Philobiblon

What they risk to get here …

The boat’s phantom crew was made up of the desiccated corpses of 11 young men, huddled in two separate piles in the small cabin. Dressed in shorts and colourful jerseys, they had been partially petrified by the salt water, sun and sea breezes of the Atlantic Ocean. …
The story of the 11 dead and some 40 other would-be immigrants from Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Gambia starts on Christmas Day last year at Praia, a port in the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde. There, for €1,300 (£890) each, they were promised a trip to the Canary Islands by a mysterious Spaniard.

The other 40 were the “lucky” ones – they seem to have been swept to their death off the boat in Atlantic storms. They died quicker. The death of these men is thought to have taken about a month.

This route, from the west African coast to Cape Verde, opened up late last year. By March Spanish authorities claimed more than 1,000 had drowned.
That has not stopped the flow. Three vessels carrying 188 African migrants reached Tenerife yesterday. The number of immigrants to have reached the Canaries this year is close to 7,000.

Doesn’t such desperation, such courage, such ambition, deserve respect?