Johannesburg: Among those arriving in Italy so far this year, the largest numbers were from Gambia, Senegal and Somalia, followed by Syria, Mali and Eritrea, according to the Italian Interior Ministry.
So why are Africans — and others — risking their lives in hopelessly overloaded, unseaworthy boats to cross the Mediterranean, knowing their chances of making it are so full of risk? War, crushing oppression or dire poverty drive people to desperate choices, knowing the dangers, according to analysts and human rights advocates. The alternative seems worse than the hope of a decent life.
Eritrea, a small secretive country, has one of the worst human rights records in Africa. Somalia is wracked by fighting, terrorist attacks and dire insecurity. Syria, of course, has been wracked by civil war and incursions by the extremist Daesh group, driving more than three million people into exile.
Meron Estefanos, a Sweden-based Eritrean journalist, works for Radio Erena, headquartered in Paris, which broadcasts independent news into Eritrea, a country with the worst record on press censorship in the world — worse even than North Korea, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Everyone in the country knows her voice.
When desperate Eritrean migrants go to sea, they keep her phone number with them, in case things go wrong. When relatives go missing at sea, she’s the one family members call.
Like many migrants, the Eritreans find their way to Libya, where the collapse of government authority has given human traffickers the freedom to operate with impunity.
“Once you are in Libya, you have no say in your life. You just pay smugglers and your life is in their hands. You can’t say, ‘I don’t want to go tonight. It looks like bad weather. I don’t like the look of the boat,’” said Estefanos.
The main reason Eritreans flee is the country’s open-ended military conscription, from the age of 18 until around 50.
“There’s no freedom. Anything can land you in prison. People are getting more and more desperate,” said Estefanos.
