MEDITERRANEAN: Migrants Sold Fake Life Jackets

Source: ASSIST News, January 10, 2016

“It is raining like crazy in Lesvos tonight and people who got soaking wet arriving on boats today have not been able to dry up at all,” [writes refugee advocate Zrinka Bralo]. “I met a great crew from Zagreb on the beach today. They are working with unaccompanied minors in Moria camp and came out to help on the beach. It was truly humbling to see the efforts to of one American lifeguard from the Dutch Boat Refugee Foundation to save a life of a man who was so hypothermic that he slipped away and stopped shaking.”

Zrinka went on to say, “I am still sticking with my policy of not taking photos of people in distress, especially children. I am also finding it increasingly difficult to restrain myself when I see other people hugging children off the boat and pulling out big lens cameras and sticking it into the terrified children’s faces. But that is another story. I leave you tonight with my rage, my guilt, and a few photos of the fake life jackets I struggled to pull off tiny children this morning.”

Recently police have raided and arrested people working in factories in Turkey making these “fake life jackets” to sell to the people. The Guardian reports that police allegedly seized 1,263 lifejackets filled with non-buoyant materials from an illegal workshop in Izmir that employed two Syrian children, according to Agence France-Presse and Dogan news agencies.

The raid came in the same week that the bodies of more than 30 people washed up on Turkish beaches, having drowned in their attempt to reach Greece. Some of the dead were pictured wearing lifejackets, leading to suspicions that they may have been fake.

» See full story with pictures and read Turkish police find factory making fake lifejackets in Izmir.

» Other stories related to the refugee crisis report that nine Christian leaders in Australia were arrested for protesting deportation of refugees (Christian Post / Christian Headlines) and that refugees were tear-gassed in France (Foreign Policy) and Macedonia (Al Jazeera). See also A Street View of Immigration (SAT-7 video).

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