AYS Daily Digest 14/10/20 The eviction of Pikpa Camp postponed
Infamous human traffickers in Libya arrested // Boats seized in Malta before being shipped to Libya // Protest in Germany // Uber investigation in Italy comes to a close // and more…
FEATURE: Today we bring you good news! The eviction of Pikpa Camp in Lesvos has been postponed!
Lesvos Solidarity Pikpa reported Wednesday “The Ministry of Labour communicated to us that for now the eviction of Pikpa is postponed. We are waiting for written confirmation with more details. The struggle is not over but today we are celebrating this small victory!! Together with you and thanks to all of you! Solidarity will win!!”
Dunya Collective elaborated, “The project is not safe yet. The official letter from the Ministry of Labour (land owner) is still pending. It’s a break to take a breath, but the struggle is not over.”
AYS stands in solidarity with Pikpa and will continue to report on its services as an integral and important place for people stuck inhumanly on Lesvos!
LIBYA
Human Trafficker Bija was arrested
On Wednesday, Libyan officials arrested Abd al-Rahman al-Milad, known as Bija, due to a mandate from the Interior Minister Bashaga. Bija “is considered by the UN and the International Court of The Hague as one of the major organizers of the smuggling of migrants, first enslaved in Libya and then herded on dilapidated boats to make them cross the central Mediterranean.” He has also been accused of drowning people along the crossing. Italian outlet La Stampa reports:
“For this reason, he is accused of human rights crimes but until now he had continued, unabated, to carry out his lucrative and unscrupulous activity, at first even as an officer of one of the local sections of the so-called Libyan Coast Guard. The trafficker, according to the UN, who sought his arrest, for years has been able to manage and decide the life, and even death, of thousands of migrants detained in the terrible Libyan connection houses, especially in the Zawiya area, to the west. Tripoli, one of the main Libyan ‘ports’ from which migrants depart.”
Nancy Porsia a freelance journalist, who has received threats from Bija, reported on the backlash from Bija’s supporters after the arrest:
“After Bidja’s arrest this afternoon, Zawiya’s militias are already in Tripoli. Armed clashes in the capital. Shortly before, on the FB account of the Coast Guard of Zawiya, a greeting to the captain appeared ‘pride’ as they define him …”
This is a developing story and AYS will continue to cover it.
This is also an ongoing case against two smugglers. Sally Hayden reported on the hearings of witnesses on Wednesday, saying, “It’s worth mentioning, on the topic of witnesses, that victims weren’t allowed testify remotely. I’ve spoken to many others who wanted to be involved, but they’re in Libya, Tunisia, across Europe, etc. The percentage who will have returned to Ethiopia is very small.” More here.
SEA
Info Migrants is reporting that “Authorities in Tunisia have now confirmed that at least 17 people died in the shipwreck that took place on Sunday, 11 October off the coast of Tunisia. One judge said the death toll would likely be 21 as it is improbable that any more survivors will be found…Seven people did survive the accident and were rescued on Sunday. Since then, 17 bodies in total have also been retrieved from the waves. Among those drowned, reported AFP, were three children, a baby ‘less than six months old, as well as seven women aged between 20 and 30 and two Tunisian men.’” More here.
CYPRUS
As far as the increase in people migrating from Lebanon to Cyprus, German media is reporting that “Save the Children counted a total of 21 attempts to cross the 160 kilometers between Lebanon and Cyprus by boat between July and September this year. In the same period last year there had been 17 such attempts. In September alone, five boats with a total of 230 people on board were picked up during the crossing and sent back to Lebanon, according to the organization.” More here.
GREECE
Vial camp in Chios is under lockdown after “numerous” infections until 21 October. The government did not specify how many positive infections there are in the camp. According the Greek media “The ministry said it has asked the National Public Health Organization (EODY) to set up an emergency team at the facility to trace and treat migrants and refugees. Additionally, all women who are over five months pregnant will be immediately transferred to mainland Greece, near COVID-19 referral hospitals, to avoid giving birth at the island’s hospital.” Learn more here.
ITALY
Asylum seekers who have been in Italy for years and are living in various housing structures are being tested for COVID. The catch is that many who have tested positive are being moved to quarantine upon ships with new arrivals. Info Migrants talked with ARCI (Associazione Ricreativa Culturale Italiana) which expressed “profound worries” and “condemnation” of this new practice of Italy’s COVID response:
“Since the fight against the coronavirus has seen the implementation of numerous restrictive measures for citizens around the world, Italy has been routinely quarantining newly arrived migrants on board ferries moored off shore in several ports in the south of the country. According to ARCI, there are currently five in operation, but the numbers of those on board have not been officially released.
