Tag: mediterranean
Between 700-900 Migrants May Have Died At Sea This Week: NGOs

Between 700-900 Migrants May Have Died At Sea This Week: NGOs

By Steve Scherer

ROME (Reuters) – At least 700 migrants may have died at sea this past week in the busiest week of migrant crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, Medecins San Frontieres and the U.N. Refugee agency said on Sunday.

About 14,000 have been rescued since Monday amid calm seas, and there have been at least three confirmed instances of boats sinking. But the number of dead can only be estimated based on survivor testimony, which is still being collected.

“We will never know exact numbers,” Medecins San Frontieres said in a Tweet after estimating that 900 had died during the week. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said more than 700 had drowned.

Migrants interviewed on Saturday in the Sicilian port of Pozzallo told of a large fishing boat that overturned and sank on Thursday with many women and children on board.

Initial estimates were that 400 people died, but the UN Refugee agency said on Sunday there may have been about 670 passengers on board.

According to testimony collected by EU border agency Frontex, when the motorless fishing boat capsized, 25 swam to the boat that had been towing it, while 79-89 others were saved by rescuers and 15 bodies were recovered. This meant more than 550 died, the UNHCR said.

The migrants — fleeing wars, oppression and poverty — often do not know how to swim and do not have life jackets. They pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to make the crossing from Libya to Italy, by far the most dangerous border passage for migrants in the world.

This week’s arrivals included Eritreans, Sudanese, Nigerians and many other West Africans, humanitarian groups say. Despite the surge this week, as of Friday 40,660 arrivals had been counted, 2 percent fewer than the same period of last year, the Interior Ministry said.

Most of the boats this week appear to have left from Sabratha, Libya, where many said smugglers had beaten them and women said they had been raped, said MSF, which has three rescue boats in the area.

The migrants are piled onto flimsy rubber boats or old fishing vessels which can toss their occupants into the sea in a matter of seconds.

About 100 are thought to have either been trapped in the hull or to have drowned after tumbling into the sea on Wednesday.

On Friday, the Italian Navy ship Vega collected 45 bodies and rescued 135 from a “half submerged” rubber boat. It is not yet known exactly how many were on board, but the rubber boats normally carry about 300.

“Some were more shaken than others because they had lost their loved ones,” Raffaele Martino, commander of the Vega, told Reuters on Sunday in the southern port of Reggio Calabria, where the Vega docked with the survivors and corpses, including those of three infants.

“It’s time that Europe had the courage to offer safe alternatives that allow these people to come without putting their own lives or those of their children in danger,” Tommaso Fabri of MSF Italy said.
Reporting by Steve Scherer; Additional reporting by Reuters TV in Reggio Calabria; Editing by Richard Balmforth

Photo: Migrants are seen on a capsizing boat before a rescue operation by Italian navy ships “Bettica” and “Bergamini” (unseen) off the coast of Libya in this handout picture released by the Italian Marina Militare on May 25, 2016. Marina Militare/Handout via REUTERS    

What Exactly Makes Up A Healthy Diet?

What Exactly Makes Up A Healthy Diet?

By David Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

BOSTON — Put 20 of the world’s top nutrition scientists in a room together and what do you get? A 90-minute debate about what a vegetable is and, specifically, whether tubers such as potatoes fit in that category.

While the scientists couldn’t come to a consensus on potatoes at the recent Oldways conference, they did — finally — provide clarity overall on what we’re supposed to eat as part of a healthful diet: more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes and nuts. The group also recommended moderate alcohol consumption, with lower consumption of red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened drinks and refined grains.

Following this pattern should help people avoid spikes in blood sugar, clogged arteries, digestive disorders and chronic disease, it said.

The group also agreed with the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s endorsement of the Mediterranean Diet, the Vegetarian Diet and the Healthy American Diet.

Oldways, a Boston-based nutrition information nonprofit headed by Sara Baer-Sinnott, led the charge in seeking common ground on which foods and food groups are healthful and which ones people should limit or avoid.

