Date: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 13:27:55 +0200
Intelligence agencies know Traffickers Networks
Gangs, militias, boat mooring, docking port and the phone numbers of the bosses: Is it possible to fight the refugee disaster with this knowledge?
Up to 1000 € per person costs a place in one of the boats: refugees from North Africa on their way towards Lampedusa. Photo: Goulio Poscitelli (Contrasto)
By Oliver Meiler
Correspondent
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2/04/2015,08:52
Certain numbers are so outrageous that they are outside the categories of thought. 700, maybe more than 900 people drowned over the weekend in their flight to Europe in the Mediterranean, only sixty miles off the Libyan coast. Penned caught on a crowded, capsized boat. How many were there exactly, you will never know. Probably their identity and origin will never be known.
Certain numbers are so outrageous that they are outside the categories of thought. 700, maybe more than 900 people drowned over the weekend in their flight to Europe in the Mediterranean, only sixty miles off the Libyan coast. Penned caught on a crowded, capsized boat. How many were there exactly, you will never know. Probably their identity and origin will never be known.
The criminal Traffickers had forced the refugees crowded with weapons on board, sealed off many of them below deck, in the belly of the ship, and then have sealed off the door to the cargo area. One of the few survivors told after his rescue: "It was clear that there was not enough room for all of us." There were also 40 or 50 children on board and 200 women, 950 men all together.
When the auxiliary warships arrived on the scene, everything was quiet, tranquil. The Mediterranean Sea is very deep at that point. It had devoured the refugees, so many at once as never before. Only 28 survived. The writer Claudio Magris writes in the "Corriere della Sera" from a "crescendo of Horrors", which you to attend, day after day.
Also, this formula expresses mainly the powerlessness over the enormity. And the alleged impotence in dealing with the phenomenon of flight, the tragedies, the criminal gangs, which is thought that it would be in the next few months much more massive. Without a policy became apparent that could put an end to the drama. "The sea," said Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, "is an ugly beast. Militarily, we will never be able to completely control. "But at least better in order to prevent further disasters?
Selective inserts
Italy has complained for some time that the partner countries in Europe leave with the management the flow of refugees alone. And that this power will not decrease as long as Libya, where most of the sloops of despair store, sink into political chaos and anarchy, its coasts do not control the people smugglers leave granted almost free.
In a rapid stabilization of Libya believes nobody. To fruitless ran the international negotiations for the establishment of a government of national unity. Therefore, the Italian Government called on the international community to now on as quickly as possible to do everything possible to fight the Traffickers to prevent them from her unscrupulous activity. The speech is to destroy ad hoc missions of the Navy against their power and their transport business and to prevent further tragedies. Traffickers, say the Italians are like the mafia. And so people know each other from finally.
How exactly would be like the legal framework for such an intervention is not yet clear. A military action in the proper sense seems impossible, because otherwise violated Libya saw its sovereignty. More likely are targeted strikes against the gangs, perhaps the destruction of the boats lying there in the ports. Renzi phone with all the European capitals, promotes the plan. Last week he was in favor at Barack Obama. He loves to be Italy and Malta the little that is exposed similarly geographically neighboring country if the operation would be embedded in a mandate to the United Nations and would be supported by the EU.
If you believe the Italian newspapers, then you know the national intelligence well aware of the gangs and militias, whose heads and accomplices abroad, on the berths and departure ports in western Libya, between Zuwara and Zawiya, between Khoms and Misrata. Apparently, the knowledge goes so far that the Italians have the phone numbers of the bosses. And with each raid under the liaisons in Italy they learn more.
On Sunday, the Italian police arrested by order of the Prosecutor of Palermo 24 people to whom to have worked, "a travel agency" for migrants, to some extent all inclusive: the origin of flight in Africa or the Middle East Libya, Italy to Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway. Investigators have traced the money flows. They suspect the group to have formed a criminal organization in order to make profit from the clandestine immigration. Mafia flat. It threatens them prison sentences of up to nine years.
Become hell
The prosecutor of Palermo also believes to know that a million refugees in Libya just waiting to try their luck. Despite everything, despite all adversity, despite the death dangers. Get a way not only want refugees from Syria, Somalia and Eritrea who use Libya as a transit station. Get a way also want people from West Africa and Asia who live for many years in the country, mainly as laborers and domestic servants, and who no longer work since the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.
Libya is being for many to hell. Of particular concern are the circumstance in the completely overcrowded detention centers for refugees be managed according to eyewitnesses such as prisons. The bathroom facilities are to be disastrous, inhumane. Violence and torture are daily occurrences. And so the refugees lay their fate in the hands of smugglers, they know that they are not interested on their welfare, but only on their money.
The flight over the Strait of Sicily is the cheapest, low-cost variant on the way to Europe. Because it is the riskiest. And because the smugglers force the refugees as goods in much too small, often not seaworthy boats. 1000 euros costs a place in the deadly crush, children pay less. The more passengers go on a boat, the greater the proceeds of the Mafia. The refugees wait for days for a call of the bands. When the call comes, it must happen very quickly. You will be guided to a deposition location on a deserted beach, mostly at night. Who hesitates, he/she is guided by force on the boat.
**PS: Electronic German to English Translation. I also try to correct some words and sentences.
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