Various political figures and organisations are getting their rather nanny-like knickers in a right old twist about people drowning in the Mediterranean. Recent events in which numerous boat passengers have perished while attempting to cross from North Africa to Italy have caused such a stir that demands for 'something to be done' are issuing from every quarter.
If I chose to walk across Dartmoor without a compass and in inadequate clothing, it would be no one's fault but my own if I got lost, fell down a hole and died; certainly, no one would start shouting that 'something must be done' in order to prevent such 'tragedies' in the future. However, when hordes of assorted asylum seekers make a similar choice by embarking in large numbers on barely serviceable boats, and end up sinking to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, the world gets all weepy.
It may well be that the people in question have endured difficult, even horrible, times but taking ship was their idea; the consequences are on their own heads. There can be no justification for the vast amount of hand-wringing that's going on and certainly no justification for governments and international organisations to be expected to provide hugely enhanced search and rescue services. If anything needs to be done, it's in the countries from which the escapees are fleeing, not by the ones to which they are travelling.
Oh what a crazy world we live in.
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