A key problem she sees is the daily barrage of media reports about bacon and butter being good, or kale being toxic, or meat diets being the ultimate in good health. This prompted her to invite 20 of the leading nutrition scientists — Walter Willett, David Katz, Dean Ornish, Neal Barnard, T. Colin Campbell and S. Boyd Eaton among them — to work on a consensus of what foods can extend longevity and prevent chronic disease to benefit people and the planet.

Food and nutrition journalists and bloggers also were invited to discuss how and why the science so often is distorted by reports extolling the virtues of foods long deemed unhealthful while condemning foods scientifically proven to be beneficial. The often noted example was Time magazine’s June 2014 cover story, “Bacon is back.”

“No wonder people say they are confused and have no idea how they should eat and therefore just give up,” Oldways stated in its conference introduction. “Adding to the confusion, public perception is that nutrition advice changes every day, leaving many of us scratching our heads and saying, ‘Can’t those experts agree on anything?’ “

Dr. Eaton, the Harvard scientist who is known as the father of the Paleo Diet, surprised the other scientists by noting that whole plant foods were healthiest, and that he recommended meat consumption only a few times a month, with fish being the most healthful meat. The consensus was that meat consumption should focus mostly on fish and less so, poultry. Beef and processed meats should be limited or avoided.

The Common Ground conference, held Nov. 17-18, wasn’t a cakewalk. It was more of a food fight, with advocates for various diets, including vegans, Paleo and Mediterranean diets, convening with others advocating the benefits of meat and dairy in one room for many hours.

Hence, the sizzling debate about the healthfulness of potatoes. “There was not common ground on including potatoes,” said Dr. Willett, the Harvard University who helped lead the conference.

In addition to offering general support for the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommendations issued in February, it opposed Congress’ decision to censor that committee’s recommendations advocating sustainability.

“Food insecurity cannot be solved without sustainable food systems,” states the Common Ground report. “Inattention to sustainability is willful disregard for the quality and quantity of food available to the next generation, i.e., our own children.”

Oldways is establishing a network of scientists, including many involved in the conference, as a media resource for stories about food, nutrition, including those rogue scientific studies that counter more established nutritional science without regard for the methodology or quality of the study. The news-making studies often lack supportive studies.

“When Sara contacted me, we were working on parallel paths,” said Dr. Katz, a Yale University nutritionist who is founding director of its Prevention Research Center and president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

The consensus statement can be read here: oldwayspt.org

©2015 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: All kinds of nuts, such as walnuts, above, play a key role in a healthy diet, according to scientists and dietitians. (Larry Roberts/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)

 

Refugee Children, Close To Death, Found In Van In Austria

Refugee Children, Close To Death, Found In Van In Austria

By Karin Strohecker

VIENNA (Reuters) — Three young children suffering from dehydration and close to death have been rescued from a van crammed with 26 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, Austrian police said on Saturday.

The two girls and a boy, aged five and six, were found in a dire state when police stopped the vehicle after a chase near the Austrian town of St. Peter am Hart on the border with Germany, a police spokesman said. They are recovering in hospital.

“The emergency doctor told us they would not have made it much longer — two, maybe three hours,” said David Furtner, police spokesman for Upper Austria province.

The incident follows the discovery of the corpses of 71 refugees in an abandoned lorry on an Austrian highway on Thursday — victims of an unfolding tragedy as refugees and migrants escaping conflict and poverty in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East flock to Europe in unprecedented numbers.

The International Organization for Migration estimates a third of a million people have crossed the Mediterranean so far this year, leaving from Libya, Turkey, and other countries to land in Europe.

Hundreds have drowned in shipwrecks but the recent deaths on land have exposed another horrific side of the people-smuggling racket.

“The driver did not give a damn about the people in the back. We would not transport animals under these conditions on our roads in Austria,” said Furtner, referring to Friday’s discovery.

Austria lies on the way from poorer countries in southern and eastern Europe where many refugees first land, such as Greece, to more prosperous nations in the north and west.

Driver Arrested

The 29-year-old Romanian driver of the van found on Friday, registered in Romania, was arrested. The children and their parents were taken to the hospital in Braunau, where they are now in a stable condition.

Among the dead found in the lorry on Thursday, four were children, one of them a baby girl, police said on Saturday. They were presumed to be from Syria — in the grip of a four-year-old civil war — or possibly Afghanistan.

