Category: Africa

Cannibalism on the way to Lampedusa and other fascinating Somali tales

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Scene Of Cannibalism For The Raft Of The Medusa by Theodore Gericault

They were only at sea for three days but, what the heck, rather than starve (hardly possible in three days is it?), one of the aliens took a chunk from a dead man.   That is perhaps the most dramatic moment of this fascinating tale from a Somali migrant desperate to cross the Mediterranean and find a new life in the land of milk and honey—Italy!

The story is here at Vice.com and below are some excerpts.  You decide if the storyteller is for real (but maybe first revisit, Greenfield on the Hyena Cure!)  (Emphasis is mine)

On Tahrib!

Hassan Ali is a 23-year-old Somali who survived gun battles and poverty in his youth in his native country before deciding in 2009 to embark on Tahrib, the perilous journey from Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa. Thousands of Somalis make this trip every year, and this month it made headlines after a boat caught fire and capsized on October 3, killing over 300 would-be immigrants. Eight days later, a different vessel capsized in an accident that claimed at least 34 lives. Here, Hassan speaks about his troubled life before the trip and the horrors he experienced en route to Europe.

The cannibalism didn’t start until our second boat journey, from Libya to Lampedusa. We had already been traveling for ten days; people were dying and there was no food. I actually saw one guy cutting a piece of flesh from another man’s body.

Our Ali wanted to be an astronaut, but that wasn’t (understandably) possible in his home town in Somalia where squabbling clans were bringing AK-47s to mosques and shooting at ten-year-olds racing home.  So, our young and desperate adventurer, upon reaching the age of 19, found enough friends and relatives to front him $800 to go on Tahrib (described as attempting to get to Europe, but one definition I saw was that it translated to ‘smuggling’—being smuggled or doing the smuggling wasn’t clear).

Mom thought he was crazy!  That is what all Moms say!

I first heard about Tahrib on the radio when I was 19. There were people in Europe talking about their new lives and how they’d traveled there from Somalia by boat. It sounded like a good idea. After a while I told my parents I planned to leave. They were shocked. “Are you mad?” my mother said. “You’re a young boy, what has gotten into you?” I told them how I thought Tahrib was my only way forward, that I could only find a better life in Europe. They thought I was joking. When I called them from the first boat months later, they were terrified.

First boat was bad, but no cannibalism yet!

Our first trip was from Beled Hawo to Bosaso, a port city on the northern shore of Somalia. It wasn’t the worst journey, but we had hardly any food and the people who drove us there were being very cruel, shouting at us and hitting people occasionally. I was only a kid [editors note:  Somalis are “kids” for a long time, I noticed that when they were leaving Minneapolis to join al-Shabaab, kids, just kids!] —I missed my hometown already and everyone seemed so sad even though they were heading off for this exciting new life.

Captured by Libyan armed men who extracted $300 from Mom and Dad for Ali’s release and then on to the merry Tahrib again!

All I wanted was to be back in Beled Hawo with my parents. I didn’t care if I ever made it to Europe. Even if, miraculously, we survived the journey, how would the Europeans treat us? Would I get a visa? Would I be thrown in jail? I was terrified.

The trip across the Mediterranean was the worst part—people were dropping dead and others needed a little protein with their bread and biscuits.

It took another ten days to find a boat from Libya to Lampedusa. Then the real horror began. There was only bread and biscuits on board and the heat was unbearable. People were dropping dead and the captain did nothing. People started eating each other: it was like something from a scary movie right in front of my eyes. That leg of the journey took three days. It felt like years.

Ali, the would-be astronaut, knows who to blame for all of this horror—politicians who don’t help Somalia!  Of course that is the moral of the story after all!  Ali continues:

Everyone knows that politicians in Europe and Africa are doing nowhere near enough to address the dangers of Tahrib. Otherwise all those people would not have died near Lampedusa this month. No one is addressing the real issues—the violence, the poverty—that led me away from Somalia. [Here is an idea—-how about if Somalis get their own house in order!—ed]

Postscript!  Italy let me rebuild my life—-back in Somalia!  WTH!

