More Lives Lost to the Sea

A growing number of refugees are turning to the sea in hopes of leaving war-torn homelands as soon as possible and in fear that increasingly restrictive land borders will not allow them to pass. In these times of desperation, smugglers seem like their only hope.

The refugees currently in Serbia, who did not walk the entire distance, arrived in some part by boat, with routes being arranged by smugglers in Turkey, Egypt, Libya, or Lebanon. Turkey seems to be the most common path to Bulgaria or Romania, and advancing the rest of the way to Serbia on foot.

However, not everyone is fortunate enough to reach the shore.

A few days ago, a shipwrecked raft, with no engine, was discovered off the coast of Libya. When emergency response reached the stricken boat, there were numerous dead bodies inside. But the horror didn't stop there. As those bodies were pulled ashore, the emergency team realized that the beach was covered in corpses. Seventy-four in total.

Photo courtesy of @IFRC_MENA twitter.

Flavio Di Giacomo, a spokesperson for the International Organization for Migration in Rome, said that the rubber boat left Libya for Italy on Saturday and has been drifting in the water for several days. The nationalities of the people onboard is still unknown, as the coastal town of Zawiya, where the bodies were found, is an international smuggling hub that has only grown since major fighting broke out in Syria.

"It's really strange that smugglers would take off the engine," he said. "They are becoming increasingly cruel."

There are still bodies in the water, floating deeper into the Mediterranean due to the rough winter weather. The type of dingy that was recovered could hold 120 people, but smuggling ships are typically hazardously overcrowded, meaning that as many as 200 people could have been aboard when it capsized, and the death toll is expected to rise.

When I reached out to Mr. Di Giacomo's office in regards to the smugglers, a representative said, "More people just means more business for them. Lives have a dollar sign."

These flimsy, overpacked, and (now) engineless rafts have taken over 5,000 lives in 2016 alone, that's one out of every seventy-three who try to cross.

One out of every 73. Thinking of this number, it was hard for me to walk down the street today. Knowing that at least one of us on that sidewalk wouldn't have made it in that situation...

Photo courtesy of @IFRC_MENA twitter.