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[h=4]Voyage across Mediterranean is harrowing and deadly[/h]The crossing from Africa to Europe in crowded boats plying through the Mediterranean is a harrowing experience that can end in death.
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As news of a boat believed to be crowded with 700 migrants aboard capsizes, Pope Franics and UN officials are asking the international community to step in and help search and rescue efforts. (April 19) AP
Migrants wait to board a cruise ship as they leave the Italian island of Lampedusa to be transported to Sicily on April 17, 2015.(Photo: Francesco Malavolta, AP)
LAMPEDUSA, Italy — The crossing from Africa to Europe in crowded boats plying through the Mediterranean is a harrowing experience that too often ends in death. Yet refugees who decide to make the journey often have no idea what lies ahead.
"They don't tell you anything about the trip being so difficult," Raage Hassan, a 19-year-old Somalian said of agents who sell spots on makeshift vessels for the crossing. "Sometimes you hear things from people who made it. But the agents just tell you it will be fine. It's not fine."
The dangers were tragically highlighted Sunday, when a boat crammed with migrants seeking refuge from war and poverty in African and the Middle East capsized off the Libyan coast, 130 miles from here. An estimated 700 passengers may have drowned, nearly doubling the death toll so far this year.
Hassan and other migrants who made the voyage talked about their frightening experiences on this tiny southern Italian island that is the most common arrival point for refugees landing in Europe. It is a favored destination because of its proximity to North Africa, where the trips begin.
Underestimating the tumultuous voyage makes it worse, said Hassan, whose journey took him from Somalia to Kenya, then to South Sudan, Sudan, and finally Libya, before landing in Lampedusa. "There's not a lot to eat and sometimes you don't sleep. You have to sneak around. Then you get pushed onto a crowded boat.
"There is vomit. Kids cry. Everyone is scared. You have no idea how long it will be," he said.
And there are the trips that end in death. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees says that over the last two years, the percentage of refugees who die making the crossing has more than doubled from around 2% to 5% of a rapidly growing number of refugees. About 60,000 made the crossing in 2013, increasing to at least 219,000 last year. Some estimates put the number this year at as many as half a million.
Hassan and other migrants said their long trips from home involved stops in three to six countries before landing in Europe.
USA TODAY
Hundreds of migrants feared drowned in Mediterranean
All told, the journey can take one to three months, with expenses that add up to between $1,000 and $5,000. The higher number equals as much as a decade's wages for an average worker in countries such as Somalia, Eritrea and Mali, where many were born.
"You don't do this because you want to," said Lasina Dumbia, 18, who arrived in Lampedusa from his native Mali. "You do it because you have no other choice. It is desperation. There is nothing if you stay behind."
Families or villages often save up to send one or two migrants.If they arrive in Europe and manage to find a way to earn an income, they promise to send money back to help pay for the next round of departures.
In severe weather, rescue workers say, the biggest challenge facing those trying to save refugees who make the perilous journey is finding a distressed vessel, which is often obscured by high waves.
"You can be a few hundred meters away and not even see them," said Salvatore Caputo, 66, a volunteer rescue worker with the Knights of Malta organization."Maybe you catch a momentary glimpse of the boat but you can easily lose sight of it."
Caputo was involved in a tragic rescue operation in February, where more than 100 migrants were plucked from the water after their ship capsized, but 29 of them were so weak they died from exhaustion and hypothermia before they could reach land.
Stefano Carnevali, 47, a member of the Knights of Malta who also participates in rescue operations, said many of the boats refugees use would not be considered seaworthy by European standards. They don't have navigation equipment, the people steering the boats are ill prepared, they start out weak from a lack of food and unsanitary conditions, he said..
Ahmed Ali, a 19-year-old from Somalia, said the trip is the first time many of the refugees had been on the open seas. "When it gets bad, some people become so scared they pray to God to ask what they did to make him so angry," Ali said. "When they arrive they say they don't want to see the water again."
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