Stop the yachts—not refugees

Anti-racists came out in numbers in Islington on Saturday 10 Aug

The media was in a frenzy this week about tech tycoon Mike Lynch and his powerful friends going missing as their yacht capsized.

Six people—including Lynch and the international chair of Morgan Stanley bank and a top British lawyer—went missing on Monday morning 300 miles off the coast of Sicily.

The £30 million yacht was hit by a thunderstorm carrying ten crew and 12 passengers. Lynch—once dubbed the British Bill Gates—was celebrating being cleared of fraud accusations in the United States.

But a vastly greater number of drownings in the same area receive no such attention. There have been more than 20,000 deaths and disappearances of refugees along the Mediterranean route since 2014.

In June 11, people died and dozens remain missing after two shipwrecks off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy. Days before 66 people, including 26 children, went missing off southern Italy.

But expert divers and coastguards worked round the clock to find survivors from the superyacht. The saga is reminiscent of the Titanic OceanGate implosion last year.

The world’s navies came together to find five of the superrich at the bottom of the ocean. Meanwhile, border agencies push migrant boats away from Europe and even capsize ships they’re supposed to be rescuing.

It’s a similar pattern—save the rich, let the poor drown.