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Desperation and hope. Two opposite winds swell the sail of people furrowing the sea to join their promised land in Europe. Desperation and hope. These are the only reasons to defy the Mediterranean embarking yourself with your own children, on risky boat, aware that dying it is not so difficult. Sometimes it goes all right, as for Faduma Omar Jamec, who bore on a damaged libyan ship off Malta, the 26th june at 4:40 a.m. The 25 passengers - mostly from Somalia - were rescued by La Valletta's armed forces and the woman admitted into a hospital with her baby. But all the stories do not end gladly and the last month marks a sad precedent for the youngest ones. On the 7th of june a boat carrying 22 passengers - departed clandestinely from the port of Kusadasi, in Turkey - sanks off Samos greek island. Greek coastgard arrival was immediate, but it has already been too much late: a 5 years old child was drowned. Twenty days later, on the 26th june, the same tragedy took place another time near Kusadasi. The residents told police a ship was sinking. After some hours of searches a lifeless body was found along the coast and after a while 4 others were recovered in the sea. Among the victims there were 3 children. For them life have been interrupted before blooming.
And it is not the first time. At least 39 children have died along the European frontiers since 1988, according to Fortress Europe press review. The worst tragedy happened the 31st may 2002 when 9 children froze to death trying to pass the Iran-Turkey border's icy mountain. Near Tanger, in Morocco, 6 children lost their life in a shipwreck one year ago, the 13th june 2005. But the waters of the Strait had already maken one young victim the 19th april 2005 off Tarifa, in Spain. Three years before, the 5th december 2002, the frozen bodies of two 12 years old boys were found in the undercarriage of an airplane landed to London from Ghana. In Italy at least 10 children died along the Puglie coasts (19th october and 1st december 1994; 15th april, 16th and 27th May 1999; 10th july 2000) and 3 others off Lampedusa (11th october 2003), in Sicily. In the Aegean sea 3 children lost their life the 16th october 2002 near Lesbo greek island and another young boy drowned in Croatia, the 20th may 2002, in a river along the border with Bosnia.
If maths is not an opinion. According to Fortress Europe since 1988 it has been reported the death of 5.939 people along the european frontiers, including 2.375 bodies missing in the Mediterranean sea. A tragedy concentrated particularly on the route from Turkey to Greece, from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and Malta, from Albania to Italy and from Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania to Spain. 1.708 people died in the Sicily channel, including 708 missing. In the Aegean sea, 404 people died, including 182 missing, and 2.200 lost their lives trying to reach Spain, 1.423 of whom were missing. Than there are 16 people who were shot dead by spanish and moroccan police along the fence at the border of spanish enclaves in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla. Actually it is not only the sea which kills people. Hidden in trucks or in containers loaded on cargo vessels directed to the european ports, 257 people were found dead and 19 people died under the trains in the Channel tunnel. The mine-fields along the turkish greek border killed 77 people. At least 133 persons died dehydrated trying to cross the Sahara towards Libya and at least 560 people were killed during the anti-foreign riots in the northwest libyan city of Zawiyah, erupted in september 2000. 33 people froze to death in their tracks through the icy mountains at the border in Turkey, Greece and Slovakia, then 51 persons drowned crossing rivers delimiting the frontier between Croatia and Bosnia; Turkey and Greece; Slovakia and Austria; Slovenia and Italy.