...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...last year -- double the toll from 2020, the United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
said Friday.
A fresh report from the UN refugee agency demanded urgent action to combat surging deaths among refugees, asylum seekers and other
Last year, a total of 3,077 people were lost while trying to cross the Mediterranean and Atlantic routes to the continent, the report showed, up from 1,544 in 2020.
"Alarmingly, since the beginning of the year, an additional 478 people have also died or gone missing at sea," UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo told news hounds in Geneva.
The report showed that for 2021, 1,924 people were reported dead or missing on the Central and Western Mediterranean routes, while another 1,153 perished on the North African maritime route to the Canary Islands."Most of the sea crossings took place in packed, unseaworthy, inflatable boats, many of which capsized or were deflated leading to the loss of life," Mantoo said.
The sea journey from countries on the West African coast such as Mauritania and Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
to the Canary Islands was particularly perilous, she said, pointing out that the crossing could take up to 10 days.
"Many boats drifted off course or otherwise went missing without a trace in these waters," she said.
The UNHCR report cautioned that land routes were also "highly dangerous".
"Even greater numbers may have died on journeys through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas, in detention centres, or while in the captivity of smugglers or traffickers," Mantoo said.