Three Bulgarians and an Afghan arrested in Hungary in connection with the deaths made their first appearance in a court in the central Hungarian town of Kecskemet on Saturday. They were given one month’s detention pending further proceedings.

A prosecution spokesman told journalists the truck had left Kecskemet and picked up the migrants near Hungary’s border with Serbia, before taking them through Hungary to Austria.

Police hoped to identify the dead refugees by examining mobile phones found on some of the bodies. Searches of backpacks, luggage, and clothing had provided few clues apart from one Syrian travel document, said Helmut Marban, a police spokesman in Burgenland province.

Marban was speaking in front of a former customs hall where the lorry was parked on a tarpaulin to catch fluids, with investigators in protective suits gathering forensic evidence.

Police estimated the refugees could have been dead for up to two days and the truck might have been standing on the hard shoulder of the highway for as long as 24 hours.

“It seems unbelievable,” said Marban, asked about how 71 people could have fitted into the medium-sized refrigeration lorry.

“At first when they got in they were of course standing, but when we had to bring them out they were (entangled) all together.”

In nearby camps, refugees said the news had left them stunned, but they saw little choice but to flee to Europe.

“We had to walk so much, it was so dangerous, in the forest and in the water,” said 21-year-old Qariburahman, who had been on the road for a month before Austrian police picked him up and brought him to the Nickelsdorf refugee reception center.

“When I came from Afghanistan, about three people died on the way, the way is very dangerous,” he said.

His journey had cost him $5,000.

A Syrian refugee in the camp of Traiskirchen south of Vienna said people had no choice but to go with traffickers.

“We didn’t know what the car was, maybe it’s a truck, maybe it’s a van. And we had to follow [the trafficker] because in his area, he is the boss,” he said, his pregnant wife and baby son close by.

“My wife, she told me, oh maybe we were supposed to be one of them … maybe it is one of my friends, maybe it is one of my brothers on that truck.'”

“Mass Grave”

On another front in the crisis, Libyan authorities arrested three people on suspicion of involvement in launching a boat packed with migrants that sank off the country’s Mediterranean coast, killing up to 200 people, a security official said.

The vessel, with up to 400 African, Syrian, and Asian migrants on board, capsized on Thursday after setting off from the town of Zuwara, close to the Italian island of Lampedusa and a center of operations for people smugglers exploiting the anarchy in Libya, a country with two rival governments.

By Saturday, 115 bodies had been recovered and about 198 migrants rescued, officials said.

Arrests of smugglers are rare in Libya, where the judiciary has little power since the country is effectively controlled by former rebel groups which helped to oust Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The head of the European Parliament meanwhile said the “glaring failures” of some European countries to take in refugees were turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave.

Martin Schulz, a German Social Democrat, said those European governments that had resisted European Union proposals to agree to a common plan must do more to deal with the crisis.

He did not single out any states. However, Hungary, which is part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone, is building a fence along its border with Serbia to contain what it calls a threat to European security, prosperity, and identity.

“The Mediterranean becomes a mass grave, gruesome scenes play out at borders, there is mutual blame — and those in greatest need, seeking our protection, are left without help,” Schulz told Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.

Germany’s highest court on Saturday overturned a weekend ban on assemblies in an eastern town that was the scene of violent protests against refugees. More than 30 policemen were injured in clashes in the town of Heidenhau, near Dresden, last weekend.

Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Heidenau on Monday and condemned the protests. Germany expects the number of asylum seekers to quadruple to about 800,000 this year.

(Additional reporting by Marton Dunai in Kecskemet, Anna McIntosh in Traiskirchen, Shadia Nasrallah in Vienna and Ahmed Elumami in Tripoli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Photo: Police escort suspects in the deaths of 71 refugees found in a truck on an Austrian motorway, in Kecskemet, Hungary, August 29, 2015. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Austria, Libya Count Dead As Number Of Migrants Crossing Mediterranean Soars

Austria, Libya Count Dead As Number Of Migrants Crossing Mediterranean Soars

By Karin Strohecker and Ahmed Elumami

EISENSTADT, Austria/TRIPOLI (Reuters) — Austria said on Friday 71 refugees including a baby girl were found dead in an abandoned freezer truck, while Libya recovered the bodies of 82 migrants washed ashore after their overcrowded boat sank on its way to Europe and scores more were feared dead.

