SUITCASE OR COFFIN?

For an Irish person reading that seemingly-crass phrase, the coffin ship comes to mind.

But it is not the 1800s we are discussing here. Médecins San Frontieres/Doctors without Borders (MSF) used the term to describe the findings about a recent survey in the Central African Republic.

The mortality research was conducted amongst a group of more than 30,000 refugees who fled to Chad during the peak of the violent crackdown against the minority Muslim population.

The organisation discovered that 2,599 people died while undertaking the journey between November 2013 and April 2014. That is about 8% of the 32,768 people who had originally composed the 3,449 families.

The vast majority of the deaths were caused by gunshot, machete, grenade or other blast wounds.

One third of the people surveyed had lost a family member, with almost as many losing two relatives.

Among the dead were 209 children under the age of 15 and 227 men and women over 60 years old.

The journey to Chad proved fatal for 322 people who were trampled in the rush to board vehicles, suffocated in overcrowded conditions, or died during attacks perpetrated whilst the convoys were en route.