The 21st Century Slave Trade In Libya

The year is 2017 and the happenings around the world seems to be moving at a faster pace with humankind trying to catch up with what is going on around him/her. Today, you hear a suicide bombing in Iraq/Afghanistan/Somalia/Syria and tomorrow you hear of a terrorist attack in the USA, France or England with 100s of innocent lives lost through no fault of theirs. When such unfortunate events happen, the various social media platforms are flooded with updates about them and pictures are quickly released and shared on these platforms. Some people too, especially, Africans south of the Sahara are also trying everything possible to cross the Sahara Desert and further cross the Mediterranean Sea in their quest to get to Europe for greener pastures. Some of these migrants are fleeing from their war torn countries and they think they can only be safe once they make it to Europe.

But the journey through the Sahara Desert and across the Mediterranean Sea is fraught with death, robberies, rape and slavery. Many of the migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as their boats capsize as a result of overcrowding.  A lot of these migrants die from thirst and hunger on the Sahara Desert. Most of the women are also raped and killed by some of the middlemen and armed robbers. These migrants are made to part with huge sums of money by the middlemen. Failure to pay these amounts results in one being left to die in the desert or sold into slavery to wealthy landowners and businessmen who use them as slaves on their date palm plantations and also house helps. The month of November, 2017 saw the various social media platforms especially, Facebook being awash with the horrors of the selling of Black African migrants into slavery in Libya. These Africans are being sold for $400, $500 and $600 each.

These Africans are auctioned and sold as slaves in Libya. The UN, AU and ECOWAS are urgently called upon to act now and free these young Africans held in ‘Slave Markets’ in Libya. The slave auctioning of African migrants in Libya shows how humans are deprived of all dignity. We should renounce all forms of ideology and prejudice that reduce people to merchandise. God save Africa.

   

Europe's Headache

For the past few weeks we have been seeing thousands of refugees from Syria heading towards Europe to seek asylum as they are running away from the war that has ravaged their once beautiful country, Syria. Boat loads of these Syrian refugees made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

This action taken by the Syrians was initially met with a hostile attitude by most of the European countries they are trying to move to. They stuck to that stance until the some of the Syrians drowned in the sea with majority of the casualties being women and children. Horrifying pictures of children washed ashore on the Turkish coast were splashed across the tabloids and on the television screens and this immediately caused a serious outrage throughout the world.

Now Europe will have to bear the brunt of the thousands of Syrian refugees knocking on their door seeking asylum and safe haven from the civil war ravaging their country. Germany, Britain, France and other European countries then agreed to accept a substantial number of the refugees.

This crisis is seen as the Law of Karma at work. Europe has to bear this headache and learn from it. Several questions come to mind: Who is responsible for the rise of ISIS in Syria, Libya and Iraq? What happened to the political solution suggested by the Russians to end the civil war in Syria? Where does the rebels in Syria and ISIS get their weapons from and their source of funding? Who benefits once the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad is kicked out of power?

It seems the plan did not work in Ukraine and the Russians were able to move in fast and thwart the efforts of the 'Invisible Hands' behind the Ukrainian crisis. This plan was to install a puppet regime in Ukraine and cripple the Russian Naval fleet in Crimea but this did not work. Now the other plan was to make sure Syria had a puppet regime and with Assad kicked out, their friends in Qatar will pump gas through Syria to Turkey and then to Europe. Thus, Europe will no longer depend on Russian gas and this will greatly affect the Russian economy and bring Russia down to her knees. Now this plan also seems to have backfired with weapons falling into the wrong hands thus the emergence of ISIS.

Europe must think of a political solution to the Syrian crisis and as the Syrian president said, he will only step down when Europe is able to deal with the terrorists in his country. Right now, it seems this civil war has turned into a proxy war with the Russians moving in to support the Syrian government to fight the rebels (terrorists).

The earlier a political solution is found to this Syrian crisis, the better for Europe as the Syrian refugees have nowhere to go but to cross the sea and come to Europe. This will be one headache for Europe that even all the pain killers in the world can not cure. Some headaches can be very serious and this one is more than serious for Europe to bear.

The Journey Of Death

My heart is heavy with grief and sadness as i write this post. Why should our brothers and sisters die such needless deaths in the Mediterranean sea in their quest to seek greener pastures outside the continent? Over the past two weeks the media has been awash with horrifying images of bodies of African migrants who got drowned while trying to journey in boats to the Italian island of Lampedusa. It was reported that about 300 of the purported 500 migrants on board the crude boats died as a result of  the boat capsizing due to the bad weather on the high seas. More of these unfortunate deaths are still being reported as the days go by. What about those who died on the Sahara Desert? Most of these deaths go unreported and no proper burial is given to them. Mother Africa weeps for her children who embark on this "Journey of Death" to Europe. I sometimes ask myself why our brothers and sisters embark on this dangerous and perilous journey to Europe? One would say that they embark on these journeys to Europe to make sure they make some money and see to it that their families back home on the continent have a better life. But to me, i would say that this shows that we have a serious leadership crisis and failure in Africa as our leaders would rather amass wealth and stash huge sums of money in foreign bank accounts. Rather than see to the well being of their citizens, our leaders always have their personal and selfish interests always as their first priority. The citizens are just asking for good roads, better education systems, good drinking water, employment avenues and many more. If all these are done by our leaders, no African would think of embarking on this "Journey of Death" to Europe to live a better life as they are being made to believe. We should stop blaming the white man for every thing that goes wrong in Africa and put pressure on our leaders in Africa to do the right thing. The days of colonialism are fast gone and we as Africans can do better than the blame game we always stick to. Just to quote the words of Mr. Franklin Cudjoe of Imani Ghana, "Italy should not allow the Eritrean Government to convey the dead bodies of Eritreans back to the Dictatorial hell hole called Eritrea. That would be triple jeopardy. Please let the unfortunate brave political slaves die as martyrs and their souls rest for ever in Italy." May their souls rest in peace.