The U.N. refugee agency said the number of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe had passed 300,000 this year, up from 219,000 in the whole of 2014.

Three Bulgarians and an Afghan were arrested in connection with the truck deaths. The victims – 59 men, eight women and four children, including a girl of 1-2 years old — were probably from Syria, police said.

At least 180 were either dead or missing in the Libyan disaster. Both tragedies were a result of a renewed surge in migrants seeking refuge from war and poverty that has confronted Europe with its worst refugee crisis since World War II.

The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) said more than 2,500 people have died making the sea crossing this year, compared with 3,500 who died or went missing in the Mediterranean in 2014.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said European Union leaders were ready for an emergency meeting, if needed, to discuss the refugee crisis.

A security official in the western Libyan town of Zuwara, from where the doomed migrant boat had set off, said there had been around 400 people on board. Many appeared to have been trapped in the hold when it capsized on Thursday.

“About 100 people are still missing,” said Ibrahim al-Attoushi, a Red Crescent official, and 198 had been rescued.

The migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa, Pakistan, Syria, Morocco, and Bangladesh, the security official said.

The Libyan coast guard has limited capabilities, relying on small inflatables, tug boats, and fishing vessels.

Zuwara, near the Tunisian border, is a major launchpad for smugglers shipping migrants to Italy.

Libya is a major transit route for migrants hoping to make it to Europe. Smuggling networks exploit the country’s lawlessness and chaos to bring Syrians into Libya via Egypt while Africans arrive through Niger, Sudan, and Chad.

The Italian coast guard said 1,430 people had been rescued in operations off Libya on Thursday, and a merchant ship sent to the aid of a small boat carrying 125 people recovered two bodies.

In Greece, coast guards said they had rescued more than 1,600 migrants making their way to Greek islands near Turkey over the past three days.

Police in Sicily detained 10 people on suspicion of multiple homicide and aiding illegal immigration after 52 migrants were found dead in the hull of a boat this week.

Sweeping North

In Europe, refugees and migrants have swept north through the Balkans in recent days, with thousands of Syrians, Afghans, and Pakistanis crossing from Serbia into EU-member Hungary, where authorities said more than 140,000 had been caught entering the country so far this year.

Almost all hope to reach the more affluent countries of northern and western Europe such as Germany and Sweden.

Hungary, which is part of Europe’s Schengen passport-free travel zone, is building a high fence along its border with Serbia to confront what it says is a threat to European security, prosperity, and identity.

Hungary plans to tighten laws next week to curb migration pressure on the country, including using the army, if needed, to help police near the southern border, lawmaker Gergely Gulyas of the ruling Fidesz party said on Friday.

Austrian police had originally put the death toll in the truck found abandoned near the Hungarian border on Thursday at about 50, but later raised the figure to 71.

The refrigerated vehicle was found by an Austrian motorway patrol with fluids from the decomposing bodies seeping from its back door.

The truck is at a customs building in the village of Nickelsdorf, which has refrigeration facilities and where forensic specialists in white protective suits and yellow rubber boots could be seen wheeling body bags away.

In Hungary, police said 10 Syrian migrants were injured on Friday when a van driven by a Romanian suspected of human trafficking overturned en route for Budapest.

The UNHCR said that in one incident on Thursday, 51 people suffocated in the hold of a boat and survivors said they had been beaten to force them into the hold and then had to pay money to smugglers just to come out to breathe.

One of the survivors, an Iraqi orthopedic surgeon, said he had paid 3,000 euros ($3,400) to come up on to the top deck with his wife and 2-year-old son.

Last week, 49 people died in another boat’s hold after inhaling poisonous fumes, and on Wednesday 21 people are thought to have died after a dinghy with 145 on board got into difficulty, UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said.

(Writing by Giles Elgood; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Photo: Syrian migrant family cross under a fence as they enter Hungary at the border with Serbia, near Roszke, August 28, 2015. REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo