AYS Daily Digest 02/04/2021: Europe, don’t let there be another Easter tragedy!
270 people in distress in the Mediterranean Sea, no rescue so far although all responsible actors are well informed // New tension between Greece and Turkey // Extention of validity of Greek asylum applicant’s cards // Background info on drones employed at Croatian border // Attack against press freedom and journalists working on the situation of people on the move // Arrivals in Lampedusa, Portugal and Canary Islands // Expulsions in France
On Easter Weekend, Malta once again ignores people in distress
At the time of writing, about 270 people are in distress in the Maltese Search and Rescue Zone, according to Alarm Phone.
The boat with 110 people on board has been in the sea for almost more than two days, the boat with 60 people for about 60 hours. When Alarm Phone contacted the Maltese Coast Guard, the agency that is responsible for rescues in the Maltese SAR Zone, they hung up on them.
Two merchant vessels are in the vicinity of the distress cases but have not conducted a rescue yet.
According to Sea Watch, the merchant vessel Nordic Star headed towards the boats after the NGO’s monitoring airplane Moonbird sent a distress call, but turned away again.
The situation brings back memories of last year’s Easter weekend. On April 15 2020, 51 people were pushed back to Libya by a boat that was commissioned by the Maltese Prime Minister, as it turned out later. Before the pushback, the boat had been at sea for about six days without anybody coming to the people’s rescue. Five people lost their lives on this boat, seven more went missing. Malta’s Prime Minister Abela later insisted that the operation was a rescue mission and not a pushback. However, Libya is not a safe country. Deporting people to an unsafe country without considering their asylum claims is a crime under international law.
Yesterday, another scandal remained hardly noticed: A rubber boat with 80 people on board reached the Maltese SAR Zone. Alarm Phone contacted the Maltese authorities, but their calls remained unanswered. Alarm Phone also contacted a merchant vessel in the vicinity, the SIDER RODI. The merchant vessel eventually reached the rubber boat, which by that time had run out of fuel and was having problems with the engine. According to a media article, instead of taking the people on board and bringing them to Malta, the SIDER RODI only handed over fuel and water and then resumed its route. The captain was following the instructions of the Maltese Coordination and Rescue Centre, which gave him the order not to evacuate the people from the rubber boat. The rubber boat eventually made it to Lampedusa. For more information, see this thread:
The French NGO Pilotes Volontaire spotted 12 boats in distress with more than 700 people on board in their surveillance flights in the last three days.
GREECE
New tension between Turkish and Greek Coast Guard
The Greek Coast Guard accuse their Turkish counterparts of making dangerous manoeuvres at their expense and of having accompanied a boat with refugees into Greek waters instead of apprehending them, as media reports.
Greek Migration Minister Mitarakis promptly reacted with a video in English, denouncing the Turkish actions. The Deputy Interior Minister of Turkey, Ismail Catakli, reacted on Twitter by drawing attention to the pushbacks conducted by the Hellenic Coast Guard, stating that on that day alone, Greece “pushed 231 migrants to death over 7 push-back cases. We [Turkey] saved their lives and brought /them/ to Turkey, though.”
Obviously, we denounce any Turkish aggression against the Greek Coast Guard. However, it needs to be noted that the Greek Coast Guard is anything but a good-natured rescue operation. Countless reports of pushbacks are denied on a regular base, also by Mitarakis. It is interesting to see him now addressing an international community in his promptly published English video denouncing the Turkish behaviour and calling on Turkey to stand by the EU-Turkey deal. We see both sides weaponizing people on the move for their own means instead of taking actual steps to protect them.
Extension of the validity of asylum applicant’s cards
As published by the Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum on Facebook, the validity of asylum applicant’s cards will be extended up until 30/06/2021. Full post:
“Extension of the validity of asylum applicant’s cards up until 30.6.2021
According to article 123 of Law 4790/2021 (OG A’ 48), the validity of the asylum applicants’ cards, which had been extended up until 31.3.2021, is further extended up until 30.6.2021”
Arrivals on Lesbos
According to Aegean Boat Report, two boats recently arrived on Lesbos, one carrying 28 people, the other one seven. The people on board were brought to the quarantine site in Megala Therma, Lesvos north and to the quarantine site in Kara Tepe, Lesvos south.
ABR has also published the latest monthly report for March. In this period, ABR reported 26 illegal pushbacks performed by the Greek Coast Guard, many of them including people who had already landed on the Aegean Islands and were then forced back into the sea on life rafts.
Visit aegeanboatreport.com for statistics and numbers.
Giving birth in Moria 2.0
The German journalist Isabel Schayani is in contact with people in Moria 2.0. When she asked a pregnant woman about how she will give birth to her child, the expectant mother said that if she has a paper from an NGO and a negative corona test she can go to the local hospital, otherwise she has to give birth to her child in the camp where no doctors would assist her.
CROATIA
Drones employed at the Croatian borders
In the past years, Croatia spent a lot of money and energy on fencing up and militarizing its borders and thereby fulfilling the requirement for joining the Schengen area.
Jack Sapoch, associated with BVMN and NoNameKitchen, has written this very informative thread on the drones that are used along the Croatian border.
In some testimonies collected by members of BVMN, people who have been pushed back report having seen drones shortly before the police arrived.
The drones cost millions of Euros. Some of them can fly at a speed of up to 150 km/h and stay in the air for six hours. Some of them send live video footage to the National Coordination Center in Zagreb. According to Sapoch, some of the drones have not been procured by the Ministry of Interior of Croatia but instead by the Ministry of Agriculture in order to allow the drones to be financed from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.
The Guardian also published a piece about the role drones play in the militarisation of European borders.
ITALY
Attack on press freedom: journalists covering situation of refugees have been wiretapped by Sicilian prosecutors
It is a scandal in itself that Italian prosecutors have raised charges against NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières and other rescue NGOs on alleged collaboration with smugglers. The Italian newspaper Domani has now revealed that “in the course of their investigation, prosecutors secretly recorded dozens of conversations between journalists and rescuers who were unaware their phones had been bugged.”(the Guardian).
The prosecutors thereby illegally collected data about the journalists and their sources.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and its Italian affiliate, the FNSI, are demanding an explanation from the Italian authorities. EFJ calls this attack a
“massive violation of the secrecy of journalistic sources by monitoring the communications of journalists working on the case”.
Many arrivals on Lampedusa
From Wednesday to Friday, a total of 449 people from six different boats arrived on Lampedusa, according to media. This is a relatively high number, which has prompted state authorities to fully operate reception facilities again. Two boats are currently used as quarantine ships.
AUSTRIA
Arrests after anti-deportation protest
After an anti-deportation protest, 78 people were arrested and 238 charges were raised against the protesters. On Tuesday, 28 people were deported to Afghanistan in an operation organised by Frontex. The deported people came from Austria, Sweden, Rumania and Hungary.
FRANCE
Expulsions in Northern France
The NGO Human Rights Observers report about yet another expulsion on Friday morning in Grand-Synthe. A total of 103 tents were destroyed.
Meanwhile, stones were placed in the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse in order to prevent people from seeking shelter there.
SPAIN
Arrivals on the Canary Islands
A dinghy with 32 people arrived on Lanzarote around 7.30am from Safi, Morocco. Nine of the people on board are minors.
Two more boats arrived on Gran Canary and Fuerteventura with a total of 59 people on board.
Meanwhile, the conditions in the camps are harsh. InfoMigrant has published a video about the situation:
Here is also a piece on another case where a child was separated from its parents for more than a month after their arrival on the Canary Islands:
PORTUGAL
Arrival in Portugal
A boat with 16 people arrived in the Algarve, presumably from Morocco. Since December 2019, seven boats have arrived in total.
DENMARK
Denmark has withdrawn the resident permits of 94 Syrians, threatening them with deportation.
Until now, no European country has deported Syrian refugees. However, besides Denmark, Germany is also starting to reconsider the safety of the war-torn country under dictator and war criminal Assad. Germany is developing plans to deport Syrians who are considered to pose a threat to national security.
We have been reporting about Denmark in the recent weeks mainly in relation to its newest policy of reducing the number of “non-Western” [which can roughly be translated as “non-white”] inhabitants in neighbourhoods to 30%.
In an event recently hosted on Facebook, Interior Minister Kaare Dybvad Bek expressed positions very open to racist interpretations, bringing together “perpetrators of violence“ and “religious and cultural parallel societies”.
EU
Numbers of January 2021 published
In January 21, according to EASO, about 40,000 asylum applications were lodged in the EU+. The main countries of origin were Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Nigeria.
ECRE Bulletin
In its latest Bulletin, ECRE included some very informative articles on how to hold Frontex accountable, on the newest developments in Greece and on joint European search and rescue agreements.
for the complete Bulletin, see:
WORTH READING
This cross-border collaboration by Solomon (Greece), Guiti News (France), and Kohero (Germany) — three independent media outlets working on migration — delves into a worrying and escalating trend of police violence during the previous year; not only against people on the move but against the media professionals documenting their issues as well.
Assad might have publicly asked Syrian refugees to return back to Syria, but in fact he is doing a lot to prevent them from doing so. Syrians have to exchange $100 for Syrian pounds when re-entering the country, a sum that is not bearable for many Syrians who lived as refugees in Lebanon or Turkey.
Earlier this year a new law has been introduced, allowing the regime to seize property and other assets of men who fail to pay the (up to) $8,000 fee to avoid conscription to the military before reaching the age of 43, without giving targeted families any notice. The money can be seized not only from the man in question himself, but also from his relatives. This article provides good insights into how the regime targets its citizens in exile.
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