Here it is, a tiny little video clip of Somali illegal aliens detained in Malta protesting yesterday.  And this is the entire news story accompanying the video:

Somali illegal immigrants at Safi Barracks this afternoon protested at being held in detention.

A number of sections from the police force including the Special Assignment Group and the Mounted Police, as well as the C Company of the Armed Forces of Malta. Police Commissioner John Rizzo and assistant commissioners were also on site.

A ministry spokesman said that there were 400 to 500 immigrants at Safi but the protest was only held by the Somalis.

Now go check out the pages of comments; the native Maltese people are a little angry (you think!).    We have written about Malta since we began RRW in July 2007—a tiny island nation struggling to cope with boatloads of Africans trying to break into Europe and landing on Malta first.  Much to my utter shock the US State Department is bringing some of Malta’s  illegal Somalis to the US as refugees (see Tea Party Send-off here).

One commenter, I’m guessing he is African from Sweden named Moses Mula, has really stirred the pot criticizing the Maltese people.  You gotta laugh though at one point he says he is in Sweden because his daughter is autistic and in Sweden he can get the medical help she needs, not so in Malta!    He also had the nerve to tell the Maltese that there are no immigrant riots in Sweden, but of course, thanks to the internet, commenters have responded with the truth—Sweden was in flames with immigrant riots even before the recent Gaza protests.

Here is just one comment from a Maltese citizen, Ivan Attard,  to Moses Mula:

Have you ever realised that your pontificating on our ‘christian obligations’ and other charitable hogwash from your safe distance in Sweden is very painful and distressing to us who have chosen to hold our ground and decided to embrace our beloved rock till death?

What matters to us dear Moses is our wellbeing and the future of our children. Yes, we want our small (very small) space on earth to be safeguarded against being overrun with foreign and alien culture and flushed down the drain called ‘multiculturalisms’. We realize we are too small to afford to let this happen and are naturally reacting as any sane and self-respecting people (even much, much larger countries) would do in the circumstances.

The African Continent’s problem is not ours. We can help a handful but definitely have to say NO to more. Is Italy less ‘christian’ than us now that they have announced the repatriation of ALL new arrivals?

That, Moses, is the gist of all the comments and the preoccupations here and please refrain from quoting your bibles and judging the moral and ‘christian’ integrity of your compatriots.

There is more where that came from.

I knew that African workers were often abused and treated like slaves in Muslim countries, but I was surprised to hear it was so bad in Lebanon, once a thriving multicultural and multireligious nation.    This is a story about how, in this case, Ethiopian women have figured out how to escape their terrible lives and get to the West (if they live).

Since May 2008, Ethiopians have been officially banned from coming to Lebanon (it is not clear which end did the banning). It is the latest in a series of bans and one of the only means of protest by the Ethiopian government against the suffering of its female citizens in Lebanon – mostly live-in domestic workers without legal protection or an embassy in the country. But when times get too rough, Ethiopian women turn to their tightly-knit networks, not to return home but to find work elsewhere. One option is to pay a smuggler to enter Greece by land or sea, and another is to marry a refugee in the hope of being resettled in a wealthy country, such as Sweden, Australia, Canada or the US. For many Ethiopians here then, Lebanon has become a transit hub, a springboard to a better life.

Some die, however, before they can escape.

While the figure of more than one death per week of domestic workers in Lebanon announced by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in August did not fail to appall the public, not many noticed that more than half of the recorded deaths over a period of one and a half years – mostly due to suicide or falling off balconies – were those of Ethiopian women. It is hardly surprising that many cannot wait to leave.

The article goes on to report how some women pay huge sums to be smuggled into Europe.   But, the part that interested me most was the ‘marry a refugee strategy.’

Another way for Ethiopian women to leave Lebanon is through “marriage” to Sudanese men, whose UNHCR refugee status makes them eligible candidates for resettlement in rich countries (although out of the 111 Sudanese and 40 Africans from other countries in Lebanon who are registered as refugees at the moment, only a handful actually get resettled annually).

Meserat, whose name has also been changed, married a Sudanese man eight years ago. Meserat, according to a friend, was not in love, but she accepted the Sudanese man’s proposal because she knew he had refugee status. She hoped that her husband will get resettled in the West, since Lebanon does not grant asylum or protection to acknowledged refugees. Meserat was lucky, and after she bore her first child, her husband got a resettlement permit to the States. The couple now lives in New York with their four children.

The story reminded me of a post I did last fall about those hot Bhutanese boys—Nepali girls latching on to Bhutanese refugees soon to be resettled in the US.