Category: Africa

East Africans breaking into Europe, some dying on the way

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I came across this story just as I finished my previous post last night about East Africans entering the US illegally.  What struck me right away in this latest article is that those trying to enter Europe (Spain in this case) illegally are so-called “refugees” from Somalia and Eritrea (two of the 4 countries sending illegals to the US).

A series of tragedies involving migrants off the coast of Spain have raised fears that the summer could see a record-breaking death toll in the region, as refugees embark on increasingly perilous routes in smaller boats to avoid detection.

According to human rights agencies, there has been a sharp increase in the numbers of people attempting to make the sea crossing from North Africa to southern Europe, many of them from sub-Saharan conflict zones such as Eritrea and Somalia.

After a week of disasters and rescues at sea that has shocked Spaniards, authorities have identified the coastal port of Almería as the new favoured destination for human traffickers attempting to avoid increased police patrols and surveillance. A total of 51 migrant deaths at sea has been reported this year, but the actual mortality rate is certain to be far higher, since the bodies of many refugees are never recovered. The Red Cross estimates between 2,000 and 3,000 people die trying to reach Spain every year.

I’m making a new category called ‘Africa’, because we have posted so many times on issues relating to the continent and it looks like there will be no let-up.

East Africans easily entering US illegally

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is in keeping with the African theme I’ve been stuck on for the last few days. But here is what I’m wondering:   why do these East Africans have to sneak across the border when our immigration programs, like refugee resettlement, will just bring them over, pay the airfare and set them up in an apartment?  And, lest we forget, take care of any HIV problems they might have.

 

Concern about a terrorist threat to the United States is growing among American intelligence officials due to a recent upsurge in the number of East Africans who have been caught trying to enter the US illegally.

Citing an “internal government assessment” that it had obtained, the Associated Press reported last week that the US is focusing new attention on networks that smuggle people from Djibouti, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.

These four countries are among 35 confidentially listed by the US Department of Homeland Security as being of “special interest” due to the alleged presence of terrorists in their territories.

A total of 159 citizens of the four East African countries have been captured in the past several months as they tried to enter the US without permission. That compares to 125 for all of last year and a total of 22 in 2003.

          

Read the rest of this sobbering article here.    I bet these illegals can blend right into the African immigrant neighborhoods developing in cities large and small across the country.  Where’s the fence?

Speaking the hard truth about Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update:  You might want to see comments on Myers article at American Renaissance here.

It’s almost a year since I wrote about an article by Kevin Myers from Ireland.   And, I thought about Ireland the other day when I saw a puff piece about some new batch of refugees arriving there.  (I didn’t post on it because it was the same old-same old).   Then today, a reader, sent me this article from Ireland’s  Independent by Myers.   Thanks Josh.

Myers doesn’t pull his punches does he?   This is how it begins, but please read the whole article: 

No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again. It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia’s (and Bob Geldof’s) famous Feed The World campaign, and in that time Ethiopia’s population has grown from 33.5 million to 78 million today.

So why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none. To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn’t count.

One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera, which yet again, captures the tragedy of . . .

Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially. Unlike most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the loot to charities to stop starvation there. The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.

And then he says about Somalia:

Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere, over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, Kalashnikov-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts.

Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world.

Write to Mr. Myers:   kmyers@independent.ie

You may wish to write a letter to the editor at the Independent here:  letters@independent.ie

See our coverage of the recent anti-immigrant riots in South Africa here.  And, Somalis in America here.

Earth shattering news from the WaPo: African immigrants support Obama

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Somalis, Ethiopians and Kenyans,  many having entered the US as refugees which puts them on the fast track to citizenship, are organizing for Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama.  Wow!  Can you believe it!  Here is what the Washington Post had to say:

From coast to coast, Somali, Ethiopian, Nigerian and Kenyan Americans are knocking on the doors of their fellow African immigrants, registering new citizens to vote, raising money and preaching Obama’s mantra of hope and change. They hope that his prominence will change their status as one of the nation’s least-recognized immigrant groups, and that he will one day provide aid to help ease the turmoil and poverty in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

One Somali said Obama is like a son, one of them.

“Obama is one generation away from Africa,” said Eyow, who immigrated to the United States nearly 30 years ago. “I have nothing against my brothers and sisters, black people who were born here, but his father is like me. His father was an immigrant….”

Although Eyow says he has nothing against his black brothers who were born here, we have been chronicaling the tensions that are building in the black community partially resulting from the growing realization on the part of native-born black Americans that immigrants are taking their jobs (among other brewing conflicts).

The Post goes on to report that the Migration Policy Institute (in the right hand column you can check for the number of foreign born voters in your state) says the numbers of African immigrants aren’t high enough to swing the election, but organizers have figured out how to have influence in key states like Virginia.

Endale said that in the District, Ethiopians for Obama will not try to influence the national race between Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.). Instead, the group will target Ethiopian households in the Northern Virginia suburbs.

“There’s a possibility of getting 10,000 Ethiopians in Virginia,” Endale said. “That could be a game-changer.”

Is anyone checking to make sure they are all citizens and eligible to vote?

The “lottery”: Somali refugees in Africa stream to camps in hopes of going West

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an article from The National (a UAE newspaper?) this past week that explains why the flow of Somalis to camps will continue as long as there is hope that the US will scoop them up and bring them to a town near you.

UN officials are trying to deal with overcrowded camps along the Somali border.   One option is to move them a thousand miles to camps originally set up for Sudanese but increasingly empty because the Sudanese are going home. 

One option the United Nations is considering is moving Somali refugees across Kenya to camps originally set up for Sudanese refugees.

The Kakuma camp on Kenya’s north-western border holds 130,000 refugees from Sudan’s 22-year civil war. But since a peace deal was signed in 2005, most of the Sudanese refugees have returned home. Last year, 66,000 Sudanese were repatriated from Kakuma and the United Nations expects a further 50,000 to return this year.

As the camps near the Somali border continue to fill – 4,000 refugees are estimated to flee across the border every month – officials would like to move some of them to Kakuma.

OK, that sounds like a good plan, but the article goes on to give excuses why that would be difficult.  So, they send some here.

Since Somalia is still too dangerous to send refugees back home, UN officials have been trying to resettle them in other countries. But this is a slow process as refugees from Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries compete for the limited number of refugee resettlement spots that western countries make available.

About 3,000 refugees were resettled from Dadaab last year, mostly to the United States. This is still less than the amount arriving in the camps each month. Yet refugees hold out hope that they will be among the lucky ones to start a new life in the West.

“The refugees call it the lottery,” said Francesca Bonelli, a community services officer with the United Nations. “It is completely life changing if they get resettled. It is the big dream.”

As long as the UN and the US send any Somalis to the US, the spigot will remain open and the flow continue as Somalis play the lottery.   Put out the word that “refugees” will be sent a thousand miles to another camp across Africa and I bet they will stop arriving at the rate of 4000 a month.