美国国家公共电台 NPR Opinion: How Will We Remember Migrants Who Suffer, Strive And Risk Their Lives?

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Thirty-nine people were found dead in a trailer this week in Essex in the United Kingdom - 31 men and eight women. They were discovered in the early hours of Wednesday morning in a sealed, refrigerated container of the kind that ordinarily transports fruits, vegetables or frozen food. Four people so far have been arrested in connection with the deaths.

But identifying those who died could take a long time. Authorities first said they were Chinese nationals. Now some Vietnamese families say their loved ones may be among the dead. They didn't die with passports in their pockets because they didn't want to be sent back to the places they were trying to flee. Their deaths are part of a continuing story of our times, people who suffer, strive and risk their lives to try to come to the other side of the world.

In June of 2000, the bodies of 58 Chinese people were found in a truck in the port of Dover. In 2014, 35 Afghans, including more than a dozen children, were found in a shipping¹ container on docks in Essex. In 2015, 71 migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria were discovered dead in the back of a truck in Austria. One was an infant. In 2017, 39 people from Mexico and Central America were found packed into a stifling² trailer in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio. Ten people died.

The United Nations says nearly 19,000 migrants have drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean³ since 2014. Almost every year, migrants are found in shipping containers in the backs of trucks and on rafts and fishing boats in open, perilous⁴ seas. Others perish from heat or cold, trying to cross borders and mountains or brush lands.

The more laws are tightened⁵ and entry numbers reduced, the more migrants might turn for help to smuggling⁶ gangs who often also deal in drugs and guns.

We are between two deaths, a Kurdish man called Taish told the BBC this week. He waits in Dunkirk, France, to pay a fee to ride a truck illegally and dangerously into Britain. Thirty-nine people die in a truck, he said, but thousands die in my country.

We're left with many questions about the 39 people found dead in Essex. Who took their money and was so reckless with their lives? What were they escaping? And what did they hope for? What did they dream about? What did they leave behind? Who will miss them? And how will we remember them?

(SOUNDBITE OF JAKOB BRO'S "HEROINES (VARIATION)")

1 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

2 stifling   

a.令人窒息的

参考例句：

• The weather is stifling. It looks like rain. 今天太闷热，光景是要下雨。
• We were stifling in that hot room with all the windows closed. 我们在那间关着窗户的热屋子里，简直透不过气来。

3 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

4 perilous   

adj.危险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• The journey through the jungle was perilous.穿过丛林的旅行充满了危险。
• We have been carried in safety through a perilous crisis.历经一连串危机，我们如今已安然无恙。

5 tightened   

收紧( tighten的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）变紧； （使）绷紧； 加紧

参考例句：

• The rope holding the boat suddenly tightened and broke. 系船的绳子突然绷断了。
• His index finger tightened on the trigger but then relaxed again. 他的食指扣住扳机，然后又松开了。

6 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。