Human Smuggling in the High Seas

[Kaiser]

great reads

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Aid group says more than 1,000 died in four months trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands
7 March 2006

MADRID, Spain (AP) - More than 1,000 Africans have died over the past four months while trying to sail in small boats from Mauritania to Spain's Canary Islands, a Mauritanian aid official said Tuesday.

Ahmed Ould Haya, head of Mauritania's branch of the International Committee of the Red Crescent, spoke a day after reporting the death of at least 45 would-be immigrants in two accidents Saturday and early Monday.

He told the Spanish radio station Cadena Ser that 40 percent of the boats that leave Mauritania for the Canary Islands -- a trip of at least 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) over the Atlantic -- sink or capsize along the way.

Since Nov. 10, between 1,200 and 1,300 people have died trying to reach the Spanish islands from Mauritania, Ould Haya said.

He said the Africans who attempt the journey are desperate to reach Europe in search of a better life. "For them is it like a game of Russian roulette: either I make it or I die."

The Spanish Interior Ministry's top official in the Canary Islands, Jose Segura, said that while hundreds of Africans have died in the past few months trying to make the trip, three or four boats reach the islands each day.

So far this year, more than 2,000 immigrants have made it to the islands, he told Cadena Ser.

Every year thousands of Africans try to reach Spain by one of two traditional routes -- across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland, or leaving from the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara across Atlantic waters to the Canary Islands.

Moroccan police have cracked down on the dangerous departures, though, causing many to head further south and leave from Mauritania, the newspaper El Pais reported Tuesday.

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Three migrants found dead at Italian port

ROME, March 7, 2006 (AFP) - Police in the southern Italian port of Bari were Tuesday investigating the deaths of three illegal immigrants found dead in a cargo container from Albania, the ANSA news agency reported.

The driver of the truck fled as police checked the vehicle, acting on a tip-off, according to the agency.

Police said the dead men, aged between 20 and 25, were from Macedonia.

They said the cause of death was probably suffocation due to exposure to raw silicone transported in the container, which landed from the Albanian port of Durres on Monday night.

A post mortem was being held Tuesday.

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Spanish boat finds 24 bodies after record immigration rush by Africans
By CIARAN GILES
15 March 2006

MADRID, Spain (AP) - A Spanish boat recovered the bodies of 24 people believed to be African migrants floating in waters off the coast of Mauritania, hundreds of miles south of the Canary Islands, authorities said Wednesday.

The news came only hours after police intercepted some 400 Africans trying to reach the Canary Islands -- a single-day record -- after a dangerous 400-mile voyage in nine overcrowded boats from Mauritania, officials said.

Many of the 24 victims had life jackets on them, according to a Labor Ministry official who requested anonymity because she's forbidden to be identified publicly.

The hospital ship found the first five bodies late Tuesday after being alerted by fishing boats in an area 70 miles off the coast of Mauritania, the official said. Nineteen more bodies were found a short while later. All the drowned were thought to be from African countries.

Thousands of Africans seeking a better life try to reach Europe in boats to Spain each year. Hundreds are believed to drown in the attempt.

The immigrant boats traditionally set out from Morocco or the Western Sahara, sailing across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland or to the Canary Islands, off the coast of northwest Africa.

After the massive interception Tuesday, four government ministers held an emergency meeting Wednesday to decide on measures. A Foreign Ministry delegation is scheduled to fly to Mauritania on Thursday for talks with authorities there.

Spain also offered to supply Mauritania with boats to help it patrol its coasts and aid to set up immigrant shelters.

A report from the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, by the leading Spanish daily El Pais this week estimated there were nearly half a million would-be immigrants gathered there awaiting a chance to travel to Spain.

More than 3,000 migrants have reached the Canary Islands from north Africa so far this year, compared to 4,751 in all of 2005 and 8,519 in 2004.

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NYC Woman Gets 35 Years for Human Smuggling
By DAVID B. CARUSO
16 March 2006

NEW YORK (AP) - A Chinatown businesswoman was sentenced to 35 years in prison Thursday for immigrant smuggling, including a 1993 voyage that ended in the deaths of 10 Chinese in the waters off New York City.

