Tragedies in Italy and Sweden

by Gary Fouse

It’s been an especially bad week in Europe, specifically for Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

First, a smuggling boat that originated in Turkey, filled with some 150-200 illegal migrants, broke apart off the coast of Calabria in the early morning hours of February 26. About 80 people survived, apparently, mostly able-bodied young men from the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over 60 bodies have been recovered, including 33 women and 12 children, including a months-old infant, most of whose bodies washed up on shore. There are reports that the smugglers operating the boat threw children overboard when the boat began sinking. Italian police have charged three men for human smuggling including a 17-year-old Pakistani.

It is estimated that over 25,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean in the past several years trying to get into Europe.

Then in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, a 36-year-old Iranian man who had immigrated with his family from Iran when he was three and had a long police record went on a rampage on March 2 and stabbed a 9-year-old Dutch girl visiting her grandparents in Sweden and severely injuring her while stabbing the grandmother in the arm. The little girl is still in the hospital but is expected to survive. There are reports that the attacker, identified as Milad Salari, was screaming, “Allahu Akhbar” during the attack. He was subdued by witnesses and held for police. He is now charged with two counts of attempted murder. The incident has left both Sweden and the Netherlands in shock.

So here we have more victims sacrificed on the altar of Europe’s insane immigration and asylum policy, the latest a 9-year-old girl and her grandmother, and dozens of illegal migrants making the treacherous trip across the Mediterranean in the hands of vicious human traffickers. The more time passes, the more shocking the events sweeping Europe. People are dying at the hands of these human traffickers, and people are dying at the hands of far too many of these illegal migrants who are invading Europe. And yet, most Western European governments continue to allow these migrants, mostly from Muslim-majority countries, mostly young unaccompanied men, to invade their lands. What could possibly go wrong?

The new Italian government under Giorgia Meloni is attempting to put the brakes on illegal migration into Italy, but she is opposed by the bureaucrats in the European Union. This week, the leftists in the Italian parliament are pointing the finger of blame at the Italian Coastal authorities for their failure to save more lives instead of blaming the human traffickers, the NGOs that use their ships to pick up migrants at sea and deliver them to Italian ports, and themselves.

And let’s not be hypocritical. We are experiencing similar problems on our border with Mexico, and our current government under Joe Biden and his secretary of Homeland Security, the weasel Alejandro Mayorkas, is just as feckless as any of the Western European governments. Our present government has neither the will, nor the desire to secure our border. Our Border Patrol is demoralized and unable to do its job, thus ceding control of our sovereign border to the criminal cartels of Mexico.

There are differences to be sure between our illegal immigration problem and that of Europe, but there are also dangerous similarities. For both Europe and America, it has come down to this: What should be-and used to be- a positive force when immigration was controlled and done legally, is now a threat to public safety and the survival of our very societies.