Investigators Continue To Pieace Facts In Mediterranean Shipwreck

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migrants

Investigators trying to piece together the facts about a deadly Mediterranean shipwreck earlier this month have been surprised by one key fact: the number of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip among the victims.

migrantsWhereas a recent influx of migrants across the Mediterranean towards Europe has been largely composed of Africans and refugees from wartorn regions such as Syria and Afghanistan, the presence of so many Palestinians marks a new trend and raises the question of how they got out of the Gaza Strip in the first place.

Often described as the world’s largest open-air prison, access to and from the Gaza Strip has been difficult for years because of Egyptian and Israeli blockades. Leaving became nearly impossible starting in July, when Israeli and Palestinian forces began a five-week war that only ended less than a month ago.

Preceding the war, the vast majority of the illicit tunnels used to transport goods and people into Egypt had already been destroyed by Egyptian forces. However, the few surviving tunnels at the start of this year’s fight with Israel came to be seen as one of the best escape options as that war intensified.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Wednesday that many of the 500 of the deceased in the worst Mediterranean shipwreck of the last three years were Palestinians.

“We used to see many Syrians. Now there are more and more Palestinians,” Christiane Berthiaume, a Geneva-based IOM spokeswoman told dpa. “It looks like a new phenomenon.”

The trend started, or gained momentum, after the start of fighting in July and has since continued, Haaretz reported.

The shipwreck highlights the phenomenon of the thousands of Palestinians trying to escape the hardship in the Gaza Strip, even when wartime condition made it almost impossible to leave.

It means more and more Gazans are risking their lives on boats run by traffickers to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe via Egypt, Berthiaume said.

Only limited numbers of Gazans are granted permits to enter Egypt via the official border crossing of Rafah.

Palestinian relatives of travelers and smugglers told the Israeli Haaretz daily that the journey from blockaded Gaza starts by crawling dozens of metres through a small smuggling tunnel under the border with Egypt – as most bigger tunnels have been blocked by the Egyptian authorities.

According to the IOM, a “travel” office in Gaza organizes the clandestine departure at a cost of 2,000 dollars for each migrant. The survivors interviewed by the agency said they had received grants to rebuild their homes destroyed in the recent Gaza war and used that to pay for their tickets.

Once on Egyptian side of the Gaza-Egypt border town of Rafah, the travellers are then taken by minibus to Port Said, where bribed Egyptian security officials stamp passports with forged stamps.

Many of them then proceed to Alexandria, where they board small boats. Once they leave Egyptian territorial waters, they switch to another boat that, in most cases, sails to Italy. The trip usually takes about a week.

Only 10 people survived last week’s shipwreck near Malta. Interviewed separately, the survivors have said the wreck was not an accident, but caused deliberately when traffickers rammed a smaller boat into a bigger one after an argument.

Six of the survivors reached Greece, two Italy and two Malta, Berthiaume told dpa.

Syrians and Sudanese were also on the boat, she said.

Berthiaume said a police investigation into the shipwreck was ongoing, but said survivors all gave matching accounts.

After having departed from the Egyptian port of Damietta on September 6, they had to switch vessels several times. When told to transfer to yet another smaller boat, many refused.

Traffickers on the smaller boat then deliberately rammed their boat into the bigger, waited until it had sunk completely and then left.

“They were laughing” one of the survivors told IOM.

According to the survivors, the smugglers were Palestinian and Egyptian.

“They did it on purpose. They killed those people!” the IOM spokeswoman told dpa, noting the survivors picked up in different locations could not have coordinated their accounts.

One survivor said they linked arms in the sea, but people began disappearing under the water when the weather worsened. Those who survived were picked up after two or three days in the water.
GNA

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