| Dear Neville —
This is Clare with her 4 month old baby boy Gardin. She is from Cameroon and was trafficked to Libya, put into slavery and is now trying to escape after being raped and assaulted.
I witnessed her being rescued alongside 414 other people from an overcrowded sinking wooden boat in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.
This humanitarian rescue mission was one of many that Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) undertake, saving thousands of lives.On the morning of the rescue we were awoken by the sight of a small wooden asylum boat just off the horizon about 20 miles from the Libyan coast.
After 4 hours, 414 people were rescued from a small rickety wooden boat that was slowly sinking and leaking fuel. They were all transferred onto the MOAS boat, the MY Phoenix, and given food and water. On board were 21 women and 23 children including a number of babies, one only four months old. Their lives were saved as a result of this incredible humanitarian rescue operation.
In Europe organisations like MOAS and MSF are working to rescue people on unsafe boats and save lives, while in Australia the Abbott Government has a policy of boat turn backs, and telling desperate people ‘nope, nope, nope… we will not help’.
It is an international embarrassment for Australia.
Help us send a message that boat turn backs are an affront to fundamental human rights.
The Abbott Government has already shown us just how cruel and inhumane they can be towards the world’s most vulnerable people, and now Labor are in lock step.
Sign our petition to tell the major parties that turnbacks are not the answer to the refugee crisis.
There are more refugees today than at any other time since records began. Now more than ever, Australia needs a humanitarian and compassionate response to the global refugee crisis that includes a coordinated regional solution where we work with countries in our region along with the United Nations.
People do not just disappear if they are pushed back to sea. They are simply left to die somewhere else.
We need to help them.
Yours in hope,
Sarah Hanson-Young
http://www.sarahhansonyoung.com/ |
