Advocates 'upset' by difference in response to missing sub, migrant shipwreck tragedies

As the world watched the saga of a missing submersible carrying five well-to-do tourists unfold this week, some advocates in Canada couldn’t help but feel upset that a ship carrying hundreds of poor migrants that recently sank off the coast of Greece didn’t attract the same attention.

As the world watched the saga of a missing submersible carrying five well-to-do tourists unfold this week, some advocates in Canada couldn’t help but feel upset that a ship carrying hundreds of poor migrants that recently sank off the coast of Greece didn’t attract the same attention.

Watching the stark contrast in news coverage and rescue efforts was especially disheartening for Safa Chebbi, who is from Tunisia, where many migrants board ships headed for Europe in search of a better life.

“I feel very upset to see all the news about five people, because I grew up in Tunisia,” Chebbi, a member of Solidarity Across Borders, a migrant justice network in Montreal, told CTVNews.ca.

“Tunisia is a country where, especially the last (few) years, we have had a lot of migration by the Mediterranean Sea and almost every day people (are found dead) on the beach.”

The Titan submersible, owned and operated by OceanGate Expeditions, was headed for the Titanic wreckage on Sunday when it lost contact with a surface vessel less than two hours into the journey.

The submersible was carrying five passengers, including the CEO of OceanGate, a French explorer, a British billionaire and two members of a prominent Pakistani family. On Thursday, all five passengers were confirmed dead, despite a massive search and rescue operation involving American and Canadian coast guards and military assets, along with British and French partners.

Days earlier, a vessel carrying an estimated 750 passengers from Egypt, Pakistan, Syria and Palestine sank off the coast of Greece. Only 104 people survived and more than 500 are missing and feared dead in the wake of the tragedy — one of the worst migrant shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea.