Category: Who is going where

Lampedusa death toll expected to rise

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 11th:  Refugees breed ill will on Lampedusa, here.

Update October 9th:  German interior minister—the solution is NOT to allow more in, here.

This is a story you could hardly have missed over the last few days when more than a hundred of mostly African illegal aliens drowned trying to reach the island of Lampedusa in Italy.  It was even reported in my small hometown paper, but I would be remiss in not noting it here since we have written so much over the last five plus years about the boat people trying to get from Africa to Italy or Malta.

Emergency workers among bodies

In fact, at least some of the Syrians now blocking the port of Calais in France say they made the journey across the Mediterranean, landed in Italy and simply traveled northward in Europe unmolested by immigration authorities.

From The Independent:

With 111 bodies recovered from the waters off the Italian island of Lampedusa after a boat carrying 500 African migrants capsized, search and rescue teams had to abandon their efforts amid poor weather conditions.

The scale of the tragedy was evident when a ferry delivered 140 more coffins to the little island as preparations were made for mass funerals at five different sites in Agrigento on the Sicilian mainland. More than 350 people are now feared dead.

Coast Guard captain Floriana Segreto, said: “In total among the living and the dead when have accounted for 266 people. But our work is not finished.” Emergency services said that half of those confirmed dead so far were women.

The disaster occurred early on Thursday morning when a 20m boat carrying migrants mainly from Eritrea, Somalia and Ghana got into difficulty less than a mile from the shore of Lampedusa. Someone on board set light to a piece of fabric to attract the attention of nearby ships, but the flames spread, forcing the desperate refugees into the sea.

Vito Fiorino, a Lampedusa resident, said he was the first to come across dozens of migrants scattered in the Mediterranean Sea while he was on an early morning fishing expedition. He told the Associated Press that some of the survivors told him they had been fighting to stay alive for three hours and did not have the strength to grab the life-ring he threw to them. “It was a scene from a film, something you hope never to see in life,” he said.

Read it all.

Photo is from this story at the London Evening Standard, where we hear this:

….the independent UN investigator on the human rights of migrants said the boat wreck highlighted the dangers of harsh measures against people seeking a better life in another country.

I guess what this means is—we can’t beat the criminals so just open the borders world-wide and let them all in!

Syrians block ferry terminal at Calais, demand entry into the UK

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update October 10th:  Brits to French: don’t offload your problem on us, here.

Update October 6th, here.

Are they “refugees” or invaders?  

That’s a question that comes to my mind as I read the many reports coming out of France over the last two days about Syrians demanding entry into the UK even after France relented and offered asylum there.  Hat tip: pungentpeppers who has been following the demonstrators’ demands closely.

Syrian invaders (oops! refugees) sit on a roof at the ferry terminal at Calais. Photo at NBC Philippe Huguen / AFP – Getty Images

I’m also reminded of Kilian Kleinschmidt at Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan saying that the Syrians were the most difficult refugees he had ever seen.  Their attitude, that the West owes them something, is not going to endear them to the citizens of first world countries who are frankly sick of the angry squabbling Middle Eastern migrants.

Here is NBC News yesterday:

Some 60 Syrian refugees – many of them on hunger strike – are in a standoff with police at a ferry terminal in northern France.

The group has occupied a footbridge at the port of Calais, a popular crossing point into Britain, and is demanding the British government grant them asylum into the U.K.

Between 20 and 40 of the group have not eaten for two days, activists and protesters said.

Katie Wellington, an activist with the Calais Migrant Society who is at the port, said some 70 riot police attempted to clear the site on Friday morning. In response two Syrians climbed onto a roof and threatened to jump if their asylum demands were not met.

Wellington said the group has effectively given the British government an ultimatum: “Let us into the U.K. or we will die here.”

“These people have different reasons for wanting to come to the U.K.,” she said. “Many of them have family or communities there, and they feel they will get better protection from the [British] government than in France.”

Denis Robin, the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region, told Sky News he has offered the Syrians, currently illegal migrants, asylum in France.

Mohammed:  “We are ignored.”

One of the protesters, 25-year-old Mohammed al Kayd, said he was an economics student studying in Damascus before he was forced to flee Syria one year ago.

“In Calais we sleep in the streets and no one asks us what we need or what happened to us. We are ignored,” he told NBC News via telephone.   [Well, Mohammed, apparently a good community organizer, managed to not be ignored by NBC.—ed]

Check out Mohammed’s travel route:

“I left Syria with a little bit of money which I had to spend on food and travel,” he said of his 2,000-mile journey across Europe. “I went through Jordan and from there through Egypt and to Italy by boat.

