On february 7, 2015, four boats leaving Libya and aiming to reach Europe were caught in the storm in the Mediterranean Sea and sank. Only 9 of the 400 people from the African countries were rescued and others lost their lives. According to the statistics of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in 2014, more than 200,000 people were trying to reach Europe across the Mediterranean, more than 3,000 people lost their lives during this voyage.
 
In recent days, successive boat disasters make us think that this will increase even more in 2015.
 
As UHIM, we are wondering:
 
Why do hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa leave their country?
 
Why do people risk their lives on the hazardous voyage although they don't know the ending of.
 
Can Africans be left their countries because all their livelihoods from marine to animal husbandry, mining to agriculture are being exploited by global actors?
 
Is the West dragging the people into poverty, misery and death for their own prosperity?
 
Do Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans or Syrians leave their homeland because it is occupied and dragged into a civil war by Western powers?
 
It’s possible to add many other questions. Because from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Egypt to East Turkestan, from Arakan to Tunisia, from Yemen to Mali, from Central African Republic to Ukraine, all over the world has turned into a bedlam with the interventions of global actors. Dozens of countries are dragged into deep chaos with occupations, civil wars, embargoes, economic manipulations, the cruel implementations of multinational companies and political interference. Due to these interferences, millions of people living in these countries are losing their family, loved one, house, job and in short, everything, and living in a sense that looks like living dead. It is a pity that every year, hundreds of thousands of people are trying to take refuge in the countries that cause the problem.
 
However, the states created the refugee problem is pushing the people, who try to cross the Mediterranean Sea and take refuge to these countries, to death for the second time. In this respect, it is evident that the catastrophic events that occurred in the recent years and which have been reported as an ‘’accident’’ to the world public is not an accident. The possibility of not welcoming refugees, and even worse, sinking their boats in open water which means pushing thousands of people to death who are unlikely to get back.
 
Today, the United Nations, the European and its affiliates do not play an active role to resolve the problem, although they are expressing how much effort they have made to solve the refugee problem in every platform. While not exceed a few hundred of the total number of refugees on the European continent, today Turkey is home to only 3 million refugees from Syria.
 
Why does the West still continue to lead African and Middle Eastern people to death in spite of turning them into a moneymaker?
                                                                                                                                                                                              PRESS RELEASE / 12 February 2015
                                                                                                                                                        International Center for Watching Violation of Rights / İstanbul