Reuters
Selam Gebrekidan, Reuters: Behind the refugee crisis, families in the West willing to pay and pay
One man’s effort to shepherd his brother into Europe sheds light on the multi-billion-euro smuggling networks that are fuelling Europe’s migrant crisis
ROME – One Tuesday night in June 2015, Tesfom Mehari Mengustu, an Eritrean delivery man in Albany, New York, got a call from a number he did not recognise. On the line was Girmay, his 16-year-old brother.
Girmay was calling from Libya. He had just spent four days crossing the Sahara. God willing, he said, the men who had smuggled him through the desert would get him to the capital city of Tripoli within days. After that, he would cross the Mediterranean for Italy.
“Europe is within reach,” Girmay told his brother. But he needed money to pay for the next leg of his journey.
Tesfom, 33, was less enthusiastic. Four years earlier, he had paid $17,000 in ransom to free another brother who had been kidnapped crossing Egypt’s Sinai desert. On another occasion, he had sent $6,000 to a smuggler holding his sister hostage in Sudan. War-torn Libya, Tesfom knew, was particularly dangerous. That April, Islamic State militants there had executed 30 Ethiopians and Eritreans and posted the videos online.
Of those lucky enough to survive the desert trek, many never make it to Europe.
Read more ....
More News Reports From Reuters On The Migration Crisis
Held for ransom in Libya
Rescue at sea may come -- or not
Photo essay: Rescue on the Mediterranean
WNU Editor: In my many travels around the world I have lost count on the number of times I have met people whose dream has been to immigrate to the West .... without realizing the hardships involved in getting here, the cultural shock that awaits them, and the realization that even if they do get here, life is not easy or comfortable. But they try .... and as I have mentioned more than once in this blog in the past year .... this situation changed dramatically last year when German Chancellor Merkel openly stated that Germany had opened its borders, and was willing to accept everyone who can make it to their borders. To say that this opened the floodgates is an understatement .... and as the weather now improves and the migration season kicks in again .... here is an easy prediction .... what Europe experienced last year will be puny when compared to the massive wave of humanity that wants to make the trek this year.
On a personal note .... I live on the island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada ... and I have been here since the early 1990s. My suburb (Lasalle) became a dumping ground for refugees/migrants/etc. about 10 years ago.... and during this time I have seen how much this community has changed. Crime, social problems, people moving out, public schools deteriorating, the establishment of a ghetto mindset .... it is not pretty .... and what is disturbing is that the situation is not improving. And while Canadian politicians like to preach the virtues of multiculturalism and even more immigration ... in my reality .... I see the complete opposite. Bottom line .... I love my home and the view of the the Saint Lawrence River that I have from my window, but I am now making plans to move because where I live is no longer safe.
5 comments:
Sell your house to Jay
Even without the Merkel acceleration, the flow of migrants never stopped.
Aside that I'm happy to see my country on the front line to save migrant lives on Mediterranean Sea, this give no credit or any strength in EU to Italy (or Greece).
Smugglers are not the only people making money on the skins of the desperate, there also a system inside integration and displacement program that involve private company, fake cooperative and fake ONG, all doubly tied with corrupted local politicians and organized crime (mafia, camorra) or neofascist.
Sometimes those scandals give public attention, but without real solutions.
For many years immigration is used by capital to extort cut in salaries and restrain in workers rights, creating "the army reserve of workers" (Marx), pushing a war of the poor.
Now we passed the line.
There a limit in what any territory can sustain and integrate people, but this cannot really interest our stupid political class.
And even outside the servant-minded Italy, I see no interest to fight the causes of this struggle.
WNU Editor,
You might want to google the crime stats for LaSalle when you bought there, ( when it was it's own Municipality), and the current crime stats from the SVPM.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/montreal-crime-stats/index.html
Jay. One of the businesses that I started in the late 1990s was in the security business. My partner at the time approached me because I had capital and knowledge (from Russia) on what products are suitable to stop and/or impede criminals when they try to break into your business or home. Montreal .... like everywhere else at the time .... was experiencing a crime wave because computers were expensive .... and easy to resell .... the ideal product for burglars to target. We were very successful (he still runs the company .... Advantage Security in Montreal .... no relation to a U.S. company with the same name, and he runs the Montreal Crime Advisory Board in tandem with the MUC Police). In short .... from all of this experience I have gotten to know a lot of cops .... and I have gotten to know a lot about crime. I also know .... and so should you .... that the crime figures that are made public are not necessarily reflective on what is happening on the street. Case in point .... in the past year my car was been broken in, and someone also tried to break into my home (but failed because I have best security products on the market) .... but in both cases I saw no point in calling the cops. I have learned in the past year or two from my police friends that most crimes (if minor) are not reported ...and what is worse .... unless the crime is serious, no one will show up. You will have to go the police station to make the report.
As to the tie-in with migrants and crime .... I would say that we in Canada have been very lucky. Most migrants in the past were in their thirties or older, with families, were grateful to be here, worked like hell, and the last thing they wanted was a criminal record that would result in them being deported when all the appeals have been exhausted.
But this new batch is different .... most are young and single, do not care, have a belief in entitlement, a crummy work ethic, and gravitate to gangs and crime. And it makes no difference on their ethnic background .... Russian, Haitian, Algerian .... I cannot place it exactly but there is a problem with this generation. I know among my own Russian community .... some of these Russians do not belong here at all.
As to my home situation in Lasalle .... the problem is straight forward. Not far from where I live is a collection of apartment buildings that have become a Haitian ghetto. What makes them dangerous .... and it has impacted the entire community ... is that just down the street is the on-ramp to the Mercier bridge that goes across the Saint Lawrence River and into the Indian reservation of Kahnawake, where they can easily buy as many guns that they want (I can buy an AK-47 semi-automatic for a grand ... but if I am caught .... ouch .... 10 years in jail is the penalty). As a result of this access to arms. these gangs are armed, dangerous, and the police are powerless to stop them (for now). That is my reality .... and that is not on a crime stat report, news report, or mentioned by any politician or immigration advocate.
When I was a kid in the Maritimes, I remember when going to a Bank or Credit Union was a "risky business", due to the armed robbery gangs commuting from Quebec.
In Vancouver, I remember the Red Dragons, (70's), the White Russian's and Iranians of the '90's, ( had you moved into my parents neighborhood in the 90's, my parents would have sold the house and moved). I was shopping across the street when Sergei Filinov died in a hail of AK47 gunfire out on the street.
I've had no shortage of petty thefts over the years in Vancouver, from the guy who chainsawed through the sidewall of the house to steal two mountain bikes, the ( in Vancouver they are called DPM's) who smashed the side window of my Cabriolet, after trying to screwdriver the locks, to wind up stealing some petty change, a pair of driving gloves, and a pair of sunglasses, (causing over $800 damage, while the doors were left unlocked to keep perps from slashing the top),
The DPM who jimmied the door of my truck, the Christmas Eve after my seperation, to steal some Japanese CD's of jazz icons from the '70's, the crack house down the street from my first house, the 8 breakin's of my second truck, in my "secure" Condo garage, ( until I got a car alarm and immobilizer), the wave of neighborhood break in's in my neigborhood, ( 4th house) all because a local landlord rented out to some scumbags, ( only two houses wern't robbed, because we both had large house dogs),
I could go on, but when it's local, or personal, it seems like it's a major crime wave, if you listen to the Con's and the Media, it's an epidemic, but it's a hell of a lot safer than when I was a kid.
The "old rules" still apply, keep your nose clean, have better security than the guy down the block, and you will be okay.
Post a Comment