Cheng Chui Ping, 57, pleaded for more than an hour for leniency, saying she was a hardworking immigrant who loved America and had been terrorized by Chinatown gangs.

U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey listened patiently, then dismissed the speech as "simply incredible" and gave Cheng the maximum.

He said evidence at the trial had shown conclusively that she was a leader in a ring that took millions of dollars from illegal immigrants, transported them in inhumane and dangerous conditions, and used violent gangsters to collect debts.

Among the decrepit cargo ships that carried Cheng's human cargo was the Golden Venture, a hulk that ran aground near Queens. Ten immigrants died trying to swim to shore.

Prosecutors said Cheng financed that voyage, as well as a deadly 1998 trip in which a ship capsized off Guatemala, killing 14 people.

Cheng was arrested in Hong Kong in 2000 after six years as a fugitive.

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Survivors' tales: saved from a sinking boat off Cameroon

YAOUNDE, March 25, 2006 (AFP) - The wooden boat packed with west Africans capsized in rough seas off Cameroon before dawn, sending most of the passengers to a watery grave wellshort of Gabon, their unlikely Eldorado, survivors and witnesses recalled in some of the first accounts of the disaster.

Olivier from Benin was one of the 26 people saved from the sinking pirogue, a simple open boat with plank seating of a kind used throughout Africa. There were more than 150 people on board when it sank Wednesday.

It was still dark out on the Gulf of Guinea, Olivier recalled Friday, when he realized that the boat he had been traveling on from Nigeria was never going to make it to the offshore oil-rich nation of Gabon.

"A strong wind battered our pirogue... And then it overturned and it was each man for himself to try to save his life. That was Wednesday, in the wee hours of the morning," he said.

The boat sank very quickly, throwing the passengers into the dark, wind-whipped seas.

"I was lucky and was able to hold onto a floating bundle," said Noelle Fowe, a 31-year-old woman from Benin.

Others had no luck. "I saw a man near me die, exhausted with holding onto a plank, " said Fowe. "Me, I suffered a few injuries. God be praised. I survived."

Olivier's life too was saved by good fortune. He and a friend held onto some rope together.

"I thought for sure I was going to die. Then about four in the morning, we saw the Cameroonian fishermen who saved us. It was a very close call."

It took the fishermen from the coastal town of Kribi several hours to reach the sinking boat.

"We were alerted by boatmen who found the passengers and some bodies floating in the middle of the sea," said Alex Bayek, a Kribi resident.

Help was organized quickly, officials recalled.

"We received help from the national navy, the Red Cross and other volunteers," said regional administrator Gregoire Mvondo.

Twenty-three people were initially rescued, and then three more, officials said Friday. The latest known survivor was found some 100 kilometers north of the capsized boat, leaving officials hoping that others were also saved further along the coast.

The wooden boat had been overloaded, Olivier said, adding that "the owners, when we left Orong, told us that we would go to sea in a very big boat. But it was really overloaded. We did not know that we were going to face death."

Francois Mahouve of the Red Cross also said the initial inquiry indicated that there were too many people on board.

It was not an uncommon scene. Makeshift boats packed with people from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Mali, sail past Cameroon "looking for work and a good life" in what they think is the oil "Eldorado" of Gabon, Mvondo said.

"My nephew promised to find me work in Gabon," said Joachim Ba Mekoutche, 35, who was pulled out of the sea by fishermen on Wednesday.

Fellow survivor Yvonne Amousounga, 17, echoed his story -- a promise of work with her aunt in Gabon.

But she is left with tragedy from the sinking boat.

"I was with my sister. She died."

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Dozens of bodies washed ashore from capsized boat off Cameroon

YAOUNDE, March 31, 2006 (AFP) - Dozens of decomposing bodies have been washed ashore in southwest Cameroon after a wooden boat with more than 150 west Africans on board capsized last week, witnesses told AFP Friday.