People tell me Lampedusa is beautiful. I have no idea. I can barely remember any of the landscape I saw: everything was so terrifying. But, Alhamdulillah [praise to God], I made it there alive and, amazingly, got an Italian visa after three months of being held at a camp. Some people I traveled with waited years and others never got one. I love Italy, though. I lived there for three years and made a small living working in various jobs. I may never be an astronaut but Italy let me rebuild a life that was destroyed. I’m back in Somalia now—not in Beled Hawo but another city. I hope I get to visit Italy again some day.

Ahhhh!  What are we missing here?

Evidence is piling up that one of Westgate killers was Somali refugee from Norway

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been patiently waiting to learn if any of America’s contributions to al-Shabaab (aka al-Shabab) have been identified as among those responsible for the Kenyan mall massacre nearly a month ago.

One of the Westgate Somali killers caught on surveillance camera looking for his next victim.

Here is the latest report on the Norwegian citizen/Somali refugee believed to have been involved.  From the BBC (hat tip: Ed). Emphasis is mine:

The man being investigated by Norwegian police over the attack on Kenya’s Westgate shopping centre is Hassan Abdi Dhuhulow, BBC Newsnight has learned.

The 23-year-old Norwegian citizen of Somali origin is suspected of helping to plan and carry out the attack.

BBC Newsnight has spoken to a relative of his in Norway who said he left the town of Larvik for Somalia in 2009.

At least 67 people died in the attack in Nairobi, which the al-Qaeda linked group al-Shabab says it carried out.

Last week Norway’s intelligence agency, the PST, said it had sent officers to Kenya to verify reports that a Norwegian citizen had been involved in the assault on the shopping centre, which began on Saturday 21 September and lasted four days.

He grew up in Norway!

Dhuhulow was born in Somalia, but he and his family moved to Norway as refugees in 1999.

There is a lot of mumbo-jumbo in the story along the lines of disenfranchised youths (dumb and naive), but nothing in the text about the Islamic Jihad imperative that is really driving crime of this horrific nature worldwide.  However, watch the BBC film and note that a neighbor says he was talking about the Koran all the time.

And, I’ve been wondering what the heck is taking so long to ID any bodies that might have been the attackers.  The BBC tells us this:

Forensic investigators are still combing through the rubble of Westgate – no bodies have yet been identified and it is not known whether the attackers are alive or dead.

Boxes of body parts sent to Kenyan morgue!

In a related story just this morning, foreign forensic teams have arrived at a Nairobi mortuary to attempt to identify the remains of what some believe are the killers.

From AP at Fox News:

NAIROBI, Kenya –  Officials in Kenya say two boxes of charred body parts have been delivered to the city morgue from Westgate Mall and that four AK-47 assault rifles were found alongside the remains. Gunmen stormed the mall on Sept. 21, killing more than 60 people.

A city morgue official told The Associated Press that the two boxes arrived Thursday, and that a team of foreigners padlocked the boxes Friday.

Amazingly, several of these reports are now referring to only 4 men having pulled off this slaughter.  Surely these four were not the brains of the operation.

Just wondering if they let Anders Breivik in on this latest news?

Warship rescue update! Not Somalis after all!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Crew on the USS San Antonio help African migrants aboard the ship after their dinghy encountered rough waters in their attempt to get to Europe. Photo: US Navy

Reader Charles, from Malta, has alerted us to more news on the latest African migrant boat incident we told you about last night.  Turns out the migrants are not Somalis but come from various African nations and when brought ashore in Malta became violent demanding they be taken to Italy.

I don’t know who made the Somali ID mistake, but I wouldn’t put it past the illegal aliens to initially claim Somali ethnicity knowing the West is bending over backwards to accommodate Somali “refugees.”

Below are the two reports from Charles (emphasis is mine).

From the Times of Malta (yesterday):

A group of 129 migrants arrived at Marsamxett on board a patrol boat – some 24 hours after their rubber dinghy was spotting in rough seas 70 miles south of Malta yesterday.

One was referred to hospital.

The migrants – mainly men – appeared in good health as they disembarked from the deck of the patrol boat. Some were covered by blankets.

Most of them – 70, are from Gambia, 36 from Senegal, two from Nigeria, three from Sierra Leone, one from Guinea, six from Guinea-Bissau, 10 from Mali, and one from Burkina Faso.

Clearly economic migrants!  Not “refugees” or “asylum seekers” escaping persecution!

To read more of the story, one must subscribe.

Then also from the Times of Malta yesterday, rescued Africans got violent when they were placed in detention:

A group of some 130 newly-arrived migrants caused a disturbance at Safi Detention Camp – protesting that they wanted to be sent to Italy.

