Six migrants floated in the freezing ocean in September, desperately trying not to slip under the thrashing waves. They had just watched 500 people drown in a small, unseaworthy boat captained by people smugglers who had since deserted them.
The Palestinians, Syrians and Egyptians were plucked from the ocean by rescue authorities. They later told authorities they had heard the smugglers laughing as they left behind the hundreds of floating bodies.
Yet in response to these figures, western nations are moving in an opposite direction as they begin to scale back their rescue operations, rather than increase them
The smugglers, who had charged each asylum seeker US$2000 to seek refuge in Europe from Egypt, had deliberately rammed the boat with their own when the 500-plus migrants refused to move into a smaller, unseaworthy vessel. The 300 people below decks drowned almost immediately as the 200 people above scrambled to survive.
The tragedy has been labelled the worst shipwreck in years. And it happened during what has now been declared the "deadliest year" for migrants, with a record 4868 people dying while trying to cross treacherous oceans in 2014 - double the 2013 tally.
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According to International Organisation for Migration (IOM) figures released this week, the crossing from the Mediterranean to Europe claimed over 3000 lives, while 540 migrants died in the Bay of Bengal. At least 307 died trying to cross the land border between Mexico and the USA. There have been no known asylum seeker deaths in Australian waters in 2014.
All these places are a long way from OZ Smiddy, but regardless of where they're from and where they drown, these people are a deliberate burden on the host they intend to bludge off.
In an ideal world you could pay quadruple tax to cover the costs of your pet refugees you so dearly love, and those opposed to immigration could get a tax discount as compo for the damage the rest of the world's dregs do to our living standards/quality of life.
Personally I think the Thais had the right idea ... extort and enslave them.
Don't worry Smiddy, come the fascist revolution, which'll be a public backlash to your neo-poofy fabian intellectual masturbation we'll proscribe the International Organisation for Migration as a subversive cult.
If Donald Trump is so close to the Ruskis, why couldn't he get Vladimir Putin to put novichok in Xi Jjinping's lipstick?