AYS Daily Digest 6/6/2019- Libya: Between hell and hell
Discrimination in Service Provision Could Now Be Legal in Greece /// Investigations on Italian Interior Ministry Launched /// Violence in Miral Camp in Bosnia /// Updates on the Eviction of Lilles’ ‘5 Stars’ Squat /// Reports of Abuses in Obrenovac Center in Serbia
FEATURE STORY: Libya - Between Hell and Hell: Deaths at Seas and in Detention, Arrests at the Border and Forced Returns
As the Libyan Civil War continues, a boat carrying people trying to escape sunk at sea on Wednesday. The Libyan Coast Guard report ‘rescuing’ 92 people, but of course will only return them to the inherently dangerous situation they were desperately trying to leave. There is no official figure for deaths from this ship wreck, and figures vary as to the number of people originally on board and the numbers of those rescued.
Meanwhile, 400 people were picked up by the Maltese Armed Forces in four different operations and taken to Malta. More boats are known to be at sea, but the MAF have stated that they will only intervene if they believe the vessel to be in immediate danger. Let’s hope they are quick to react.
Those on the boat currently stranded off the coast of Tunisia have now begun a hunger strike and are threatening to jump into the sea if they are not allowed to disembark. Three more people were arrested at the border trying to escape from Libya and face impending legal proceedings. They are from Sudan, where over 100 people were murdered by the state this week.
In a further debasement of human rights, a second field hospital was also attacked in Ain Zara, Libya. This is not a safe third country. How much clearer does it need to be?
While too many reporters and ‘impartial observers’ keep talking about “reception facilities,” “rescue operation by the Libyan Coast Guard,” and the “Libyan SAR zone,” none of these are a reality. Reception facilities are detention centres in which many people have died in the last months, the EU-funded Libyan coast guard keeps returning people to a country in a state of war, and this is not a rescue operation — this is state murder.
SEA
A dinghy carrying 62 people was rescued yesterday by an offshore supply ship and it is now heading towards Sicily. The dinghy has been left for one whole night waiting for rescue despite its position being signaled since as early as Wednesday night by Colibrì aircraft.
GREECE
Arrivals
Aegean Boat Report states that one boat was picked up outside Skala Mistegnon on Lesvos by HCG 05.00 with 38 people on board. No breakdown available.
Island reports
Aegean Boat Report has also published the figures for the year to date on arrivals to the islands:
June 2019
Total number of refugees on the islands: 16341.
LESVOS: Arrival June: 318 — Total arrivals this year: 3651CHIOS: Arrivals June: 15 — Total arrivals this year: 1240
SAMOS: Arrivals June: 119 — Total arrivals this year: 2878
KOS: Arrivals June: 112 — Total arrivals this year: 905
LEROS: Arrivals June: 36 — Total arrivals this year: 1023
OTHER ISLANDS: Arrivals June: 24 — Total arrivals this year: 732
*BOATS STOPPED BY TCG/POLICE:Refugees June: 475 — Boats June: 20
Total Refugees this year: 17158 — Total Boats this year: 549
(*Statistics from TCG not updated for June, due to some missing numbers. Will be updated as soon as possible.)
Read the full figures HERE.
A quick look at the government stats clearly shows that even with arrivals at a relative low, transfers from the islands remain at half of that of arrivals, meaning that no improvement in living conditions is possible. Those transferred to the mainland usually find themselves back in tents, in camps far from the city, and in very similar conditions.
As Erdogan continues to move towards an all out dictatorship, with a new election on the 23rd of this month because the opposition won the last round of elections, we ask - what will happen at the end of the illegal EU-Turkey deal?
The Decriminalization of Discrimination
The Greek Government risks taking several steps back this week while voting on amendments to the Penal Code. Instead of continuing to cover up the innate discrimination experienced by people of different backgrounds in Greece, they are proposing to legalize it. At the same time this week, the Ministry Education and Religious Affairs has opened the first Mosque in Athens since the beginning of the modern Greek state, which took 30 years to receive approval and has faced numerous far right attacks before its doors have even opened.
ITALY
A demonstration was held on Thursday in Foggia, in the south-east of Italy to once again denounce the slave-like conditions of the agricultural sector in the area, in which tens of thousands of people work. A large proportion of the workers are migrants. In the last few days alone two workers have died on their way to work.
Investigation Underway Against the Interior Ministry’s ‘Porti Chiusi’ Policy
Three different investigations are being launched against interior minister Matteo Salvini, Italian newspapers report, for the procedures enacted by the ministry to obstruct rescues in the Mediterranean. While details of such investigations are not public yet, one of them is focusing on the ‘porti chiusi’ (closed ports) policy, decided by the ministry, and the temporary seizing of the Sea Watch 3 vessel in May.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Unrest at Miral
After the big fire that broke out last weekend, injuring around 30 people and forcing hundreds to temporarily leave the reception center in Miral while most of their belonging were consumed by the fire, clashes and unrest have developed between the residents of the camp and overflowed in the streets of Velika Klaudsa in the last few days, as local news report.
