Syrian and Palestinian immigrants face to face with human traffickers

Activists have circulated a photo on the internet for three sisters' children, who were victims of their father's dream of immigration to be face to face with sea darkness and human traffickers.

 The Palestinian refugee Hussein Salameh, who fled from al-Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, 7 km, was a victim of human traffickers who are enriching themselves on the backs of people who are fleeing war and hunger, with tens of Syrian and Palestinians refugees, Salamah, with his unknown fate untill now, has lost two of his  three girls (Julia and Sma) in a shipwreck off of Egypt few days ago, his youngest girl, Sara was found next day alive. 

 During the last weeks four deadly Mediterranean shipwrecks that claimed the lives of hundreds of would-be asylum-seekers fleeing war and repression sharpened calls for humanitarian corridors to allow safe passage to Europe, AP reported.

 Ala’a Aboud, a human rights activist, told Zaman Alwasl that Salameh family as dozens of palestinian families had fled Yarmouk refugge camp weeks ago, heading to Egypt due to the unbearable situation in Syria-torn war to find themselves again in the face of fragile security conditions in Egypt, Human smugglers offered the family crossing the sea for the 'promised heaven' before being victims of tragic story.

An eye-witnesses who was on the boat reported that smugglers had attacked the immigrants, trying to rob them, what caused chaos and disruption in the boat leading to drowning of some passengers.

 Most of the immigrants to the Italian shores are asylum seekers, fleeing civil war in Syria or repression and mandatory conscription in Eritrea, unlike the waves of economic migrants a decade ago.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres expressed concern that Syrians fleeing conflict have sought to reach Europe by such a perilous route, calling it "inhumane."

"They escaped bullets and bombs only to perish before they could ever claim asylum," he said, adding that there had been reports that the vessel had been fired on shortly after departing Zwara, Libya.

U.N. Secretary General Ban-Ki-moon called for action to prevent future tragedies "that places the vulnerability and human rights of migrants at the center," while Pope Francis lamented that "too often we are blinded by our comfortable lives, and refuse to see those dying at our doorstep," according to AP.

Some 30,100 migrants arrived in Italy and Malta in the first nine months of 2013, compared with 15,000 in all of 2012, according to the U.N. refugee agency.

At least 70,000 Syrians are registered in Egypt as refugees, according to AP. Many, including thousands of Palestinians who also fled the war in Syria, are not registered and use the country as a stopover before making the perilous sea trip to Europe.

Just 155 people survived in last week's shipwreck off Lampedusa. Caskets carrying the bodies of 80 of the 339 people, mostly Eritreans, who died were boarded on a ferry in Lampedusa to be transported to Sicily, where the victims of last week's shipwreck are to be buried.

"Urgent measures must be adopted to open humanitarian corridors. There is no time to lose," said Francesco Rocca to AP, the president of the Italian Red Cross, emphasizing that people escaping war and repression must be given a safe route of escape. "In this way it would hit also the traffickers and we could stop this ceaseless massacre."

Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Strait of Sicily where Lampedusa is located between 1994 and 2012. Often ships disappear at sea, leaving no way to verify the deaths.