Libya - Latest Updates Part III ( Archived) (526)

Hey, that's where our newest member is from. monirul_hasan67. You don't suppose that he's a Gaddafi supporter who somehow managed to escape and get internet service do you?

I know the country got some EU funds to help out but I haven't heard anything about international voluntary organisations or Red Cross.

The thing is this is not just a financial problem. Malta is a small island with one of the highest population densities in the world and once these people come here we're basically stuck with them. Few or no countries offer to re-home any and if so they just take a handful while immigrants arrive in boatloads. If we send them back to their homeland the international community is quick to accuse us of breaking human rights and immigrant asylum norms but when it comes to shoulder the burden...

The finincial cost is a burden but the real problem is to give these persons a new life not to dump them in a refugee camp and feed them.

The city of Tripoli is really feeling the pinch of this crisis. Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught says major services which mainly depended on foreign workers are now largely at a standstill as the latter abandoned the country. Bread and basic necessities are hard to come by, fish is inexistent as the fishermen are blocked in their harbours, fuel has become a scarce commodity. No one's starving she says, but life hasn't been 'normal' for more than a month in the city.

Add the nightly raids to that report as coalition jets fly overhead and missiles explode in hopefully distant neighborhoods, a state TV which tells you civilians are being killed, armed militia roaming the streets, and government spies amongst your neighbors watching your every step. Picture a family with kids living in fear and not knowing if there will be a tomorrow.

Situation in Misurata and other rebel-controlled cities and areas is worse. They have the same shortages as in the government-controlled capital and on top of that electricity and water have been cut for days. Maybe no spies around but they do not need the state TV to show them dead and wounded... If you were there, you would only need to take a peek out of covered windows to see them, and God-forbid that you or one of your family needs any medical attention as a visit to a local hospital could only worsen your nightmare.

Here missiles aren't controlled by hopefully correctly set GPS coodinates but indiscriminatory shelling by powerful artillery pound your neighborhood. The local bus stopped passing by your home as a massive tank blocks the end of the road and the life of you and your family are at the mercy of a nervous soldier that sits inside.

This is the unfortunate reality of a country split over a dictator hanging on to power and where an international coalition struggles to take the right steps.

Yes Venere, you're right both about the numbers and about the situation in Italy. Actually its a bit more in Lampedusa right now as there's over 6000 refugees there. In fact Prime Minister Berlusconi is visiting the tiny island today to 'address' the crisis.

But at least Lampedusa has some hope of transferring these immigrants to mainland Italy. In Malta we have no such luxury - those who come here, we're quite simply stuck with. People from the outside view Malta and Italy are just 2 countries affected by this and people like Giletti start to compare numbers and think we're getting off lightly. Thing is one has to keep in mind that Malta has a population of approx 400,000 to Italy's 59 million and a land mass of only 122 square miles (about twice the size of Washington, D.C.) as compared to Italy's 116,343 square miles (slightly larger than the state of Arizona). That makes Malta less than 1% of Italy's population and an even lessor percentage in land mass so the impact of every immigrant arriving here is felt 100 times more than our neighbour.

The irony of the matter is as some of the immigrants themselves state, they leave their countries for a better life and more freedom in Europe and often find themselves in guarded immigrant centres living in worse conditions than they left back home. These people never planned to live in Malta or in Lampedusa, they want to head to mainland Europe but beaurocracy and selfish countries close their doors and let us deal with it.

The real solution here is not just to care and feed these immigrants but to improve conditions in their countries that they would no longer more need to escape their homeland.

Which is exactly what Red Cross should be doing...Taking the burden and spreading it around. Start preparing them for long term life until which time they can return to their country. No one country can provide long term care/responsibility nor should they. Boggles the mind sometimes.

Well as anything else in this world, money comes before human lives!