UN urges European governments to allow in people stranded at sea

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The United Nations refugee agency has called on European governments to urgently allow in more than 500 people rescued in the Mediterranean but who remain stranded at sea as countries bicker over who should take them.

UNHCR special envoy Vincent Cochetel said “this is a race against time”.

He said “storms are coming and conditions are only going to get worse”.

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The people are aboard two ships chartered by humanitarian aid groups, but Italy’s anti-migrant government is denying them access to its ports.

The UNHCR says nearly 600 people have died or gone missing in waters between Libya and Italy this year.

The European Commission said it was urging member countries to take action and is offering support, but has no power to intervene.

A spokesperson said: “There’s nothing more we can do.”

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  • Show Comments
    1. Let them in? What do you think this is, a compassionate country? Here in the UK, we need more tax cuts so I can finally get my own yacht, not more of those dirty, hungry refugees who probably have skin browner than I get on my annual three weeks in the Maldives. As an ardent Remainer, I fully support the European Union’s ‘let-’em-drown’ policy. It’s in their best interests, after all.

      https://www.huffpost.com/entry/open-borders_n_5737722
      https://newint.org/blog/2017/11/29/why-open-borders

    2. Migrants are people like the rest of us. Human beings have always moved around the globe from the beginning of time. It’ s part of our nature. There needs to be a sensible debate on the scale of inward economic migration. Unfortunately, the tabloids and the coalition would rather engage in hyperbole and scapegoating. Many White people under the sway of Tory tabloids don’t even bother trying to distinguish between ethnic minority citizens and recently arrived economic migrants, regarding all and sundry as ‘immigrants’. When times are tough, people do look for scapegoats and it’s up to the government and the media not to indulge this (unfortunately) primordial tendency. A fact that is usually not mentioned by politicians or the tabloids is that it’s mainly British employers (of all colours and creeds) who take on economic migrants, often in preference to British citizens. Their excuse is that citizens are likely to be lazy whereas migrants are likely to be hardworking. I suspect what these employers really mean is that citizens will not be easily exploited, humiliated and underpaid, unlike desperate economic migrants.

      Immigrants, fixing the problems caused by the native Brits, no need to thank them.
      Immigrants take less benefits than UK citizens and put more into the pot.
      Our old people would be in an even worse situation if we didn’t have immigration.
      It’s the only way we will pay for the massive costs of our aging population, you clearly don’t like it, but you should get used to it.
      From the various ONS reports and such. They pay tax and use relatively less services than aging folk, thus help pay.
      We have open borders, that’s not quite the one way stream you suggest. Maybe in a generation or two the movement would be greater, assuming we bother teaching languages to our kids.
      I know of many people who have migrated to the continent, some permanent and many older folk for the bulk of the year.
      Isn’t that great 🙂

      It looks to me that Europeans do not want immigrants in the West since they see them only as a problem?.

      Just reflect on what you guys in the west have done in other countries.

      Think of Africa and the sub-continent in particular. Do you guys really have a reason to complain?. Or are you the elites that always should have it better than anyone else?.

      To be honest, no group of people has damaged the world, other people’s societies more than you in the west.

      The migrants don’t want to integrate or abide by western law. Just because they don´t want to wear nude clothes or at least cloth that can show how big her breast are… so these people failed to integrate. Just because they don’t like free sex, then these people failed again.. what a dirty Bush mind you have!

      The second generation of Muslim migrants is facing a huge challenge because they did not think even for a second before that someone would say, ‘You are not welcome.'”

      Continue to moan about immigration. You want Turkey and India to do business with Britain and you don’t want their citizens in Britain. What a contradiction!

      A cap on immigration from third world countries will be imposed despite cabinet concern that the policy could harm the economy. The school secretary and university minister have raised concerns that the cap could deprive the economy of skilled labour. Baroness Valentine said that the word cap is a very negative word to put out to the global market place.

      EU requires 40 million immigrants from outside its borders by 2050 in order to maintain itself, as the current population is ageing. Britain colonised half of the world, we imposed our laws and way of life on impoverished countries and made slaves out of its citizens. Now we still plunder the wealth and resources of other countries, oil, diamonds, gold etc. Countries where people work 12/14 hour shifts in abhorrent conditions for next to nothing supply us with goods so we can have the latest clothes/iPhone, we sell arms around the world and create wars and instability in the middle east. The west takes so so much from developing countries in the name of profit… then some migrants come here to work or to flee war and people complain, GET A GRIP! On top of that, we are all children of immigration. If you take the “get back to your own country” rhetoric to its logical conclusion we’d all return to Africa, devolve into monkeys then go crawling back into the jungle.
      IA
      http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk

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