36 Tuesday March 15 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
The Taiwanese air force has lost its second
fighter jet this year after one of its ageing
Mirage 2000s crashed into the waters off
the east coast of the island.
The pilot survived ejection from the
plane and was taken to hospital. An
inquiry was ordered and the air force’s re-
maining 54 Mirage 2000 jets have been
grounded.
The crash has focused attention on
Taiwan’s ageing fleet of fighter jets and the
difficulty it has in buying replacements
because of Beijing’s objections. Calls for
the island nation to bolster its defences
against possible Chinese expansionism
have been given renewed urgency by the
Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Taiwan has doubled the length of
annual reserve training and stepped up the
intensity of exercises,” President Tsai said
last Friday in a tweet. “These reforms
strengthen our military mobilisation, dem-
onstrate our commitment to self-defence
and reflect our people’s resolve to ensure
our country’s security.”
The air force said the jet took off about
10am yesterday from Taitung airbase, in
Two hundred Cuban migrants seek-
ing a new life are trying to enter the
European Union by walking through
Bosnia, a UN official has said.
The unusual route, in which the
Cubans flew to Russia and then on to
Serbia before starting their long
march from Bosnia, has surprised
experts more accustomed to seeing
Afghans and Pakistanis trudging
through the Balkans to reach the EU.
Laura Lungarotti, regional co-
ordinator for the UN’s International
Organisation for Migration, said:
“We are not sure but we think a
people-trafficking operation has
steered these people into Bosnia and
recommended they walk from there.”
Lungarotti said the migrants had
flown to Moscow in the first two
months of this year before changing
planes for Serbia, which Cubans can
visit without visas. From Serbia, they
went to Bosnia before striking out on
foot. Once in the EU without a visa,
they will become clandestine mi-
grants. Most are trying to get to
Spain, Lungarotti said.
Some have found winter in north-ern Bosnia too big a challenge. “We
offered voluntary return flights and
seven of the Cubans have taken us up
on it,” Lungarotti said.
Getting into Croatia will also be a
challenge. Reports emerged last year
of border police hunting for migrants
in forests before robbing, stripping
and beating them.
About 1.5 million migrants have
travelled to the EU via the Balkans
since 2015, most on overland routes
through Turkey from the Middle
East. Some 102,000 made the journey
last year, and 7,000 now live in
reception centres across the region.
Afghans make up a third of the total.
Cubans, however, now make up
14 per cent of migrants registered in
Bosnia, putting them in second placeTa i w a n
Didi Tang Beijing
Cuban migrants join the
long march across Europe
after Afghans. Turks constitute the
third largest community.
Any Cubans planning now to fly to
Serbia via Moscow are likely to be
thwarted by the closure of airspace
after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Those already in Bosnia are trying to
reach the EU as Ukrainian refugees
— now 2.8 million and rising — also
pour in..
Many Cubans are still trying to get
into North America as their country’s
economy is damaged by US sanc-
tions and the effects of the pandemic
on tourism. Last year the US Coast
Guard repatriated 838 Cubans trying
to make the risky sea crossing.
The Cubans now in the Balkans are
not the first to try the route, and some
have settled in Serbia.
Belquis Gonzales and her family
fled Cuba five years ago and settled in
Lajkovac, southwest of Belgrade,
where she works in a butcher’s shop.
“We had many doubts and many
fears as well, but things have been a
lot better than we had expected,” she
told Associated Press. Her employer
said locals often came to the shop to
see her. “They want to know if the
weather in Cuba is nice and if she
would take them there,” he said.CUBASERBIAMoscow2,000 milesCuba
Tom KingtonProstitutes caught up in blackmail plot
myself,” she said. “But I know
colleagues with thousands of euros in
rent arrears. Then you may be able to
make choices that are not very good.”
Prostitutes fear that the blackmail
racket will make the sex industry in
the Netherlands, where prostitution
and brothels are legally regulated,
more dangerous.
One brothel customer said he had
gone to police after receiving black-
mail threats on his phone.
He did not pay up, and changed his
number but now suffers from anxiety,
he said.sitivity,” a police spokesman said.
Up to 25,000 prostitutes work in
the Netherlands and nine out of ten
of them are women.
An investigation by the KRO-
NCRV television channel reported
that victims were sent a message say-
ing: “Listen dude I’m only going to tell
you this one time now. Stop Sexjobs”,
with a demand to pay up in crypto
currencies.
One prostitute said that she, like
many of her co-workers, had been
offered €300 for their clients’ names
and numbers. “I would never do thatCriminals are offering prostitutes
cash for the telephone numbers of
their customers to blackmail them.
Clients are then contacted via
WhatsApp and threatened with
having their sexual activities made
public unless they pay up to €1,000.
Dutch police are investigating the
claims and have appealed for people
to come forward.
“We do know that victims are re-
luctant to do this because of the sen-The Netherlands
Bruno Waterfield BrusselsTaiwan loses another jet
as China tightens its grip
the southeast, on a routine training mis-
sion. Lieutenant-Colonel Huang Chung-
kai, the pilot, reported mechanical trouble
before he ejected and parachuted to safety
an hour and a half later, ten nautical miles
south of the airbase.
A rescue helicopter was sent to the scene
and picked up the pilot at 12.06pm. He was
in good condition but needed to be medi-
cally evaluated, officials said.
In January the air force lost an F-16V
fighter when it crashed into the sea on a
training mission. Its pilot has not been
found. The F-16V is one of the island’s most
advanced fighters.
The Mirage 2000 was bought from
France in 1992 amid strong objections by
China, which sees Taiwan as part of its
territory and has vowed to seize it, by force
if necessary.
The US, which has a security pact with
the island, has in recent years supplied it
with weapons, further straining ties with
Beijing. Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for the
Chinese foreign ministry, criticised the
American arms sales to Taiwan, saying the
policy was “severely interfering with
China’s internal affairs” and “greatly
harming China-US relations and the
peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait”. Sun loungers A family of coastal brown bears visited the shores of Kodiak Island, Alaska, to fish and play on the beachJENNIFER HADLEY/ANIMAL NEWS AGENCY