“The journey by boat lasted for 10 days [What?  Was he in a rowboat?—ed] and the last three of these I went without food. From Italy I went to France and traveled to Calais by train.”   [Sounds like he had a pretty easy time traveling across Europe which no longer has border checks on each country—ed]

At France 24 we learn that some of the poor and destitute travelers spent $13,000 to reach the port of Calais and they unleashed their anger at the French President where even the Socialist Hollande now apparently knows that an invasion is on.

Ali, a 38-year-old, can barely hide his anger, saying although French President Francois Hollande had taken a strong stand against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad for using chemical weapons, the French were not welcoming at all.

“Why does the president say one thing and the police another?” Ali said, adding that he had spent $13,000 (9,500 euros) to come to a country where the “president said ‘we must help Syrians.'”

“Here even animals are better treated than us,” he said.

$13,000!  $13,000!  Where the h*** is all that money coming from? 

Does no mainstream investigative reporter ever ask?  I believe young Muslim activists are being paid to lead these demonstrations, the question is, who is funding them?

I hear Al Azraq calling!  That is the state-of-the-art UN refugee camp in Jordan that sits empty.  How about packing all of the demanding Syrians up and taking them there (including the ones now plaguing Bulgaria).  Such action would send a message and other Syrians would think twice before heading off to Europe.  It is a simple solution, but too sensible for the UN.

For more information:  We never did make a special category for Syrian refugees (a mistake), but if you use our tags you should be able to find the dozens of posts on the topic.  (See tags in right hand side bar).

Bulgaria in crisis as Syrians flow in from Turkey, some fear terrorists are among them

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
For the longest time Muslim migrants moved from Turkey to Greece, but Greece has been tough on them, so I suspect they have now discovered the weaker border crossings into Bulgaria.

Update October 6th:  Refugees complain in Sofia.

I’ve been receiving alerts (dozens of them) about the refugee crisis in Bulgaria for weeks now, sorry I didn’t get to the story sooner.

A few days ago a reader sent me this BBC story about the head of Bulgaria’s refugee agency being fired because the problem is getting out of hand.  Bulgaria is the poorest nation in the European Union and has the misfortune of being on the border with Turkey which is apparently letting Syrians just pass through their borders and move on further into western Europe.

In my view, Turkey is simply advancing the Islamic doctrine of immigration (Al Hijra!).

From the BBC:

The head of Bulgaria’s refugee agency has been dismissed as the EU country struggles to cope with increasing numbers fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Nikola Kazakov was fired by Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev for failing to handle the influx.

The UN’s refugee agency last month described Bulgarian centres for displaced Syrians as “dire”.

Mr Kazakov said Bulgarian leaders had ignored his warnings of a refugee crisis even as they asked for EU help.

Bulgaria is the gateway to the European Union for refugees fleeing Syria via Turkey, many crossing the border illegally to seek asylum.

It now receives up to 100 mainly Syrian refugees a day – a sharp increase on the four per month arriving a year ago.

Bulgarian officials said on Wednesday that 2,377 migrants had been detained on its border in September alone.

Kazkov warned superiors in June of the pending crisis!

Mr Yovchev, the interior minister, said Mr Kazakov’s “inadequate organisation” was to blame for the problems at the country’s three refugee centres.

But Mr Kazkov insisted he had warned the government of an impending refugee crisis in June but was ignored, the Sofia News Agency reported.

The article is focused on the UN complaining that the refugees aren’t being well cared-for (what else is new!), and the Bulgarians are asking for help from the European Union (good luck with that!).  I’ve seen many articles in recent weeks about how the citizens of Bulgaria are furious about what is happening to them.

Last month Mr Youchev said more than 4,000 people were seeking asylum in Bulgaria, a number he called a “disproportionate burden” for the EU’s poorest nation.

He appealed for other EU states to host some of its refugees and provide financial assistance.   

Meanwhile a Bulgarian publication warns of the potential for terrorists to be among the refugees.

From the Standart (they need a little better English translator, but you will get the idea):

Some of the Syrian refugees in Bulgaria may be terrorists as Syria currently trains terrorists which it spreads around the world, terrorism expert Col Ivan Boyadzhiev told on Nova TV today citing two Israeli sources.

The expert supported his claim with the fact that some of the Syrain illegal border crossers to Bulgaria carry large amounts of cash and valid IDs.  [pay attention to this business about “refugees” with large amounts of cash—-ed]

According to Boyadzhiev, the Syrian terrorist cells are seeking less protected countries, as they get caught fast in the USA.  [I don’t know what that means, how many are getting into the US across our borders???—ed]

Th ecolonel noted that having a refugee shelter in the Sofia suburb of “Vrazhdebna” just ”meters away” from the Bulgarian capital’s airport was an ”alarming” idea.

