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Africa North
Immigration: 500,000 Migrants Mass In Mauritania
2006-03-15
Nearly half a million would-be illegal immigrants from central and west Africa have gathered in makeshift camps in Mauritania awaiting their chance of a passage to Europe, the Spanish daily El Pais reported on Tuesday, citing government and international organisation sources.
A half million people isn't immigration, it's an invasion...
Mauritania is one of the main transit countries from which criminal people smuggling gangs set sail on the longer, more dangerous but less patrolled route across the Mediterranean, via the Canary Islands, where 99 illegal immigrants landed on Tenerife on Tuesday. The Spanish coastguard identified another vessel with 40 people on board off the Canary Islands. The authorities on the Cape Verde Islands off the north African coast were meanwhile searching for a boat with 10 corpses on board, after a Turkish cargo vessel raised the alarm.

Mauritania has announced it will take "immediate" action to fight illegal immigration, including stepping up patrols along its borders and the construction of reception centres. Most of Mauritania - a sparsely populated country with just 3.2 million inhabitants - is desert, and its 2,400 kilometre long border is extremely difficult to patrol. A total 2,400 Africans have landed on the Canary Islands this year. Mauritania's Red Crescent Society estimates that at least 1,000 migrants have drowned in the past four months alone on doomed sea journeys to Europe.
Posted by:Fred

#11  I'm with you, LiberalHawk.

It shows initiative, risk, determination and desire. Reminds me of my family. A group you mentioned.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412   2006-03-15 19:59  

#10  I doubt if you can really take the moor out of mauritania, but it seems their trying to find out.
Posted by: Phavilet Grolurt9350   2006-03-15 17:31  

#9  #4 Are they in need of letters of transit for passage to Lisbon?
Posted by Richard Blaine

Heh.

I'll be in tomorrow night with a beautiful blonde, Rick, and it will make me very happy if she loses.
Posted by: mojo   2006-03-15 11:08  

#8  most would be migrants arent interested in "improving a place" but in improving the situation of themselves and their families. They will weigh the costs and benefits of moving versus those of staying.

Thats true in west africa and El salvador and India today. It was true of Sicily, and Galicia, and County Cork, and Norway, in the 19th and early 20th c. It was true of Ulster, and the Scottish Highlands, and London, and the Rhineland, and Switzerland, in the years before 1775.
Posted by: liberalhawk   2006-03-15 10:56  

#7  RC - "Why can't they improve the place they live?"
Good question. In the West hard work and a positive attitude frequently equal personal improvement; in central Africa they are more likely to equal exhaustion and despair. What I'd like to do is make an even trade - one US prison Muslim for each of these refugees. Heck, I'll take TWO refugees per prison Muslim, or one per Farakhannoid not in prison.
Posted by: Glenmore   2006-03-15 08:28  

#6  It is a scary situation for the West, but there is something in me that kind of admires people who take action and take risk to improve their lot in life (rather than sit in camps waiting for food from charities.)

Why can't they improve the place they live?
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-15 07:54  

#5  Refugees equal to one SIXTH of their population is lined up at the exit door? What are they eating while waiting - a place as poor as Mauritania can't afford to feed them. Has the UN set up a 'food for slaves' program? (IIRC Mauritania is one of the few countries still practicing true slavery.)
At least 1000 drowned trying to leave just the past four months? Yet they keep coming.
It is a scary situation for the West, but there is something in me that kind of admires people who take action and take risk to improve their lot in life (rather than sit in camps waiting for food from charities.)
Posted by: Glenmore   2006-03-15 07:41  

#4  Are they in need of letters of transit for passage to Lisbon?
Posted by: Richard Blaine   2006-03-15 07:20  

#3  Mauritania has announced it will take "immediate" action to fight illegal immigration, including stepping up patrols along its borders and the construction of reception centres.

I've never considered welcome centers to be deterrents. Of course, maybe I've always completely misunderstood the purpose of those really big rest stops on I-75 just inside the Florida border.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2006-03-15 05:28  

#2  And the percentage of Mauritanians who are Muslim: 99%.
Posted by: Listen To Dogs   2006-03-15 01:19  

#1  Yikes.
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-03-15 00:35  

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