Death boat drifts from Africa to Barbados (Africans trying to reach the Canary Islands)

AP via CNN.com ^ | 1 June 2006 | AP (unattributed)

[Moose4]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) -- They left Africa on Christmas Eve seeking a better life in Europe, climbing aboard a rusty boat that instead carried them to their deaths as they drifted off course, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and wound up near the Caribbean island of Barbados.

By the time this boat was found by a fisherman on April 30, the bodies of the 11 young men were virtually mummified by the sun and salt spray. One had written a farewell note before dying.

"I would like to send to my family in Bassada (Senegal) a sum of money. Please excuse me and goodbye," one of the victims wrote in a note tucked between bodies.

[Moose4]

Pretty horrible story. Apparently many Africans are trying to get to Europe now via any way possible...including a 200-mile trip across the Atlantic to sneak into the Canary Islands, and then on to Spain. This boat ended up drifting across the Atlantic for three and a half months before washing ashore on Barbados.

}:-)4

[Tired of Taxes]

Just like Cubans trying to reach U.S. shores.

[ncountylee]

A seat in one of these open boats sells for about $4,000 and our "Roman" Senate vaues US citizenship at $2,000 before earned income tax credits are applied.

[keat]

"I would like to send to my family in Bassada a sum of money. That's where you come in. If you will be so kind as to transfer....," one of the victims wrote in a note tucked between bodies.

Scamming 'til the end.

[kublia khan]

Africa was a very difficult place to live under apartheid but Marxism and Islam have turned it into a living hell.

[Leg Olam]

They left Senegal with 52 on board. Anyone want to guess what or who is for dinner? The open ocean is very unforgiving.

[Jameison]

"A seat in one of these open boats sells for about $4,000 and our "Roman" Senate vaues US citizenship at $2,000 before earned income tax credits are applied"

The McCain/Kennedy Amnesty Bill is a crime against America..
That bill is going to meet an ignominious death

[litehaus]

Am I allowed to say I recall a great navigator from Portugal, but none from the African continent?

[FreeInWV]

52 people on a 20' boat???

[Leg Olam]

Thats what the article stated but of course it could be wrong. The fact that there were only 11 on board and that they were all young paints a pretty ugly picture in my mind as to what happened to the rest even if there wasn't 41 more besides them. I can't tell how many times when I was in the Coast Guard other fellas that served down in southern waters would tell me about finding people in a small craft that had nothing more than a gas station map and a happy meal, totally out of site of land and about to be carried away on the Gulf Stream to mid Atlantic. Some folks think that sailing or driving a boat to some place like Bermuda is a simple thing with no dangers but they don't call it the Triangle for nothing.

[cll]

That happens almost everyday on this side of the Atlantic. Illegal Dominicans and Chinese plus Cuban refugees trying to reach Puerto Rico in makeshift boats called yolas, across the dangerous mona passage. here's a pic of one:

[cll]

Note to self: Always keep a copy of Steven Callahan's 'Adrift: Seventy Six Days Lost at Sea' in the boat.