In pursuit of a better life, migrants – all with their own and various reasons – boarded a ship that was supposed to be a V.I.P. boat as promised by smugglers set for Italy. Little did they know that the boat was actually a fishing trawler overcrowded with hundreds of migrants all hoping for the same thing: a better life in Europe. A few days later, the ship capsized and sank because of the gigantic number of people that boarded the ship.
This article will share the stories of Thaer Khalid al-Rahal, Mohamed Abdelnasser, and Matloob Hussain whose dreams and hopes for world were crushed by a tragedy.
Thaer Khalid al-Rahal was first hit when his son, Khalid, received a diagnosis of dire leukemia, a broad term for cancer of the blood cells. He was originally living in a Jordanian refugee camp because of the Syrian Arab Republic war. When Khalid needed a bone-marrow transplant, Rahal simply did not have enough money to pay for the treatment. Therefore, he began a journey set for Europe so that he could earn enough money for his son to live.
Mohamed Abdelnasser was a carpenter from Egypt who wasn’t earning enough money to feed his wife and two children. Faced with poverty, Abdelnasser had no choice but to go to Europe to search for better luck.
Matloob Hussain’s Greek residency expired and forced him to move back to Pakistan where he fed 20 of his family members using his own salary. There was nothing in Pakistan but an economic crisis. “We don’t leave because we want to. There is simply nothing for us in Pakistan,” Adiil Hussain, Matloob Hussain’s brother said to the Washington Post.
Out of the 750 migrants, half being children escaping from war, who boarded the trawler in Tobruk, Libya, only 104 survivors made it to land, 82 bodies were recovered, and the rest lost in the ocean.
After the wreckage, Adiil Hussain went to look for his brother, searching everywhere and asking the entire village if they had seen the man in the picture he was holding while his eyes were red from tears. Day by day, no news came about his brother, Adiil struggled to break the news to Matloob’s 10-year-old daughter.
The same thing happened to Rahal’s family, where Khalid was waiting for his father to come back home with a solution to his disease. No one can teach a four-year-old how to process this grief and mourning.
There was also a shortage on rescue teams and a spread on information involving the Mediterranean wreckage because all news highlights were so focused on the tragedy of the Titanic-viewing submarine implosion. Maybe if the Mediterranean wreckage reached more headlines across the globe, more refugees would have been saved and bodies could’ve had a proper funeral.
Society’s obsession with celebrities and billionaires completely disregarded the struggles of people in poverty who desperately needed help, all because of five billionaires stuck in the ocean.
Children now have to come to terms with the absence of a father or mother figure in their lives, while relatives mourn their loved ones who made a sacrifice in pursuit of a better life.
Sources: https://eb18600f7bb2916037f5ee8e636ce199.cdn.bubble.io/f1687707239039x781447615300021100/How%20750%20migrants%20ended%20up%20on%20the%20boat%20that%20capsized%20near%20Greece%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.pdf
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-hundreds-drowned-off-the-coast-of-greece
This article will share the stories of Thaer Khalid al-Rahal, Mohamed Abdelnasser, and Matloob Hussain whose dreams and hopes for world were crushed by a tragedy.
Thaer Khalid al-Rahal was first hit when his son, Khalid, received a diagnosis of dire leukemia, a broad term for cancer of the blood cells. He was originally living in a Jordanian refugee camp because of the Syrian Arab Republic war. When Khalid needed a bone-marrow transplant, Rahal simply did not have enough money to pay for the treatment. Therefore, he began a journey set for Europe so that he could earn enough money for his son to live.
Mohamed Abdelnasser was a carpenter from Egypt who wasn’t earning enough money to feed his wife and two children. Faced with poverty, Abdelnasser had no choice but to go to Europe to search for better luck.
Matloob Hussain’s Greek residency expired and forced him to move back to Pakistan where he fed 20 of his family members using his own salary. There was nothing in Pakistan but an economic crisis. “We don’t leave because we want to. There is simply nothing for us in Pakistan,” Adiil Hussain, Matloob Hussain’s brother said to the Washington Post.
Out of the 750 migrants, half being children escaping from war, who boarded the trawler in Tobruk, Libya, only 104 survivors made it to land, 82 bodies were recovered, and the rest lost in the ocean.
After the wreckage, Adiil Hussain went to look for his brother, searching everywhere and asking the entire village if they had seen the man in the picture he was holding while his eyes were red from tears. Day by day, no news came about his brother, Adiil struggled to break the news to Matloob’s 10-year-old daughter.
The same thing happened to Rahal’s family, where Khalid was waiting for his father to come back home with a solution to his disease. No one can teach a four-year-old how to process this grief and mourning.
There was also a shortage on rescue teams and a spread on information involving the Mediterranean wreckage because all news highlights were so focused on the tragedy of the Titanic-viewing submarine implosion. Maybe if the Mediterranean wreckage reached more headlines across the globe, more refugees would have been saved and bodies could’ve had a proper funeral.
Society’s obsession with celebrities and billionaires completely disregarded the struggles of people in poverty who desperately needed help, all because of five billionaires stuck in the ocean.
Children now have to come to terms with the absence of a father or mother figure in their lives, while relatives mourn their loved ones who made a sacrifice in pursuit of a better life.
Sources: https://eb18600f7bb2916037f5ee8e636ce199.cdn.bubble.io/f1687707239039x781447615300021100/How%20750%20migrants%20ended%20up%20on%20the%20boat%20that%20capsized%20near%20Greece%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.pdf
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-hundreds-drowned-off-the-coast-of-greece
