hundred miles from the Libyan coast, which has become the first point of call for thousands of illegal immigrants trying to get into Europe each year, crossing the Mediterranean on makeshift rafts and overloaded fishing boats.
The centre, which was partly funded by the European Union, boasts a fully equipped mini-hospital, with two doctors and two nurses on 24-hour duty.
Many of those who make the journey pay up to £1,000 to people smugglers. Some find jobs in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, selling bits of meat from discarded goat carcasses or carrying bags of sand to fund their journey.
Old fishing boats are crammed with up to 30 migrants a time. European border agencies have stepped up patrols by boat and aircraft to try to stop migrants leaving Africa.
However, Libyan authorities are worried that these efforts might prove too successful, ending up with stranded migrants putting too much pressure on the country’s resources. Experts warn that patrolling Libya’s southern border, which runs thousands of kilometres across the Sahara desert, would be a massive undertaking.
Image from This Is London
11 comments:
So Libya is now operating a protection racket and human trafficking business.
They'll keep stocking up on the commodity and threaten to flood the European shore with live bodies unless they get their payoff....
Who's idea was it to support this gangster state at the UN?
Wake up people!
The U.K. is an island for God sake!!!.
It beggers belief that our crass leadership are un-able to enforce any kind border controls what-so-ever, on land that is surrounded by the sea.
A cynic may think that Brown won't be happy until Britannia goes the way of the mystical City of Atlantis.
Anyone know where Noah lives?.
^ No. Gadaffi's motives are more insidious. He's stated on numerous occasions that Islam will achieve demographic victory in Europe. He is trying to hasten it.
This is a video of Gadaffi saying the stuff prcaldude mentioned
The rules of gentrification are always the same.
1. Artists move into slum neighborhoods for cheap rents. They suffer crime and lack of services and start to transform said neighborhood into a liveable place.
2. Faux artists want to be near the real thing and start pouring in.
3. Developers and yuppies take notice and by up everything in sight and drive out the original artists buy driving up taxes and cost of living thus the whole reason for the popularity of said neighborhood is destroyed.
4. Artists find new enclave and the process begins all over again.
This mass immigration is almost like a reverse gentrification. Immigrants show up in huge numbers driving out natives who form more prosperous towns elsewhere. The old town falls to pieces so the hordes follow the money to the new town where the process starts again. It reminds me of the snake swallowing his tail and eventually himself. Unless someone shows some b***s I fear that future may see the next European capitol somewhere in Togo or Sierra Leone. That is until they catch on and move back. : )
The perfect way of paying Gadafi for his ugly schemes , would be to make Libia into the return adress of ALL illegal imigrants being caught anwhere in Europe. These whould be dumped on the libian beach not too far from Gadafi's luxury home by militaery transport ships. One time every year a militaery exercise would take place,much like the one the US makes these days together with Egypt,Turkey ,and Israel , Where landing on a hostile beach is practised.
If we want to be NICE we could could give all the returned-to-sender-imigrants 1000$ ,a good pair of shoes,a sleeping bag ,a small caliber handgun and a fake libian passport .
...This could make a great SF moovie ! ....
"This could make a great SF moovie ! ...."
Absolutely, it could be entitled, "Camp of the Saints." A script has already been written by Jean Raspail. Google it and read it online now. That is, if you have a strong stomach.
Exsqueeze me, but why does Italy bother with a navy?
Why do they HAVE that new aircraft carrier?
Guard the border.
At sea.
Or is their armor the fact they are unarmed invaders?
They are in international waters. Shut it off.
So "The Camp of the Saints" is no longer fiction.
Er, if Gaddafi is planning to demographically flood Europe with Muslim immigrants, then how do you explain that many, if not most, are from sub-saharan Africa?
A majority of sub-saharan Africans are not Muslims.
Darrin,the 'Twilight Zone' element of The Camp of the Saints is that although Raspail wrote it in the 1970s; the pope in the book is none other than Benedict xvi
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