Desperate Africans Pay Heavy Price to Cross Gulf Of Aden

by LotusFlower | January 10, 2009 at 12:40 pm

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Sometimes we forget how, despite credit crunch and downturn, lucky we are.

War and poverty are rife around the World and thousands upon thousands of people risk their lives to flee these twin evils and find a better life for themselves and their families.

One such route out of a war zone is that taken across the Gulf of Aden taken by desperate Ethiopians and Somalis. It's a perilous journey with people paying what little money they have to get passage on ill equipped smugglers boats.

More than 50,000 people made this journey last year with over 580 drowning.

This type of movement is mirrored wherever poverty and war reign including the crossing from Mexico into the US.

Those of us in states that are relatively peaceful and affluent often look askance on individuals and families that turn up on our shores looking for a new life. Some label them as scroungers and want them sent back even when they have escaped persecution in their homeland. To take such risks to get to our lands takes courage and many of these people ensure through their less than minimum pay jobs that our lives remain cosy. Not many would take these risks for no reason and most if things were better at home want to return.

If our politicians don't like influxes of true asylum seekers then they can best avoid this by contributing wholeheartedly to world peace and do everything in their, and we in our, power to end world poverty

The United Nations refugee agency says last year more than 50,000 people made the perilous voyage in smugglers' boats across the Gulf of Aden which separates Somalia on the African continent from Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula. And, it says at least 590 drowned and another 359 were reported missing.

The UN refugee agency says desperate people resort to desperate measures. And, in the case of Somalis and Ethiopians, it says thousands continue to risk their lives in an effort to escape war and poverty.