Peter Popham reported from Rome and The Independent published this dramatic picture with the right headline last Monday (May 28).
Read the full story here, which starts like this:
For three days and three nights, these African migrants clung desperately to life. Their means of survival is a tuna net, being towed across the Mediterranean by a Maltese tug that refused to take them on board after their frail boat sank.
Malta and Libya, where they had embarked on their perilous journey, washed their hands of them.
Eventually, they were rescued by the Italian navy.
The astonishing picture shows them hanging on to the buoys that support the narrow runway that runs around the top of the net.
They had had practically nothing to eat or drink.
Last night, on the island of Lampedusa, the 27 young men – from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan and other countries – told of their ordeal.
As their flimsy boat from Libya floundered adrift for six days, two fishing boats failed to rescue them.
On Wednesday, the Maltese boat, the Budafel allowed them to mount the walkway but refused to have them on board.
This is the latest snapshot from the killing seas of the southern Mediterranean, the stretch of water at the European Union’s southern gate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says “has become like the Wild West, where human life has no value any more and people are left to their fate”…
Well… today another European newspaper covers the issue and plays the same photo on the front page.
My question is:
Why didn’t the European media follow and cover this story in a big way?
When you see this picture, there are no words, easy excuses or easy answers, but the reality of the tragedy is right in front of your eyes.
What The Independent, DeMorgen and perhaps a few other newspapers did was an act of courage.
For the rest, shame on you!
Are we blind?
