The Disinherited

The Disinherited

For three days, and three nights

Hoping to see the harbour lights

Clinging on nets, holding to life

Fleeing poverty, famine, strife

We live with this dream of hope

And praying that we may cope

As yesterday, we said farewell

Left our families in their hell

Lands of hunger, drought, war

Weeping, seeking other shore

That we might settle in peace

Work hard, and never cease

Sending home needed money

To beloved families in poverty

How many die along the way

In shipwreck? Who can say?

Is this justice, is this right?

To die here, so out of sight?

Pray that God may open eyes

To our weak and feeble cries

Caring people help our kin

Let there be room at the Inn.

Notes:

I bought a copy of the Independent, 28.05.2007, and it had these stories in it, which prompted the poem:

"For three days and three nights, these African migrants clung desperately to life. Their means of survival is a tuna net, being towed across the Mediterranean by a Maltese tug that refused to take them on board after their frail boat sank.Malta and Libya, where they had embarked on their perilous journey, washed their hands of them. Eventually, they were rescued by the Italian navy. The astonishing picture shows them hanging on to the buoys that support the narrow runway that runs around the top of the net. They had had practically nothing to eat or drink. Last night, on the island of Lampedusa, the 27 young men - from Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sudan and other countries - told of their ordeal. As their flimsy boat from Libya floundered adrift for six days, two fishing boats failed to rescue them. On Wednesday, the Maltese boat, the Budafel allowed them to mount the walkway but refused to have them on board. This is the latest snapshot from the killing seas of the southern Mediterranean, the stretch of water at the European Union's southern gate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says "has become like the Wild West, where human life has no value any more and people are left to their fate".