Obama Criticizes Titanic Obsession while Ignoring Migrant Boat tragedy

Obama has criticized the obsession with the doomed Titanic tourist sub at a time when people are ignoring the deaths of hundreds of migrants on a fishing boat off Greece.

On Thursday, the former US president Obama noted the huge disparity in media coverage of the two cases.

“Consider why desperate people come here. “We can’t ignore it,” he said.

Track the missing Titanic submarine here.

Consider this week. The submarine disaster is being covered minute-by-minute worldwide.

“And you know it’s understandable because we all want and pray that those folks are rescued,” he said before the five submarine passengers were killed.

“But that’s got so much more attention than 700 people who sank.”

“Right here, just off the coast of Greece, we had 700 people that were apparently being smuggled into here,” he said.

It shows how disparate people’s life chances have become.

Keep Reading

Insights of Migrant boat tragdy

Last week, a Messenia, Greece fishing boat carrying 750 people sank. 300 Pakistanis, Syrians, and Egyptians were on board.

In one of the worst tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds died, highlighting Europe’s refugee crisis as thousands flee war and poverty.

Since then, Greece appeared to delay rescue efforts despite shipping data showing the boat was in trouble.

The five men on the OceanGate ExpeditionsTitan vessel paid up to $250,000 each for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Titanic’s wreckage in the Atlantic Ocean.

OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding, French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood began the doomed venture on Sunday morning.

The Titan sub lost contact with its mother ship the Polar Prince after one hour and 45 minutes, prompting a multinational, multi-agency search and rescue operation.

On Thursday, the US Coast Guard confirmed that Titan debris had been found on the sea floor and that the five men had died in a “catastrophic implosion”. After the sub lost contact minutes into its journey, the Coast Guard revealed that the Navy heard the implosion.

Round-the-clock reporting and social media obsession about the Titan disaster has also favored it.