Scenes like these go hand-in-hand with the dire conditions of refugee reception centers around Europe. Poor material conditions, the lack of hygiene, but most of all continuous police harassment and brutality (in the centers and at the borders) and the obliteration of people’s future and hope are the breeding ground for the eruption of violent episodes and clashes.
Refugees reported to AYS that among the causes of the clashes were cases of the theft of personal belonging. This is the result of the habitual practice of police forces stealing money, clothes, and personal items — and destroying phones.
As recognised by a spokesman of the Minstry of internal affair, reported by the Izbjeglice u Velikoj Kladuši — Refugees in Velika Kladusa group:
Migrant camps in the area of Bihac and Kladusa have reached their full capacity a long time ago, and there are about 100 new migrants arriving daily in the canton. […] For these reasons we are coming to the situation that, they have no access to camps, they don’t have daily food and this causes such incidents.
AIDA, Asylum Information Database, in their new report ‘Housing out of reach?,’ about the reception of refugees throughout Europe, describe a similar situation, in which centers and camps are characterized by, “persistent overcrowding, lack of or insufficient provision of services, violence, and lack of security.”
AIDA’s report also notes that, “despite the general decreasing trend, several countries have experienced an increase in asylum applications and demonstrated low levels of preparedness to deal with fluctuations in arrivals. At the same time, chronic lack of investment in reception capacity in some countries has resulted in permanent gaps in reception capacity, regardless of fluctuations in arrivals. As a result, many asylum seekers continue to be confronted with deficient reception systems or to face outright destitution in Europe.”
SERBIA
UNHCR published data for May 2019. According to said data, 2,512 people arrived in the country (in April they were 1,826). Among these there were 456 unaccompanied or separate minors.
3,592 asylum seekers are present in the country, but only 3,020 are accommodated in government reception centers.
An increase in the expulsions to Serbia is also recorded: 211 from Hungary, 284 from Croatia, 48 from Romania, 306 from Bosnia.
The Asylum Protection Centre reports that many of the refugees they encounter are, “sleeping [in rough conditions] around the transit center Obrenovac, being denied shelter, food and health service. They are suffering from stress and anxiety as a consequence of violence, inhuman treatment, and illegal push backs they suffered in Croatia and Bosnia before they were expelled to Serbia.”
Many of the people they talked to described the abusive and violent practices of the camp management in Obrenovac (in which they are not allowed): people have been locked in, denied food, water and hygiene items, and the violence is used “to intimidate refugees and maintain harsh discipline among 600–1,000 refugees in the Obrenovac camp.”
Read more about the support offered by APC/CZA.
GERMANY
More on the New Proposed Changes to Immigration Law
An interesting analysis on the growing discriminatory approach of German SPD (Social Democratic Party) towards migration was recently published (in German) by Flüchtlingsrat Berlin e.V.
It seems that they are following the direction taken by the Danish Social Democrats, who won the recent national election by posing themselves as promoters of a strict and inhumane migration policy.
Warnings should have come from similar episodes taking place in southern and eastern European countries, where such a shift to the right by so-called left-wing parties have proven successful in the short-term, but disastrous in the long term. Promoting Nationalistic and discriminatory language and policies will always favour right and far-right forces.
FRANCE
Updates on the Eviction of the ‘5 Stars’ Squat in Lille
Utopia56 Lille report on the illegality of the police operation which evicted the 5 Stars squat in Lille on Tuesday.
As planned, a court rule was published today, June 6, giving the residents of the ‘5 Stars’ until June 2022 to leave the building. Nonetheless, government officials ordered the expulsion of the squat on Tuesday, June 4, without waiting for this court decision.
About 60 people have been brought to CAOs (reception and orientation centers) in Amiens and Beauvais and in CAESs (administrative reception centers) in Nedonchel and Croisilles. An interim accommodation solution has been proposed to them.
Approximately 40 minors were taken to a home for minors in Armentières. About 60 people have been put in administrative detention in Lesquin, Coquelles, and Paris even though the majority of them were in possession of valid documents.
16 volunteers from several associations, who supported the inhabitants of the squat during the eviction, were placed in custody. They were released last night, after about 38 hours in custody.
A large part of the former inhabitants of the squat are now in the streets, in the cold and in the rain. Some have nothing left, having not been able to recover their few belongings from the evicted squat.
It seems we must point out once again that the French police are incredibly slow learners. Evicting people, destroying their homes, stealing their possessions, beating them, gassing them, and insulting them does not make them disappear.
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