‘I’ve considered the danger’, Surya McEwen told The Echo, speaking of his departure this week to Gaza.
‘But I feel that I will return safely’.
Freedom Flotilla Coalition
McEwen has volunteered on Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s voyage to take 5,500 tonnes of food and medicine to the Palestinian people, in one of the most dangerous war-torn parts of the planet.
Just last week, Australian aid worker, Zomi Frankcom, along with six other people working for the World Central Kitchen charity, were killed by Israeli forces.
‘The screening process to be accepted was rigorous’, McEwen says, ‘and the coalition are very careful of who they allow aboard’.
‘At this stage, it’s possible that I will be the only Australian on the voyage. After arriving in Turkey, there will be three days of intensive training’, he says.
Grassroots people-to-people solidarity
According to freedomflotilla.org, the coalition ‘is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza’.
McEwen has been supported via his chuffed.org fundraiser, which now stands at over $10,000.
‘Part of the goal is to break the siege’, he says.
When asked whether the flotilla is asking Israel’s government for permission, he says ‘No’.
‘However, we will provide a cargo and personnel list and will make it publicly available’.
‘This type of operation has never been done in an active war zone. This makes the risk and necessity accentuated, there has been lots of voyages undertaken by the flotillas, but never at this scale’.
Potential danger
According to his chuffed.org fundraiser, ‘some people ask why I’ve chosen to face the potential danger involved in such a voyage’.
‘Many reasons come to mind. There’s 2.3 million human beings being deliberately starved. I want to bring them food.
‘There’s many hundreds of thousands injured and traumatised and desperate for medicine that’s being deliberately denied them.
‘I want to take them medicine. A genocide is unfolding before our eyes, and our leaders critique it cautiously in public, while providing arms contracts and weapons parts to carry on the carnage in our name. Governments internationally should’ve stepped up and demanded humanitarian aid for the starving, hurting masses of Gaza. But they won’t, so we must’.
For more info visit chuffed.org/project/108870-humanitarian-aid-ship-to-gaza.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
