3500 migrants a year drowning in the Med is unacceptable. It's action time!

I never did want to "design a boat for smugglers". I want to respond to people dying in small craft the way the aircraft industry responds to people dying in airplanes: understand the problem, take corrective action, enforce regulations where necessary, and educate people about how to avoid mishaps in the future. If I were a doctor I'd respond by offering my medical services. I'm not a doctor - I'm an aspiring quality control engineer with a background in small craft naval architecture.

 

Don't pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side.

 

yes, ok, but the smugglers use of the boat is not legitimate but a criminal enterprise. And likely quite a few do not really care about the lives of the people they smuggle. Pack em in and stack em as many as you can get into the boat is their goal. Every square foot empty is a waste of space and lost money. And they reason that the coast guard will come to their aid if they need help, otherwise it is their fate to die. Fate and destiny is a part of their faith.

 

With respect, I think the only thing you will get is to feel good about yourself without doing, really, nothing.
All this seems to me to simplify, in a lamentable way, a problem that is a scourge to the civilized world.
I'd like the forum moderator would end this, I do not know how to classify, thread.

 

You guys discuss how to prevent boats with refugees sinking, but You do not want to see that thousands in their home countries are killed every day in wars. Who invaded and bombed Libya, Iraq? Who was feeding 'opposition' in Syria? Who is sponsoring Ukrainian terrorist 'government' regime? Answer to Yourself fairly...

This 'refugee life jacket' discussion here is just miserable. Sorry to say that.

 

When compare 3500 deaths at sea to thousands of starving to death children each day, 3500 is drop in the ocean.
To save lives is to start in your own back yard such as promoting vegetarianism which can save millions of deaths from obesity diseases, heart disease, cancer and better still the environment and even better still raise conscience so thousands of children can be helped that are starving to death this very moment.

 

There's plenty to lash out at bro, no question, though I'm not exactly clear what you're saying about whom. It sounds like some us & them going on, but I don't know who the us & them is. I think Angelique's outrage about lifejackets was prompted by reports of fake lifejackets, unlikely to save a non-swimmer, being sold to migrants in Turkey. Is that not outrageous?

I heard someone give a very interesting talk about Russian perspective, which I might be able to find online. The gentleman, an American who was a diplomat living in Russia for years, makes it very clear that there is a legitimate perspective that doesn't get much airplay in the west when everyone rushes to vilify Putin. Just as between Turkey & Greece, I think issues between the US and Russia need to be resolved, at this point, for peace to be brought to Syria, which any root cause analysis would suggest is the problem that needs attention. That is a discussion for another place, but one I'd be happy to have.

Please feel free to PM me if you don't want to post your response here.

 

Are you suggesting that the way to deal with a scourge is to ignore it?

As an American, I'm not looking to put my thumb on the scale either way as to whether Europe should accept refugees. That's for Europe to decide. As a boater and a designer who has consulted on safety issues I just find people drowning in boats, and governments unable to craft a policy to prevent it, an intolerable state of things. We all choose issues to be concerned about, to make an effort about to heal the world and try to make it a better place. None of us can do it all, not by ourselves; I can't and you can't. But to call an attempt to look at one aspect and call it 'lamentable' because it's not comprehensive? Does that come from as sad and cynical a place as it seems like it must?

 

There are no issues to be 'resolved', let the US get away from Ukraine (where half of population are native Russians), let the US get away from Syria (where Russian naval base is, since 1970-s). Stay away from Middle East, do not burn it, do not initiate 'revolutions', and there will be no refugee crisis. This is just simple as it is.

 

What this thread can offer is a challenge for a boat design that can be DIY built for refugees fleeing for their life's that has more chance at sea than a possible beheading or firing squad.
When talking about 3500 human deaths in a year, I think According to Farm Animal Rights Movement, approximately 10 billion land animals are killed every year for food in the United States, and 58 billion are killed worldwide.
Its said how we treat animals are how we treat society

 

What strategy to keep people from overloading it? What safety features? Without something really good as answres to these questions I doubt it would be compatible with the clearly stated goal in post #1 of reducing total deaths.

 

We tried a version of that locally. It worked out so well that the flood of refugees by boat went from close to zero in 2007 to 50,000+ per annum in 2012/3.

We policed a neighbouring country's SAR zone because they didn't have the ability/will to do it, only to find they refused to take back people off of *their* boats that departed from *their* ports, got just outside the 12 NM limit and triggered an EPIRB so Australians would take them to our country.

Unfortunately for your ideas, we've had a practical experiment and we didn't like the outcome. Have you checked with the populations of most of the popular destinations in the EU (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the UK, Germany) if they *want* all the refugees that can find their way onto a boat?

I very, very much doubt that you'll *ever* get Turkey to agree to take back people using their country as a transit/exit point to Europe regardless of the state of the boat involved. What's in it for them?

You're flogging a very, very dead horse. The solution to the refugee flood onto small overloaded boats is to fix the conditions that cause them to leave their home countries in the first place. Good luck with that.

PDW

 

Without going into the boggling complexity of the background politics here, perhaps contacting the NGOs who have local knowledge and experience and are already working for the victims of this crisis, might be the most effective way of providing help.

Here are two:

Medicin Sans Frontieres: http://www.msf.org/topics/mediterranean-migration

MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station): https://www.moas.eu/

Here is a very brief and light introduction to Operation Sophia, the EU military operation targeting the people smugglers, from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34461503

 

Stephen Ditmore, at least you should realize that there are very different sensibilities to discuss this problem, depending on the point on Earth where everyone lives or the formation of each one got. Therefore, I pray with all respect, not broach this issue with the lightness and insensitivity with which you are doing.
Sad and cynic is one who wants others to solve a problem that, in part, he has created. This is partly a consequence of the "new world order" that "someone", for and just for economic reasons, was determined to create.
That said, I will not answer any more but I again ask the moderator to end this thread to avoid more nonsense.

 

80% of those refugees must be incredible courageous to escape the war zone......and leave their mother,father brothers and little sisters behind.....

According the image in the West, the whole of Syria is one big warzone.....,yeah right.

.........