Rome, January 14. The agreement between Italy and Libya that stops boat people towards the Italian island of Lampedusa has a dramatic side in the Sahara south of Libya. This is shown by shocking images published on the 14th of january by the Italian weekly L’Espresso entitled "Death in the Desert".
[espresso.repubblica.it] Dispersed in the sand eleven dried up bodies are lying: seven men and four women. One kneeling in prayer, the other with hands lifted up, as if wanting to grab the air. The people who died of thirst, would have traveled on foot. They wear Libyan clothes, which suggests that they were not going to Libya, but came from there.
The film was made on March 16 2009 with a telephone camera from a passenger traveling from Al Gatrun, the last Libyan oasis, to Fort Madame in Niger. The magazine has received the film last summer and then verified the source before releasing the images.
"This is the way the men and women, who no longer reach the beaches on the Italian island of Lampedusa, die claims journalist Fabrizio Gatti of L’Espresso, who himself made reports along the migrant route. Blocked by the agreement of the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaffi the African immigrants are more often being sent back to Niger.
Libyan soldiers leave them behind on the border with Niger in the hot desert sand. From there it is 80 kilometer walk to the first military base in Niger, Madame Fort. There is no road, you must orient yourselve on the sun and stars. Who loses the way has no hope.
Two weeks before this movie was made, the Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi was visiting the Libyan leader Gaddafi. He offered his apologies for the colonial occupation by Italy in Libya, guaranteed 5 billion U.S. dollars in compensation in the next 20 years, arranged gas and oil agreements, and also the joint patrol of Libya and Italy in front of the Libyan coast to block the departure of immigrants towards Lampedusa.
Gaddafi then showed his good will by immediately deporting several hundred migrants from a military camp Al Gatrun to Niger. Possibly, L’espresso concludes, the filmed corpses were part of that group.
In response to the images that were broadcast last week by the television program AnnoZero, Roberto Cota, leader of ruling party Lega Nord, said that Italy can not be held responsible for the immigration problem, but that this is a European issue.
He stressed that the agreement with Libya was successful, because the immigration by sea fell by 90 percent. "This way we have reduced the deaths at sea."
Source: http://espresso.repubblica.it/dettaglio/morire-nel-deserto/2119367&ref=hpsp
