Adrift at Sea in a Lifeboat, Muslims Throw Christians Overboard to Drown

At least they were "punching up," as Garry Trudeau believes.

The group was fleeing Libya in a rubber boat -- a huge one, apparently, as there were 105 passengers aboard it.

At some point, the Muslims, who outnumbered the Christians, began "punching up," as Garry Trudeau calls it, and murdering members of the religious minority for praying to Jesus.

)Muslims who were among migrants trying to get from Libya to Italy in a boat this week threw 12 fellow passengers overboard -- killing them -- because the 12 were Christians, Italian police said Thursday.

Italian authorities have arrested 15 people on suspicion of murdering the Christians at sea, police in Palermo, Sicily, said.

...

The original group of 105 people left Libya on Tuesday in a rubber boat. Sometime during the trip north across the Mediterranean Sea, the alleged assailants -- Muslims from the Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal -- threw the 12 overboard, police said.

Other people on the voyage told police that they themselves were spared "because they strongly opposed the drowning attempt and formed a human chain," Palermo police said.

La Liberation has more. Here's my translation.

Christians had been thrown in the water by Muslims in the middle of the Mediterranean, according to several witnesses. An investigation is underway.

The confrontation happened in the middle of the night, when the rubber boat, with 105 persons aboard, began to deflate. Two groups were formed. On one side the Muslim immigrants, making a majority on the boat which left April 12 from the Libyan coast; the other side, the Christians accused of praying to another god. "After making threats, a dozen Muslims moved to make good on their threats and began to throw some of us into the water," said to the Italian police Yeboah, one of the survivors of this latest tragedy in the sea-route of immigration.

Just to note, there have been a lot of tragedies lately in the covert immigration routes between North Africa and Italy, with boats filled to the rafters with migrants foundering and sinking. This happens every few months.

This other piece in La Liberation notes the many, many drowned immigrants lately. A boat just sunk five days ago, killing 400.

New shipwreck in the Mediterranean: 400 immigrants disappeared and nine bodies recovered [from the water]

The Italian coast guard has been able to save 145 persons coming from the Libyan coast, Sunday.

Sunday, a wreck in the straits of Sicily had caused the death of 400 stowaways. More than at the [wreck near the Italian town of Lampedusa], in October 2013, which had numbered 366 dead. But less than in Sepetember 2014, in the open sea near Malta, where 500 immigrants were killed by drowning...

Back to the latest tragedy:

...

At least six witnesses corroborated a description which was almost a war of religion in the open sea. "Sometime, at the end of a day of travel, some Muslim passengers began coming for us, Christian Nigerians and Ghanans, only because we were of another religion, and threatening to throw us into the sea. Then, many of them began to act on it," explained Francis, a young Ghanan.

What sparked this insane murder is still unknown. Some spoke of there being too many people in the boat, which risked taking water. The daily newspaper Stampa spoke of a fight started by the wish of the Christians to conserve the supply of water on the boat. Other witnesses spoke of the prayers of a young christian who cried and prayed in a loud voice to Jesus, sparking the anger of the Muslims.

...

"NAZARENES"

"This is the first time that we know of this kind of religious violence aboard a watercraft," said Christian Nani, director of Open Door, an association in defense of persecuted Christians around the world. "It's not rare that in their travels from the Libyan cost, Christians suffer harassments and are robbed or beaten because they are considered to be 'Nazarenes.' Even after arriving in Italy, they are sometimes discriminated against by some groups of Muslim immigrants, for example, when receiving their food rations," he added. "We know that there are regularly fights on the boats crossing the Mediterranean but never before for religious motives."

Obviously some good "punching up" there, then.

I can't help notice that the American press censors a lot of newsworthy details.

I guess censorship is a way to make sure you're "punching up."

posted by Ace at 04:50 PM

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