Informed sources said the disturbance started when members of the group objected to being held at Safi Detention Centre.

They insisted that they wanted to be sent to Italy.

Items were thrown at Detention officers and reinforcements of the Police Rapid Intervention Unit and the AFM were called in.

Photo is from an AFP story that has the nationalities of the aliens listed as well.

For new readers, I’ll bet we have over a hundred posts on Malta over the last 6 plus years.  We follow the island nation’s troubles with illegal immigration because the US State Department (egged-on by the Jesuits of Malta) has contributed to it by turning some Somalis (mostly young men!) who arrived there illegally into “refugees” and sent them to America thus creating a magnet for more illegals to attempt the journey.  Click here for our Malta archive.

Addendum:  Here is a story I don’t have time to post. It is about the pile-up of mostly economic migrants in Libya all hoping to get aboard one of these vessels to Europe.  I wonder what Samantha Power, Hillary and Susan Rice think now about their excellent adventure in Libya—so much for the responsibility to protect!

US Warship in Mediterranean rescues Somalis from dinghy

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
It’s a good thing the USS San Antonio doesn’t carry immigration lawyers on board or asylum requests might have been filed!

Update October 18th:  Not Somalis at all!  Instead a mishmash of African economic migrants who turned violent when put in detention in Malta—read all about it here!

120 of them according to the news from the Associated Press:

VALLETTA, Malta (AP) — The American warship where an al-Qaida suspect was interrogated after being snatched from Libya by U.S. special forces has come to the rescue of 120 Somali migrants.

A statement Thursday from the Maltese army says it asked the USS San Antonio to intervene Wednesday because it was close to the migrants’ dinghy. The Somalis were having trouble in rough seas and high winds some 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Malta and were taken to the Mediterranean island.

Libyan terror suspect Abu Anas al-Libi, whose real name is Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was captured during a military raid in Libya on Oct. 5 and questioned for a week aboard the San Antonio before being transferred to the U.S. He is due to stand trial on terror charges in New York City.

The ship is very similar to the one that came to the rescue in the newly released Somali pirate movie, “Captain Phillips,” which I had not particularly wanted to see after I read reports that some of the crew of the Maersk Alabama thought the film was inaccurate.  After seeing it, I do recommend the movie for a whole host of reasons I won’t go into here.  But, if you read Greenfield’s ‘Hyena Cure’ yesterday (and see the movie) you may see that Greenfield is on to something.

Regular readers know that boats are launching daily carrying illegal migrants from Africa hoping to reach the promised land—Europe.   Some make it, some don’t.

First Congolese settle in Lancaster Co. PA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
On-going conflicts in DR Congo is the US’s problem now—excuse for tens of thousands of “refugees” to be resettled in America.

This is your typical ‘formulaic’ story about a new refugee arriving in small town America.  I’m posting it here just to remind you that we are expected to take 50,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo over the next few years.

Why?  I don’t know, some fuzzy notion that Belgium and the West messed up West/Central Africa and now we are obligated to take in their people displaced by warring factions.

From Lancaster Online (emphasis is mine):

Terry K. Mulumba decided to leave behind his haunting past.

“Thinking about it would be wrong and would take me down,” he said.

Mulumba, a 22-year-old studying for the math and science portions of the GED test, is one of the first refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to have been resettled in Lancaster County.

Lutheran Refugee Services and Church World Service each expect to resettle 50 more Congolese here in the coming year. To put that into perspective, Lutheran Refugee Services settles an average of 200 refugees of varying nationalities in Lancaster County each year.

Like Mulumba, who came here in 2012, many Congolese are escaping the eastern and southeastern regions of the country because of political and ethnic tensions that were fostered through years of Belgian colonial rule and a Western-backed dictatorship.

Just for your information, Lancaster (the city) at the heart of Amish country, has had refugee overload for some time and so the resettlement agencies are now spreading refugees to surrounding small towns in the county, like this one (Akron, PA) in this story.

For new readers, Lutheran Refugee Services (subcontractor of LIRS) and Church World Service are two of nine US State Department contractors resettling refugees with your tax dollars in the US.  Also, for new readers one of our top (most-clicked on) items here at RRW is our fact sheet, here.

Click here for previous posts on Lancaster.