Until now, 26 people had been saved from the sinking boat and only 17 bodies had been recovered near Kribi, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the capital Yaounde.

The pirogue -- a simple open boat with plank seating of a kind used throughout Africa --- had left the Nigeria city of Orong bound for Port Gentil, the economic capital of Gabon, when it capsized before dawn on March 22.

The head of Mitimbo, a fishing encampment, told AFP by telephone that over the past few days "almost 40 decomposing bodies were buried in a common grave."

Witnesses at other locations along the Cameroonian coast including Ntongoue, Eboule, Elombe, Sitane and Koutaba, reported similar findings.

"We are afraid that it could cause an epidemic in our camp," said a young man who took part in the burials, adding that local authorities have not provided any material or medical help to the villages.

The capsized boat of migrants was the second such tragedy in less than a year off Cameroon -- 43 people drowned when a boat carrying passengers from Nigeria to Gabon sank off Campo on the country's southern coast last June.

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Greek coastguards hold 19 would-be illegal immigrants

ATHENS, April 2, 2006 (AFP) - Coast-guards on the southeastern Aegean island of Kos on Sunday arrested 19 would-be illegal immigrants and the man suspected of smuggling them, the merchant marine ministry said.

The immigrants, eight Algerians, seven Palestinians and four Mauritanians, were intercepted at sea north-east of the island near the Turkish coast.

They were travelling in a speedboat driven by a 21-year-old Turkish man, a ministry spokesperson told AFP.

The Kos harbour master's office has opened an inquiry and the men are due to appear Monday before the island's prosecutor.

Greece's Aegean islands are a popular entry point for thousands of would-be immigrants from Asia and the Middle East seeking passage to western Europe, many of whom travel via Turkey.

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Mauritania: 32 Migrants May Have Drowned
By AHMED MOHAMMED
2 April 2006

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) - A boat packed with West Africans trying to reach Europe collided with a fishing vessel, leaving 32 of the migrants missing and believed drowned, Mauritanian officials said Sunday.

Mauritania, located in the northwest of Africa about 600 miles from Spain's Canary Islands, has increasingly become a jumping-off point for Africans from others countries to sneak into Europe for a better life.

More than 1,000 Africans have died in the past four months trying to sail in small wooden boats to the Canary Islands, Mauritania's Red Crescent branch has said.

In the latest ill-fated voyage, a boat with 57 Africans struck a fishing vessel Saturday as it set out from this desert country, said Commandant Sidi Ould Ahmed of Mauritania's military police. Ahmed said the vessels collided about 20 miles off the coast.

He said 32 people were missing. The others were saved by fishing boats, said Dr. Abdallahi Ould Sidi, who treated the survivors in the capital of Nouakchott.

Spain has been helping Mauritania try to stem the tide of migrant-filled boats leaving its coast, and Spanish authorities said Sunday they were looking for another ship believed to be carrying hundreds of illegal West Africans toward the Canary Islands.

Local newspapers Canarias 7 and El Dia reported on their Web sites that the ship could be carrying more than 500 people.

On Thursday, an Interior Ministry official, Jose Segura, said Spain should brace itself for a "numerous and anarchic" increase in illegal migrations from Africa.

More than 3,000 migrants have reached the Canary Islands so far this year, the vast majority packed into narrow, open wooden boats that sometimes take weeks to make the dangerous voyages.

Mauritania does not offer the easiest route to Europe, but other countries just across the ocean from southern Europe have cracked down on illegal migrants, prompting human traffickers to step up efforts to send would-be immigrants by traditional wooden fishing canoe to the Canary Islands.

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21 held in apparent human smuggling attempt in Seattle
By TIM KLASS
5 April 2006

SEATTLE (AP) - Twenty-one people were being held early Wednesday after they apparently arrived in a 40-foot cargo container aboard a ship from China, officials said.

