Post by Freddy on Nov 16, 2013 16:08:37 GMT 11
An undercover journalist has detailed how he and a photographer posed as asylum seekers and took an epic journey from Afghanistan's shady currency markets to Jakarta and on to a flimsy, open-decked wooden boat that delivered 57 desperate people to Christmas Island.
In a 10,000-word report in The New York Times Magazine, American writer Luke Mogelson and Dutch photographer Joel van Houdt give the first account of what boat people go through to reach Australia.
If Joel and I didn't buy food and water, they would simply go without.
The boat of mainly Iranian asylum seekers arrived on the day after the Abbott government was elected and – given the now bipartisan determination that boat people never be settled here – were promptly dispatched to either Papua New Guinea or Nauru.
Luke Mogelson, NYT
Luke Mogelson says asylum seekers desperately cling to the hope of arriving in Australia.
Mogelson describes how the asylum seekers, even after being told of the new policy, refused to believe that Australia would really turn them away. It was "a political game" and "a lie to scare people", they insisted.
So, after a brutally long wait in Jakarta, they would board the dangerous boat for a journey on which more than 1000 people are believed to have drowned in the past decade. The deck of this 30-foot boat – with no cabin, bridge, bulkheads of benches – would become "a claustrophobic scrum of tangled limbs". In big seas, the passengers endured sleep deprivation, dehydration, seasickness and filth.
Mogelson writes: "There was no toilet ... The men urinated on the hull, the women in their pants ... The bow – the only covered part of the boat – reeked dizzyingly of vomit and urine."
'The price of the dream that will never come true'.
'The price of the dream that will never come true'.......
Read more: www.smh.com.au/world/undercover-journalists-publish-firsthand-account-of-asylum-seeker-journey-to-australia-20131116-2xnd6.html#ixzz2kmY9k9nh
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Seems, that no matter how hard they try, there are somethings that they just can't keep secret
www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytmag&_r=1&
In a 10,000-word report in The New York Times Magazine, American writer Luke Mogelson and Dutch photographer Joel van Houdt give the first account of what boat people go through to reach Australia.
If Joel and I didn't buy food and water, they would simply go without.
The boat of mainly Iranian asylum seekers arrived on the day after the Abbott government was elected and – given the now bipartisan determination that boat people never be settled here – were promptly dispatched to either Papua New Guinea or Nauru.
Luke Mogelson, NYT
Luke Mogelson says asylum seekers desperately cling to the hope of arriving in Australia.
Mogelson describes how the asylum seekers, even after being told of the new policy, refused to believe that Australia would really turn them away. It was "a political game" and "a lie to scare people", they insisted.
So, after a brutally long wait in Jakarta, they would board the dangerous boat for a journey on which more than 1000 people are believed to have drowned in the past decade. The deck of this 30-foot boat – with no cabin, bridge, bulkheads of benches – would become "a claustrophobic scrum of tangled limbs". In big seas, the passengers endured sleep deprivation, dehydration, seasickness and filth.
Mogelson writes: "There was no toilet ... The men urinated on the hull, the women in their pants ... The bow – the only covered part of the boat – reeked dizzyingly of vomit and urine."
'The price of the dream that will never come true'.
'The price of the dream that will never come true'.......
Read more: www.smh.com.au/world/undercover-journalists-publish-firsthand-account-of-asylum-seeker-journey-to-australia-20131116-2xnd6.html#ixzz2kmY9k9nh
==============================
Seems, that no matter how hard they try, there are somethings that they just can't keep secret
www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/magazine/the-impossible-refugee-boat-lift-to-christmas-island.html?partner=socialflow&smid=tw-nytmag&_r=1&