Now, it appears that some of the migrants and asylum seekers being sent there are in fact not newly arrived but have been resident in various reception centers for several months or even years. Many of them are waiting for responses to their asylum claims and, as ARCI points out, have a right to a place in the reception system.”
On Monday, Milan public prosecutor Paolo Storari closed the investigation into Uber Italy’s exploitation of workers, many of whom were asylum seekers and migrants. Uber Italy Manager Gloria Bresciani has been charged as well as others. This is a developing story, but in regards to their treatment of employees, Info Migrants reports:
“According to official documents, they exploited the ‘state of need’ of ‘asylum seeking migrants’ who were living in migrant reception centers and who were from ‘conflict areas (Mali, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Guinea, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and thus in a condition of extreme vulnerability and social isolation.’
The workers, the documents stated, ‘were paid €3 per delivery, regardless of the distance travelled,’ the weather or the time of the day or night that they worked. They were also allegedly ‘robbed’ of tips that customers left voluntarily and ‘punished’ via arbitrary cuts to the agreed wages when they did not abide by all instructions.”
SPAIN
The UN is reporting that Spain has unacceptable procedures for identifying the age of children and unaccompanied minors. They say that Spain violated the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly its “right to identity, the right to be heard, and the right to special protection of children deprived of their family environment.”
“According to the experts, in the fourteen cases analyzed by the Committee, Spain did not carry out the appropriate procedure to determine the age of the young people. Based on a publication by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the X-ray used in Spain to determine age has a margin of error of four years. According to the figures provided by UNHCR, during the first nine months of 2019 some 2,500 children arrived in Spain, many of them unaccompanied. For this reason, the Committee highlights ‘the fundamental importance of determining the age of any individual who claims to be a minor, given that the result of said determination will determine whether they have the right to protection as children.’
The president of the Committee, Luis Pedernera, stressed that while the process of verifying the age of young people is pending resolution ‘the person must be presumed a minor and treated as such,’ and that when they have identity documents ‘they must be considered valid unless there is evidence to the contrary, as recognized by the Supreme Court of Spain itself.’”
We feel it is urgent to raise awareness of the reality of these centers, for many unknown people they are prisons for immigrants, and this in practice involves the deprivation of liberty of many people for the simple fact of migrating, in search of the right to a better life or running from situations of persecution or real danger, and this in fact leads to imprisonment in an absolutely inadequate facility that undermines the dignity of the human being.
On September 23, the Government announced the resumption of activity in the CIEs, re-interning people in these spaces of violations of rights and suffering, also in the context of the global pandemic and border closures, which makes it impossible for these people to return. To this day, the CIEs of the Canary Islands, Murcia, Barcelona and Madrid are operative. We appeal to the competent authorities to end this measure definitively, experience these last few years has shown that these centers are ineffective, they are disproportionate as a measure compared to other much less fatal alternatives, and European regulations do not require you to have a CIE.” Photo by APDHA Campo de Gibraltar
BOSNIA
BH is set to return “several thousand” people to Pakistan. Local media are reporting that “last month, the BH Ministry of Security formed an expert working body to work on a proposal for a BH agreement with Pakistan. (Wednesday) morning, the group met and prepared the final text of the Draft Agreement, on which the Government of Pakistan also gave its opinion and proposals.” Learn more here.
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung published a report called “Brutality as the new normal” in which they interviewed a local from Vrnograč, a small village near the border with Croatia, about the violence some locals have been perpetrating against refugees. The local needed to go unnamed because the thugs usually go unpunished and are still at large. Read this interesting report here.
SERBIA
In an update from InfoPark:
“The parks and streets of Savamala in Belgrade continue to be occupied by many refugees and other migrants, with an average of 250 persons spotted by Info Park mobile teams in the afternoon hours this past week. With the worsening weather conditions, refugees and migrants feel under pressure to continue moving irregularly, to avoid being stuck in Serbia during the winter. There are many families among them with young children sleeping rough in Belgrade while waiting for the „game“. In interviews with Info Park’s mobile team, some families say that they are refusing accommodation in asylum and reception centers because of their remoteness. They also said that police patrols are regularly visiting the parks and squats where refugees and migrants sleep and ordering everyone to leave the site without much explanation. For the first time since 2017, refugees and migrants are making makeshift accommodation in the middle of the parks of the Savamala area to protect themselves while sleeping rough. Several Arab and Kurdish families from Syria and Iraq have reportedly tried to register at the police department for foreigners in Savska, but with no success. According to them the police officers said there is no registration for the time being and a mandatory 14-day-isolation will be introduced for the refugees and migrants who wish to be registered.”
GERMANY
UK
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