EU does not want to stop migrants drowning as they flee North Africa

Tuesday, 10 May 2011

By Judith Sunderland, senior researcher on Western Europe for Human Rights Watch

A man named Mohammed posted this plea on the Migrants at Sea website three days after a rickety boat capsized on 6 April in rough seas just 39 miles from Lampedusa: "I want to know if my brother is there with the Eritreans dead in the sea, his name is Sebah Tahir Nuru." 

The long-expected exodus by sea from war-torn Libya has begun, and with it the tragic and avoidable loss of life.

Leading EU member states such as France and the UK are active players in the UN Security-Council-mandated NATO air operations to protect Libya's civilian population. Yet when it comes to civilians fleeing Libya by boat, EU states seem more concerned with domestic politics than saving lives.

More than 200 people, including children, are presumed dead in the 6 April tragedy. Two young women died on 13 April when the small boat that held them and over 200 others smashed into rocks off Sicily. As many as 800 more people who have left Libya by boat in the following days are unaccounted for.

A survivor of an unsuccessful crossing told me there were 72 people in his boat when it left Libya. When the boat was already in distress, what appeared to be a military helicopter hovered above and dropped some water and biscuits. The captain of the boat decided to remain in the area, believing the helicopter would send a rescue team. None came. As the boat, now out of fuel, drifted, the occupants saw what looked like an aircraft carrier and tried to convey that they were in distress, but received no help. The boat drifted for two weeks before the currents pushed it back to Libya. Only nine out of the 72 people on board survived.

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Pope John Paul II: Social Teaching Reinvigorated the Faith

by Stephen F. Schneck - Extract

This Sunday, May 1, we celebrate the beatification of Pope John Paul II. May 1 is also the traditional feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Even more specially, this year May 1 is Divine Mercy Sunday, an observance inaugurated by John Paul II himself.

The Feast of St. Joseph the Worker honors the vocation of working men and women, with particular attention to the contribution of the working class to the common good of all. Traditionally, it’s a day when Catholics in unions and guilds around the world gather in our churches and parish halls to draw parallels between the divine work of creation and the rights and justice associated with the work of human hands.

John Paul II’s theology was ever about the exuberant overflowing of divine love being what ought to unite all humankind in peace and solidarity. This was a hallmark of his preaching in his native Poland.

Divine Mercy Sunday offers a similar message. It is a special observance of the infinite openness of divine love that should inform Christian life. Inaugurated by John Paul II (in homage to the Polish St. Faustina), the day also holds up the ideal of the life of the apostles and disciples of the early church as a model for the earthly imitation of divine mercy. John Paul II died in 2005 on the vigil of this Sunday. The scriptural readings the pontiff selected for Divine Mercy Sunday utterly complement those of the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. Here, for example, is a well-known excerpt from the first reading for Divine Mercy Sunday (Acts 2:44): All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.