Colourmeamba took a LONG break, but hey! WE ARE
BACK!!! :)
..So much has happened this year and we are particularly thankful for
Nigeria's peaceful democratic transition.
God bless Nigeria ALWAYS!!!
So, straight to today's story.
This story taken from BBC.com may leave you astounded at the choices desperate people make. It is the ultimate
decision taken by desperate Africans fleeing to Europe through horrific water waves in search of better life.
Please read
below the story of Juan Medina, a photographer, whom for two decades, has
been following migrants trying to reach Europe..
''I started taking photos of migrants because I was living in Fuerteventura in the
Canary Islands working as a photographer for the local paper, and they were
coming over from all over sub-Saharan Africa.
What
happened on that day in 2004 was no different to what had been happening for
years, and would keep happening.
The
journey across the sea to Europe is taken by a lot of people in search of a
better life. At any moment boats can capsize, they can run out of gas, the
motor can break down - and they're vulnerable to the cold weather.
As they reached the Canary Islands, there was a Civil Guard patrol waiting to
detain them. The migrants started to board the larger vessel but when they all
moved to one side, their boat capsized.That day, the migrants were on a
small boat, apatera, full of people. They had been on board for many
hours.
Twenty-nine
of them were rescued. Nine died. The people on board were all men. Many came
from Mali, some from Ivory Coast and some from Ghana.
The
survivors went through the usual process on their arrival - migrants are held
in a detention centre for foreigners for 40 days, then they are either put on a
flight to their countries of origin, or they are flown to mainland Spain.
I know
what happened to two of the men on that boat - Isa and Ibrahim. I met them the
day they were rescued. They are the men I photographed being pulled out of the
sea.
They
were sent to Spain - Isa was taken to Valencia and Ibrahim to Murcia.
They
made it very clear what was going on back home in Mali. They come from large
families. In Isa's case for example, they depend on crops and the harvest year
by year. Work is scarce. They didn't have any opportunities. They were really
living in a situation of extreme need.
Despite
the risks they decided to make the journey. For them it was the only way out.
They thought it would be worth it to try to help their families. Perhaps they
didn't know exactly what was going to happen to them minute by minute, but they
knew it was dangerous.
I went
to their homes in Mali to meet their families and was greeted with open arms,
with a lot of love - in the exact opposite way to how the Spanish greet
migrants here. Their families told me their story so that I could understand
why their sons were willing to risk their lives.
The
main thing that struck me is the terrible living conditions they left behind.
They risked dying at sea but they faced even greater pressures trying to
survive at home. They did it because they had no other way out. It's not
because they were adventure seekers.
It made
their families incredibly sad - first, the pain because their children left,
and second, knowing that their children could also die.
Some
people who survive the journey join our society, in as much as our society
allows them to - often in an unstable precarious way, without papers, without
rights.
As
journalists we have the opportunity to see what's happening first hand, but we
should all be involved in this situation, because this is happening on our own
doorstep.
In
reality they are our neighbours, they could be living on the floor above you,
selling you your food, or go to school with your children. If people feel they
are not directly affected by this situation, they are turning a blind eye.
I think
my photos are documents. These are things that are happening day after day.
Throughout
history it's thanks to photographs or articles that we know what has happened -
so we know that at the end of the 20th Century and the turn of the 21st Century
people travelled to the gates of Europe in much the same way slaves did in the
17th Century.
 |
| Mohammed from Togo treats wounds suffered while trying to swim from Morocco to Spain. |
Many of
them would have drowned at sea too, squashed into makeshift boats that would
sink.
And
people keep dying today. It's unusual for a month to pass without a tragedy.
Even after 20 years following this story, people are still drowning every week
and I don't see anything changing. If there is any change at all, it's got
worse. Each tragedy or shipwreck gets bigger and more painful because more
people lose their lives. There is more police pressure on Europe's borders than
ever before - but people are still dying''.
 |
| Migrants at their hiding place in the mountains near the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa |
STILL NO WORDS.
DO YOU HAVE WORDS?
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