Port of Seattle security guards spotted the 17 men and four women about 1 a.m. at Terminal 18, determined that they were not crew members from the recently arrived cargo ship Rotterdam and summoned federal authorities, said Michael Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

All appeared to be Chinese nationals in their 20s and 30s and in good physical condition after about 15 days in a 40-foot container that was loaded onto the ship in Shanghai, China, Milne said.

None appeared to be in control or directing the others, nor was there evidence of "any real criminal or terrorist activity ... just an alien smuggling operation," Milne said.

They were being interviewed with the aid of a translator pending detention, pending further investigation and likely deportation proceedings, he said.

The container, the second from the ground in a stack of four, had been flagged for a special examination which had not been conducted before the group was caught, Milne said. He would not reveal why it had been flagged but said it was equipped with water bottles, food, blankets and toilet facilities.

It was apparently the first detection of a human smuggling attempt using a cargo container in Seattle since a flurry along the U.S. and Canadian West Coast in 2000 and 2001. Almost all of those caught were deported, but three of 18 in a shipping container aboard the NYK Cape May died before reaching Seattle in January 2000.

The Rotterdam docked about 9 a.m. Tuesday and was carrying general cargo. After Shanghai, the ship made three stops at other Asian ports -- Milne said he did not know which ones -- and then at Pusan, South Korea, before heading for Seattle.

Early Wednesday the group apparently pried open the container, lowered themselves about seven feet to the ground and tried to slip out of the secured terminal area, he said.

About half were discovered by a guard "on a routine security patrol" within the terminal and the other half were spotted trying to get out through Gate 4, Milne said.

Once they were intercepted, "there was no attempt to flee or hide," he said. "They were cooperative."

Port and city police as well as federal authorities established a cordon, checked cars leaving Harbor Island and are confident no one who might have been in the container escaped detection, Milne said.

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Cuban Authorities Kill 1 Man In Migrant Smuggling Attempt
6 April 2006

HAVANA (AP)--The Cuban Coast Guard shot two suspected migrant smugglers from the United States, killing one, when they and a third man refused orders to halt their speed boat as it neared the island, official media said Thursday.

The Communist Party daily Granma said the confrontation occurred early Wednesday morning near Cuba's northern coast in the western province of Pinar del Rio.

The ranking Coast Guard officer ordered officers to open fire after the three-man crew aboard the 40-foot boat failed to stop as ordered and launched "violent sudden attacks" on a Coast Guard vessel, damaging the craft and almost causing it to overturn, the newspaper said.

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Chinese nationals held in apparent human smuggling attempt
By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE
6 April 2006

SEATTLE (AP) - After catching 22 Chinese nationals in an apparent human smuggling operation, federal investigators are trying to determine who was responsible.

Port of Seattle security guards spotted the 18 men and four women early Wednesday soon after they emerged from a shipping container that arrived the previous day on the China Shipping Line's MV Rotterdam at Terminal 18.

They were quickly rounded up, interviewed with the aid of a translator and held for further investigation and likely deportation as officials sought higher-ups in the investigation, said Michael Milne, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

All appeared in their 20s and 30s and in good physical condition after about two weeks in a container that was loaded onto the ship in Shanghai, Milne said.

The container had been flagged for a special examination because it was lighter than if it had been full of cargo, but the inspection had not been made before the group was caught.

"We realized it was light when we picked up the container," Bob Watters, a spokesman for SSA Marine, which operates the terminal, told The Seattle Times. "Customs checked the manifest (a cargo list) and found no detailed information in it."

The container was equipped for survival with water bottles, food, blankets and toilet facilities but reeked of human waste, workers said.

"The conditions are certainly not deluxe, but everyone came off in apparently good health," Milne said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., cited the operation in a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday about a maritime cargo security bill she introduced last year.

"That incident is a stark reminder that we are not doing enough to keep our cargo container system secure," Murray said. "This appears to have been a case of human smuggling, but that cargo container could have been filled with anything from a dirty bomb to a cell of terrorists."

Milne said there was no evidence of "any real criminal or terrorist activity ... just an alien smuggling operation."

It was unclear how much the stowaways paid to make the voyage. According to a statement issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, smuggling fees for illegal immigrants from China have historically ranged from $30,000 to $60,000 per person.

