Thesis 100dpi

The tragic loss of 50 lives in December 2010, many of them women
and children, when a boat carrying asylum-seekers broke up on rocks
on Christmas Island, was attributed in part to the lack of a competent
crew.
It must also be acknowledged that refugees and migrants at times
endanger their own lives and those of others by sabotaging their own
boats in desperate attempts to prevent their return to the country of
origin. Thus there was an explosion on a vessel that was under the
control of the Australian navy near Ashmore Reef which caused the
death of five asylum-seekers and injured other passengers and military
personnel in 2009.
62 REFUGIUM
humanitarian
/hjʊˌmanɪˈtɛːrɪən/ -concerned with or seeking to
promote human welfare.
internally displaced person
(idp) -someone who is forced to flee his or her
home but who remains within his or her country’s
borders. They are often referred to as refugees,
although they do not fall within the current legal
definition of a refugee.
immigrant
/ˈɪm.ɪ.ɡrən/ -a person who has settled permanently
in another country. Immigrants choose to move,
whereas refugees are forced to flee.
migrant
/ˈmʌɪɡr(ə)nt/ -a person who moves from one
place to another in order to find work or better
living conditions.
In addition to the troubles at sea, crossing the desert is also rife with
dangers. The routes leading from the Horn of Africa and West Africa to
Libya (and other North African destinations) necessarily pass through
the desert, either the Sahara or the Algerian desert, depending on
which routes refugees follow. This leaves refugees vulnerable. When
deaths do occur, they are usually due to the perilous nature of desert
crossing, and also to migrants’ contact with unscrupulous smugglers,
traffickers, certain state officials and, in some cases, violent non - state
actors. The same analogy is applied to the journey over Chihuahua
and Sonora desert. The fauna there is as tough as the flora — desert
centipedes, bark scorpions, collared lizards and diamondback
rattlesnakes: creatures with rugged skin and the ability to cope with
extreme temperatures.
The desert climate, particularly the cold nights, reportedly lead to
sickness among refugees. For some, the lack of medical treatment
and their general level of exhaustion may lead to deteriorating health
and, eventually, death. The human body shuts down slowly, over the
course of a few days or, in some cases, hours. In his award-winning
book “The Devil’s Highway,” which follows the case of the Yuma 14,
Luis Alberto Urrea describes the steps in gripping detail. “Your temperature
redlines — you hit 41, 42, 43 degrees. Your body panics and
dilates all blood capillaries near the surface, hoping to flood your skin
with blood to cool it off. You blush. Your eyes turn red: Blood vessels
burst, and later, the tissue of the whites literally cooks until it goes
pink, then a well-done crimson.” If refugees and migrants become sick,
it is not unusual for smugglers to dump them in the desert in order to
prevent the sickness from spreading to the rest.
Refugees die in deserts from a combination of mistreatment, indifference,
misadventure and lack of preparedness. They may also suffer
violence in the desert through banditry, at the hands of State officials
and smugglers, or vehicle accidents due to overcrowding, bad roads
and dangerous driving.
However, as most, but not all, migrants move through deserts under
the aegis of smugglers or independent transporters, their deaths cannot
be merely seen as accidents.