Culture
Migrants Face Dangerous Waters and a Cold Shoulder
|
If they survive the voyage, Africans fleeing to Europe on wooden boats do not always get a warm welcome. Malta took 25 shipwrecked Somalis ashore last week, but only after coming under fire late May when a Maltese fishing boat refused to rescue a another group of migrants, and left the task to Spain. A Maltese ship has since found 18 other bodies floating in the Mediterranean; while 233 migrants were brought ashore in the last week alone, the Times of Malta reports. In response to the surge, the European Union is boosting patrols off the coast of Africa to intercept migrant boats. Hundreds of protestors at an E.U. immigration summit in Greece called for a different solution that includes legalization and ending war and poverty in Africa.