"What happened in Seattle was that something went wrong," Ko-Lin Chin, a Rutgers University professor and expert on human smuggling, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "There should be someone there to help them. Someone has to pick them up."

Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of the immigration and customs agency's Seattle office, said investigators are committed to working with the Department of Homeland Security "not only to disrupt this kind of activity, but to identify and dismantle the criminal organizations behind it."

Authorities said it was the first human smuggling attempt involving cargo containers in six years. In January 2000, immigration officers intercepted two cargo containers on two different vessels carrying 37 smuggled Chinese aliens, three of whom died along the way.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said better screening of cargo arriving at U.S. ports would require better cooperation with trading partners and quicker deployment of scanning technology in foreign ports.

"It's high time Congress passed the Commerce Committee bill I've worked on to require cargo to be screened at the port of origin," Cantwell wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Republican Mike McGavick, a former Safeco Corp. chief executive who's running against Cantwell, said: "We're not making enough progress and we need a change -- a change in who represents our state's interests in Washington, D.C."

The Rotterdam docked about 9 a.m. Tuesday and was carrying general cargo. Based on the ship's manifest, investigators believe it left Shanghai on March 23, Milne said.

Four days earlier, it was in Hong Kong, and the following day, it was in Yantian, China. After Shanghai, the ship made a stop at Nangbo, China, then Pusan, South Korea, before heading for Seattle, Milne said.

The Malta-flagged Rotterdam, which U.S. authorities said is registered in Liberia, left the port Wednesday afternoon after authorities determined there was no reason to hold it in Seattle.

Norton Lilly, a Mobile, Ala., company listed as China Shipping Line's agent, did not return a message seeking comment.

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Canary Islands, from European tourist mecca to immigrants' dream of new beginning
By MAR ROMAN
8 April 2006

LOS CRISTIANOS, Canary Islands (AP) - British and German sun-lovers flock here by the millions to loll on the white-sand beaches, eat fresh seafood in breezy outdoor restaurants and down one too many glasses of sangria at night.

But another type of newcomer has inundated the Canary Islands in recent months -- desperate and hungry African migrants arriving on the spectacular coastline in packed fishing boats.

These Spanish islands have always been a gateway to Europe but more so this year than ever as access through other routes become tougher.

The influx worries locals who depend on the islands' reputation as a tourist paradise for their livelihoods. Officials fear many more migrants will attempt the dangerous 600-mile journey as the weather improves.

If they do, officials say they will be dealing with an economic crisis, as well as a humanitarian one. The islands' economy is based almost entirely on tourism, and even a small drop-off in paying visitors would be devastating.

"If this phenomenon increases, it could provoke a feeling of alarm and rejection among tourists," said Ricardo Fernandez de la Puente, manager of Asotel, an association representing 290 hotels and apartments in four of the seven Canary Islands. "Tourists seek tranquility. They don't want problems, and as soon as they see one, they change their minds and go somewhere else."

Some 4,000 Africans have been caught trying to reach the archipelago so far this year -- compared to 4,751 for all of 2005. More than 125 people -- most from Mali and Senegal -- have been detained since Monday.

Worried tourism officials have met with local and regional authorities to address the issue, Fernandez de la Puente said. The islands' justice minister has urged Spain to reinforce its border police, install more radar and have more patrol boats with Mauritania, a popular departure point.

Some 10 million tourists come to the Canary Islands every year -- including 3.6 million from Britain and 2.5 million Germans. Nearly 80 percent of the islands' 1.9 million people lives directly or indirectly off tourism.

For the moment, the crisis has not seriously affected the tourist trade, which peaks in May before dropping off in the hot summer months.

Already, however, the tide of humanity has made for some extraordinary scenes.

On Wednesday, bemused tourists on Tenerife island watched from a ferry terminal as coastguards brought into port a group of 32 immigrants. Some snapped pictures of the migrants -- who had spent days at sea drifting with the wind. Another group of tourists waved excitedly at the newcomers from a catamaran where they were holding a party.

