Europe's African Refugee Crisis: Is the Boat Really Full?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/european-refugee-crisis-worsens-in-mediterranean-a-964304.html



Since Italy began rescuing Africans from the Mediterranean after the last major tragedy in October, the number of refugees coming to Europe has risen dramatically. Fears of economic immigrants could become a top issue in Europe's spring election.

Europe's African Refugee Crisis: Is the Boat Really Full?
By SPIEGEL Staff
April 15, 2014 – 05:54 PM

Nasir Abubakar says the weather was good. "There was no blazing heat from above and no waves below," he says. But that didn't prevent the 30-year-old Nigerian from almost dying during his journey across the Mediterranean Sea.

He says that thousands of people were crammed into a boat without food or water. For five or six days they drifted aimlessly on the open sea. Abubakar says he is no longer certain of other details. He witnessed children, women and men on the boat dying of thirst next to him.

"Some asked me to pray for them and then jumped overboard to die," he recalls. Barely clinging to consciousness, he lay down until an Italian Coast Guard helicopter pointed the disoriented captain on the path to Lampedusa. Abubakar can still remember the helicopter's light shining down from as dusk turned to night. He had reached Europe, his destination.

"But nobody counted the people who drown and sink to the bottom of the sea," Abubakar says.