left to starve and die of thirst

[DrFilth]

from the front page of todays guardian it tells the story of how a number of military units just left them to die on the open sea.

http://www.guardian.c...may/09/refugees-libya

[DrFilth]

http://www.guardian.c...-ship-libyan-migrants

[kinell]

presumably as this forum is The AnswerBank you want an answer..

what is the question??

[The-HouseHusband]

Typical hype and nonsense from the press, they start the article saying that military vessels encountered the refugees stricken craft only to later in the article say that the refugees allegedly came into contact.

Human rights groups and the PC brigade on their high horses as usual without getting facts first.

[mightywease]

Hopefully an investigation will be launched to determine what happened. A horrid loss of life and dreadful conditions for those who suffered regardless of whether they were ignored or not.

[Answerprancer]

Kinell, many people post things without a question being obviously apparent.
Don't you think the plight of these people is questionable enough as it is ?
Perhaps you'd like to give an opinion.

[WuTang]

yes....kinell...what do you say to that?

[kinell]

the situation in libya is not ideal i grant you that,

running (or floating) away in droves surely is never going to solve the problem.....

i agree the net beneficial result of their actions is questionable

[New Judge]

More intriguing than why the hapless souls were not rescued is this:

The call for an enquiry has come from one Mevlüt Çavusoglu. Mr Çavusoglu, who is Turkish, is president of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. The UK is a member of this esteemed organisation and other members include some other notable sanctuaries to which people flee from oppression having had their Human Rights infringed.

To name a few, as well as Turkey (350 deaths in custody and extrajudicial executions between 2005 and 2009); Russia (147th out of 168 contenders in the index of World Press Freedom); Azerbaijan (100 journalists victims of assault, some of whom have been pushed under trains); last, but by no means least Ukraine (172 complaints of torture and abuse in one year. Of that number, 90 complaints pertained to torture and abuse committed by police).

In addition to some of its dubious member states, some of the individual assembly members leave something to be desired. Italian Marcello Dell'Utri, for example has been convicted of tax fraud, false accounting, and complicity in conspiracy with the Sicilian Mafia. He has been sentenced to a total of more than 10 years in jail since 1999, but has never served jail time.

As far as I am aware Turkey and some of the other more contemptuous members of the Council of Europe have not been overly troubled by asylum seekers from Libya or indeed anywhere else. I expect they would get very short shrift if they did survive the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and managed to land somewhere on the north east shores of the Black Sea. But Mr Çavusoglu sees fit to castigate the whole of Europe for what he sees as an infringement of migrants’ human right to be rescued after they have put to sea in a balsa wood boat.

Pots, Kettles and the colour black spring to mind.

[andy-hughes]

Wow kinell - being able to write detached prose like that, without a hint of a thought about what has actually gone on here - you could very easily get a job writing speeches for the U.N. - they like to talk as though things like this are due to some sort of unfortunate burocratic oversight as well.

[DrFilth]

International maritime law compels all vessels, including military units, to answer distress calls from nearby boats and to offer help where possible.

i think if the ark royal was still sailing round the world looking for someone to have a fight with they would have helped by giving some water and food at least.
all them big warships have medics on board.