"I didn't know that immigrants were coming here by boat," said Simon Jones, 44, a Londoner on vacation. "I'm not worried, although if they start coming here, places like Tenerife will be less safe."

"These things happen. You cannot do anything about it," said Piet Visser, a Dutch mechanic in his late 50s who was on vacation along with his wife. "It's very dramatic."

Others said the arrivals had a sobering effect, making them realize how fortunate they are.

"It is a strange and depressing feeling as a tourist to see these people arrive here with hopes and fears," said 37-year-old Daphne Katsouros, of Bonn, Germany. "It makes me feel bad and makes me think how lucky I am and how desperate they are."

For decades, Africans migrants have set out from Morocco, sailing north across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland or westward to the Canary Islands. But a crackdown by Moroccan authorities has increasingly steered migrants to the islands, with Mauritania as the new departure point.

Since December, about 1,000 migrants have died attempting the four- to five-day journey, according to the Red Cross in Mauritania.

Those who make it to the Canary Islands are taken to detention facilities -- well away from the glamorous beach hotels -- where they are held until authorities can arrange for them to be repatriated, almost always within 40 days.

"Who pays for the care of the immigrants, for their medicines, for the patrol boats? I'm sure all this means that our taxes will go up," said Dutchman Frank Jansen, who has been running a restaurant along the oceanside for the last three years. "Maybe it's not going to be a problem in the first year, but it could be in the long run and then nobody would want to come to Tenerife."

Others said they are confident nothing will keep vacation-crazy Europeans away from the great weather and beautiful beaches.

"There's nothing to worry about. This is a great place to be. There are no crocodiles. There is no danger," said restaurant owner Javier de La Rosa. "It's unfortunate that things are so bad in Africa, but this is not a problem that is exclusive to the Canary Islands. It affects the whole world."

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Cuban TV says man shot in apparent smuggling clash had left Cuba just 3 weeks ago
By ANITA SNOW
7 April 2006

HAVANA (AP) - The suspected migrant smuggler Cuban authorities fatally shot this week left the island as a migrant himself three weeks ago but returned as a crew member on the same boat to repay a debt, state television said Friday.

Although the two surviving suspected smugglers had not been cooperative since their arrest Wednesday morning, authorities confirmed the dead man was named Jeovel Gonzalez Morera, who left the island on March 14 with his girlfriend, Cuban television reported.

According to state media, the confrontation occurred before dawn Wednesday near Cuba's southern coast in the western province of Pinar del Rio after coast guard officers ordered the three-men crew on a 40-foot(12-meter) speed boat to halt.

The official in charge ordered troops to shoot after the boat ignored the order and instead launched "violent sudden attacks" on a coast guard vessel, damaging the craft and almost causing it to overturn, the Communist Party daily Granma said Thursday.

The other two men, both of them U.S. citizens, were wounded in the confrontation, participants in the government's "Mesa Redonda" television program said Friday. Earlier, Granma had said only one of the two surviving men had been hurt.

Those two were earlier identified by the Cuban government as Rafael Mesa Farinas and Rosendo Salgado Castro, and their identities were later confirmed by American officials.

"Mesa Redonda" participants said Mesa Farinas had told Cuban officials that he could not cooperate with them because he feared for his wife and child who he helped get out of Cuba in late 2005 and are currently being held by smugglers in Mexico.

Like Gonzalez, Mesa Farinas had traveled to Cuba on the smuggling trip this week to pay a debt, and had hoped to get his wife and child released, Taladrid said.

U.S. officials have requested consular access to the two surviving men, but by midday Friday access had still not been granted, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington.

The shooting death of a suspected migrant smuggler by Cuban authorities was unusual. Most violence during migration attempts has occurred in confrontations between Cuban authorities and would-be migrants who hijacked boats or planes.

Cuban authorities blamed Wednesday's confrontation on U.S. migration policies they say encourage its citizens to undertake risky journeys to get to the United States.

