Introduction – Sept 02, 2015
Normally we don’t post reports from the BBC, if only because the corporation really is a bastion of bullshit. However, we make an exception in this case because the following BBC report illustrates what this website and others have repeatedly been saying.
Amid all the journalistic faux outrage and concern over the ongoing migrant crisis no one in the corporate media is saying what exactly has caused hundreds of thousands to flee their homes.
A great many are fleeing from Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq; four countries that share the dubious distinction of having been bombed by Western air power in recent years, purportedly in its campaign against terror. While a great many more are fleeing the ongoing war in Syria; in which forces trying to oust Syria’s President are being aided and financed by the West and its allies in the gulf.
In other words the West and its allies have had a hand in displacing these refugees. Yet nowhere in the following BBC report is this even hinted at.
To be sure there’s a smug pronouncement from the Independent about why it published the photo below:
“among the often glib words about the ‘ongoing migrant crisis’, it is all too easy to forget the reality of the desperate situation facing many refugees”.
Yet despite the Independent’s sanctimonious self-righteousness it made exactly the same omission. Because when reporting on the crisis the paper’s star Middle East correspondent also failed to mention the Western bombing of Iraq, Libya and Somalia. Nor did Robert Fisk allude to Western support for “Syrian rebels”, which has precipitated the flight of so many Syrians.
Either that or his editors made sure his pronouncement was consigned to the bin.
Is it a coincidence that both the Independent and the BBC made the same pointed omission? Or are they both getting the same instructions on how to report the crisis? Ed.
BBC Online – September 02, 2015
At least 12 Syrians trying to reach Greece have drowned off Turkey after the boats they were travelling in sank.
An image of one of the victims – a young boy lying face down on the beach – has sparked an international outcry over the human cost of the crisis.
The picture, released by a Turkish news agency, is trending worldwide on Twitter under the #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik (“humanity washed ashore”) hashtag.
Thousands of migrants have died this year trying to reach Europe by sea.
Warning: This article contains a distressing image
The Turkish coastguard said the migrants had set off from Turkey’s Bodrum peninsula for the Greek island of Kos in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but the two boats they were in sank shortly afterwards.
Twelve bodies, including five children, were recovered. Of 23 people on board the two boats, only nine people are thought to have survived – some made it to shore with life jackets.
Hopes are fading for two people people still missing.
The image of the young boy, shown wearing a red T-shirt and lying face-down on the beach near Bodrum, was published shortly after the bodies washed up on shore at about 06:00 local time.
Turkish news agency Dogan said he and the rest of the group were Syrians from the besieged town of Kobane who had fled to Turkey last year to escape advancing militants from the Islamic State (IS) group.
Turkish media describe relatives breaking down as they identified the bodies.
The pictured boy is reported to be three-year-old Aylan, who drowned along with his five-year-old brother Galip and their mother, Rihan. Their father, Abdullah Kurdi, survived.
The BBC has chosen to publish only one photograph of Aylan, in which he is being carried by a Turkish police officer and is unidentifiable.
However, several news organisations have published more graphic images of the boy.
UK newspaper The Independent said it had decided to use the images on its website because “among the often glib words about the ‘ongoing migrant crisis’, it is all too easy to forget the reality of the desperate situation facing many refugees”.
Despite the reaction to the image online, there has been little reaction from politicians across Europe.
The boy’s lifeless body was captured in a series of images released by a Turkish news agency
But Yvette Cooper, a leadership candidate for the UK’s Labour Party, said the photograph showed “we cannot keep turning our backs” on the issue.
“When mothers are desperately trying to stop their babies from drowning when their boat has capsized […] Britain needs to act.”
Some 350,000 migrants have made the perilous journey to reach Europe’s shores since January this year, according to figures released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Tuesday.
The IOM said more than 2,600 migrants had drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in the same period.
Earlier this week, the Turkish government said its coastguard had rescued over 42,000 migrants in the Aegean Sea in the first five months of 2015 and more than 2,160 in the last week alone.