"Pray for us”: tragedy at sea and the politics of people-smuggling

An ACIJ Forum on 'Reporting Refugees' with award winning journalists, Sarah Ferguson, Natalie O’Brien and Sharon Davis

It is expected that this forum, which was held on 30 August, will be available online in the next few weeks. 

The Federal Government claims its decision to reopen the Nauru and Manus Island offshore processing centres will deter people smugglers and prevent future tragedies at sea. But the government's policy backflip has provoked intense community debate.

Sarah Ferguson’s program Smugglers’ Paradise – Australia,  broadcast on ABC-TV’s 4 Corners, exposed a network of people smugglers operating out of Australia - one closely involved in the sinking of a refugee boat in November 2010 which claimed 97 lives.

Natalie O’Brien’s nine-month investigation of the earlier sinking of another boat in October 2009 published in the Sydney Morning Herald, revealed the true story behind the deaths of 105 asylum seekers and three crew - and the failure of Australian authorities to alert rescuers.

Davis’ documentary The Left to Die Boat, an epic saga of life and death on the Mediterranean, will be broadcast on 360 Documentaries on ABC Radio National this Sunday 26th August at 10am. The program investigates how the combined military power of NATO failed to prevent more than 60 people dying on board a small boat as it drifted for 15 days through the most heavily monitored ocean on earth.