Cuban authorities later temporarily took into custody 39 people they believe had been scheduled to leave the island on the speedboat: 20 men, 12 women and seven children.

Most of the women and children were later released, but some men remained in custody pending further questioning.

Cuban authorities believe that the speed boat was going to be used to take the would be Cuban migrants to the southeastern Mexican state of Quintana Roo, home to the Mayan Riviera resorts of Cancun and Cozumel.

While most Cuban migrants try to reach U.S. territory by directly crossing the Florida Straits by sea, Mexico is among several other routes smugglers use to get Cuban migrants into the United States.

The migrants then travel north to Mexico's border with the United States, where they inform American officials they are Cubans and are generally allowed to stay.

Under current American policy, most would-be Cuban migrants the U.S. Coast Guard picks up at sea are returned to the island, but most who reach American soil -- either by sea or land -- can stay.

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Boat carrying Dominican migrants capsizes off Puerto Rico, leaving at least 5 dead
24 April 2006

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) - Powerful waves capsized a boat carrying about 20 illegal migrants near a popular surfing beach, killing at least five of them as surfers desperately tried to help, witnesses and officials said Monday.

At least 13 people aboard the makeshift 14-foot (3.5-meter) wooden boat survived the capsizing Sunday afternoon off the shores of Rincon, near the western tip of Puerto Rico. The migrants apparently were all Dominicans.

"My friend paddled out to where these people were drowning and pulled a woman up on his board," said Alex Irons, a 27-year-old American who lives in Rincon. "There were a lot of people just standing around on the beach wondering what to do about these people drowning out there."

The seas where the boat capsized, near the Rincon lighthouse that sits atop a rocky promontory with waves crashing below, are particularly rough -- attracting experienced surfers from the U.S. mainland.

Irons, in a telephone interview with The Associated Press, said he was driving with his wife to the lighthouse to go surfing when they saw several helicopters flying close to shore, apparently trying to help with the rescue.

"It was total chaos," he said. "There were bodies washing up on the beach."

An unknown number of migrants were traveling aboard the makeshift boat, said Lt. Cmdr. Dave Burns of the U.S. Coast Guard. At least four helicopters, a dive team and a Coast Guard cutter continued searching the area on Monday.

The survivors -- four of whom were treated for dehydration -- will likely be repatriated to the Dominican Republic, authorities said.

Small boats frequently attempt to smuggle migrants from the Dominican Republic to this U.S. Caribbean territory, a roughly 70-mile (112-kilometer) journey across the often-perilous Mona Passage.

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Police find 111 would-be immigrants in 2 boats off Spain's Canary Islands
23 April 2006

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Police on Sunday found 111 would-be immigrants packed aboard two fishing boats just off the coast of two of Spain's Canary Islands, authorities said.

A police spokesman said 80 immigrants arrived on Spain's Canary Island of Gomera, and another 31 were detained earlier Sunday after they arrived by boat on nearby Tenerife island, off northwest Africa.

The boats' occupants were believed to be from sub-Saharan countries, including Liberia, Ivory Coast and Senegal, police said. Among the immigrants were one woman and three minors.

Eight of the 80 that arrived in La Gomera had to be treated in hospital on being taken ashore for dehydration while the rest were taken by regular ferry line to Tenerife, where they will be taken to one of the island's holding centers, police said.

Thousands of people try to reach Europe through Spain each year, an increasing number of them coming from Mauritania and Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. For decades, boats of immigrants have set out from Morocco, sailing north across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish mainland or westwards to the Canary Islands.

In the first three months of this year, about 4,000 African would-be migrants have been caught by Spanish authorities trying to reach the Canary Islands, compared with 4,751 for all of 2005. At least 1,000 more are believed to have died in the choppy seas.

Those who make it are kept in holding centers, and authorities have 40 days to repatriate them before they must release them. The immigrants are either sent back to their country of origin or to the country from which they set sail, but only if Spain has repatriation accords with the countries.