Boyadzhiev also alerted that some Iraqis, Jordans and people from across the Middle East are trying to enter Europe through Bulgaria by presenting themselves as Syrian refugees without ID papers.  [We are hearing this all over the world even as far away as Australia!  Everyone is a Syrian now!—-ed]

He was also adamant, that Bulgaria needs European help in dealing with the current refugee situation which is runnining out of control.

It is definitely running out of control!

Austria takes first Syrian refugees—Christians!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have a story to post today from AP at the Washington Post before I get to the Syrian article.  The title is:  ‘Austria governing coalition barely keeps its absolute majority as anti-immigrant party gains.’  The tone of it is one of shock that Austria’s ‘Freedom Party’ should be gaining (elections were this past Sunday) although not quite enough to wrest control of the government from the Socialists.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache

Nevertheless, just as Australia demonstrated recently, the voting public is increasingly concerned about high numbers of Muslim migrants seeking asylum in their countries.

Here is the WAPO:

VIENNA — Hundreds of thousands of voters disenchanted with Austria’s cozy ruling coalition voted Sunday for a right-wing opposition party championing anti-immigrant and EU-skeptic views, leaving the government barely holding on to the absolute majority its needs to stay in power for the next five years.

[…..]

Although the results gave the two parties nearly 51 percent of all votes cast Sunday, the real winner in terms of gains was the right-wing Freedom Party. With 21.4 percent, its showing was nearly 4 percentage points better than at the last general elections five years ago.

[…..]

…..in a country traditionally fearful of outside influences bursting its bubble of prosperity, Freedom Party calls of “Austria first” appeared to have been effective, along with slogans exploiting distrust of Muslim immigrants.

So why might voters distrust Muslim migrants?  Remember this story from February when “asylum seekers” holed-up in a church, went on a hunger strike and demanded they be allowed to stay in Austria.  It is one of many we have written about Austria (click here for more).

Austria criticized for taking Syrian Christians!

Now this is the story (at the Lebanon Daily Star) about the first Syrians arriving in Austria.  17 countries have agreed to take Syrians according to the UNHCR.

This is the first specific mention I’ve seen of Syrian Christians being helped by the West.

VIENNA: A family of four Syrian refugees has arrived in Austria, the first of 500 that the country has offered to take.

Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck says the family arrived Tuesday evening. He says plans are to bring the rest of the contingent to Austria “as quickly as possible,” but cannot give a precise date for when the last refugee will enter the country.

The four are Christians. Charity organizations have criticized the government’s selection method, saying Christians were given preference. Grundboeck says that members of groups most at threat were chosen – children and minorities, including religious minorities.

“Charity organizations” complained about the choice of Christians, gee, what a surprise!

Mainstream media: Somalis just “found their way” to America

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In the wake of the brutal slaughter in Kenya (don’t open this link if you have a weak stomach) by Somali Jihadists a little over a week ago, I’m struck by the fact  that the mainstream media is running one story after another about America’s growing Somali population, but the word “refugee” never makes it into the telling.   I can’t say never, but I just reviewed a bunch of recent stories in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Time magazine and searched for the “R” word. It was not there!

A seriously wounded girl is carried away from the Westgate mall in Nairobi as Al-Shabaab’s terror reign unfolded.

And, by the way, I still haven’t seen any further report on whether Americans have been officially identified among the killers.  Have you?

Do you think the average reader, someone not following immigration issues daily, wonders how a particular group of immigrants ‘found their way’ to America?  I think they do, so why does the media rarely mention the legal programs through which the US government is changing America’s demographic make-up?

Below is an example from a New York Times story entitled, ‘Somali Community in U.S. Fears New Wave of Stigma After Kenya Attack.’

Would this help you know anything about how the Somalis got here, how they in fact became a “community” (through the US State Department’s Refugee Resettlement Program going back three decades)?   The “R” word does not appear in the story:

More than 32,000 people of Somali ancestry live in Minnesota, census figures show, and local leaders say the true number is far higher. Some came in the 1990s after fleeing civil war, and others are their children, many of them born in this country.    [By the way, the number is way higher than 32,000 in Minnesota, in addition to the tens of thousands in other preferred resettlement states—ed]

They “came….after fleeing civil war.”   What!  they just got on a plane and said “here we are America,” “let us in,” and then picked Minnesota on a map?

Regular readers of RRW know how it happened (here and here), but do the reporters not know or do they deliberately cover-up the truth about LEGAL immigration programs gone wrong?

By the way, there is a good article (at Powerline, hat tip: Judy) about the problems the media is glossing-over with the Somali “community” in Minnesota, but it too doesn’t use the word refugee.  Why is that?