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Nation
Wednesday April 26, 2006

Myanmar boat people heading for Malaysia land in Indonesia

JAKARTA (AP) - Indonesia will expel 77 boat people from Myanmar who became stranded on an island in the western province of Aceh while trying to get to Malaysia, an immigration official said Wednesday.

Nazir Ali, a spokesman at the local immigration office in the port town of Sabang on Weh island where the men ran aground Tuesday, said they are still being questioned, but will be returned to international waters when weather conditions improve.

"They are looking for jobs in Malaysia but stranded here. Therefore we will expel them because they have no proper documents,'' Ali said.

"We will coordinate with the navy to escort them to the international border.''

Ali said rough seas and strong winds had prevented their immediate departure and that they will be supplied with fuel, water and food before being towed back out to sea.

The economic migrants, said to be in good health, will be escorted by the Indonesian Navy to the border, said Col. Aswoto Saranang of the Sabang base where they are being sheltered.

Saranang described them as uneducated villagers between 20 and 35 years old who left the military-led Myanmar in search of new livelihoods in northern Malaysia's Penang state.

For Another perspective from the Jakarta Post, a partner of Asia News Network, click here

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Illegal migrant boat capsizes in Aegean Sea
1 drowned, 1 missing
2 May 2006

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - A small boat carrying illegal migrants to Greece capsized off the Turkish coast Tuesday, officials said. The Turkish Coast Guard rescued eight of the migrants, but one person drowned and one other was missing.

The migrants -- from Somalia and Mauritania -- boarded the boat at the Aegean coastal resort of Kusadasi and were bound for the Greek island of Samos.

Each year, thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa pass through Turkey on their way to Greece and other western European countries.

Hundreds have drowned off the Turkish coast while attempting to reach Greece or Italy or have been killed when they stepped on land mines along the Turkish-Greek border.

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Authorities in Senegal intercept 1,500 illegal migrants sailing for Europe
By HEIDI VOGT
23 May 2006

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - Senegal said Tuesday it has seized more than 1,500 illegal migrants en route to Europe by sea in recent days as part of a push to curtail a surge in departures from its shores.

Col. Jean-Baptiste Faye, the navy officer heading the operation, said the West African country launched a focused crackdown Thursday because the number of boats setting out from its shores has shot up.

"With the closing of (routes through) Mauritania and Morocco, they are starting to leave more and more from Senegal," Faye said. He said Senegal has boosted patrols and increased communication with police and military authorities as part of the operation.

This year has seen a flood of wooden fishing boats leaving from Morocco, and increasingly, Mauritania and Senegal, as poor Africans seek out the easiest way to make the dangerous ocean voyage to Europe. Most of the migrants aim for Spain's Canary Islands, the closest European outpost.

Spanish authorities say they have intercepted more than 6,100 migrants around the Canary Islands since January -- already outpacing the 4,751 caught during all of 2005.

Faye said more than 1,500 people have been detained since Thursday in 21 boats, and two more boats carrying more migrants were seized Monday night -- one off the coast of the capital, Dakar, and another further north toward the city of St. Louis. Faye estimated that Monday's seizures added about 100 more people.

Faye said police have identified 60 of those taken into custody as smugglers who helped organize the departures.

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Transit centre swamped as Italy intercepts 820 migrants

ROME, May 22, 2006 (AFP) - Coastguards escorted to land hundreds of migrants floating at sea off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Monday, causing an emergency at its overwhelmed transit centre, the ANSA news agency reported.

Coastguards intercepted three vessel, carrying some 400 suspected illegal immigrants, to the Italian island south of Sicily early Monday, following the arrival of hundreds of others on Sunday.

Around 420 migrants were found in boats intercepted off the island over the weekend. The people, whose origin was not known, were taken to the island's secure transit centre, which has a capacity of only 190.

The centre on Lampedusa -- near the coasts of Tunisia and Libya -- is frequently overwhelmed by mass arrivals. People were being transferred Monday to centres in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy by plane and boat.

In 2005, 207 vessels were caught off Italy's coasts carrying a total of around 22,000 migrants. Coastguards and customs officials last year also discovered 70 corpses.