AYS Weekend Digest 4–5/9/21: Will the German state intervene to keep its promise to reunite the evacuees with their families?
Moroccan activists call for mobilization against the indifference of UNHCR / Commissioner for Human Rights calls out Greece / Evictions in Bosnia and Herzegovina continue, with a little help from the UN organisations / Calais needs volunteers / & more info
There was a demonstration by Afghan women demanding that other countries not recognize the Taliban. The Taliban have dispersed it by force — by Mortaza Behboudi
FEATURE
No progress has been made at making it possible for people who are on a ‘stand by’ within the US Air Force Base Ramstein in Rhineland-Palatinate, to reunite them with their close family members. As the wait for a flight to the USA or other countries (like Albania, North Macedonia, Uganda) who accepted to be the host to the people while the US arranges their visas for a transfer to the States, they are not allowed to leave the Air Base and therefore cannot really enter Germany. Some of these people who have previous ties to Germany have reportedly been promised a chance to arrange a stay in the country and not leave for the US. However, that promise seems unlikely to be fulfilled because of a lack of any apparent authority or official address they can turn to for help and guidance with the next steps. This dispersion of responsibility has resulted in allegedly no success in attempting to connect people with their family members, in spite of the fact that some were on the evacuation list of the Federal Foreign Office, and with all the efforts of lawyers and others involved.
14,900 people evacuated from Kabul are currently at the US Air Force Base Ramstein.
Since the Taliban took full control of Afghanistan on August 15, Afghan refugees in France have also been anxious to bring their families to safety. InfoMigrants reported how family reunification procedures, which had been severely delayed due to the pandemic, have become even more complicated and are now a race against time.
Many people have gathered in different groups and initiatives spending days and nights trying to find ways to get people known and unknown to them out of Afghanistan. In an attempt to share information and work co-operatively to assist as many people as possible left in danger, nearly 400 lawyers and immigration professionals have teamed up with one of the world’s biggest law firms to help people trying to flee Afghanistan. Reportedly, all the lawyers in the group are working pro bono.
MOROCCO
Activists call for mobilization against the indifference of UNHCR
The authorities of Oujda raided the places where the Sudanese asylum seekers gathered to sleep and have evicted them all, including the vacant ground located near the Oujda hotel. An inhuman and unjustified action that aggravates their situation of living in the street in the absence of any assistance from UNHCR, AMDH activists report. Even a little rest in a remote place is not tolerated. It is more urgent than ever to mobilize against this indifference of UNHCR representatives in the face of the suffering of the Sudanese.
SEARCH AND RESCUE AT SEA
Stories of the women who were aboard
A few days ago the crew of the SEA-EYE 4 rescued 29 people from a small wooden boat. Among them are eight women, two of them nine months pregnant. There are also four babies with them. Their crew members Johanna and Kai spoke to the women. One word comes up again and again: Hell.
„Wir lebten in ständiger Angst.” — Sea-Eye
Die Crew der SEA-EYE 4 hat vor wenigen Tagen 29 Menschen aus einem kleinen Holzboot gerettet. Unter ihnen sind acht…
186 people arrived to Lampedusa, 2 people died
There were 156 people in the first of the two boats, including a woman and 13 minors, News from the Med report. Reportedly, they were all taken to the hotspot in Contrada Imbriacola after the first health checks carried out directly on the Favarolo pier where there were 379 guests at the time.
Another 30 people, presumably from Egypt, Sudan and Côte d‘Ivoire, arrived in a boat intercepted in the waters off the island by patrol boats from the port authority and Guardia di Finca. Meanwhile, two bodies were found in Cala Spugne on Lampedusa and taken aboard the ferry Sansovino. They are believed to be two of the nine missing persons from the shipwreck of June 30 between Lampedusa and the island of Lampione.
At the same time, they report 123 people arriving in Reggio Calabria province, reportedly including many Afghans.
In Spain, 40 people were saved south of Gran Canaria, while Salvamento Marítimo saved 33 people from three boats off the coast of Almería.
GREECE
Forgotten human rights
Article 40 of the new Greek Deportations and Return Bill would introduce restrictions and conditions on the activities of civil society organisations in areas of competence of the Greek coast guard, and non-observance of these will be subject to heavy sanctions and fines. This raises concerns everywhere (apart among those making decisions, apparently), so the Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović addressed these concerns.
Any member of an NGO who would be involved in rescue operations conducted without coast guard permission would face prison time for up to a year and fined 1,000 euros, with the NGOs facing additional fines.
“They should refrain from harassing human rights defenders or obstructing their work, whether through legislative, judicial or administrative means,” the Commissioner said.
Also, those recommendations of the national human rights structures and organisations that managed to penetrate the official Deportations and Returns Bill also cause concern, when it comes to the right to asylum, the prevention of refoulement, remedies, safeguards in return procedures, and the prevention of automatic, large-scale detention. The Commissioner therefore called on members of the Parliament “to draw on these recommendations to ensure that the Bill, once adopted, fully reflects Greece’s obligations, including under the European Convention on Human Rights and the Refugee Convention.”
The Commissioner reiterates that civil society organisations are instrumental in protecting the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, and play a major role in reporting and documenting pushbacks or other human rights violations:
She urges Greek legislators to reject the restrictions envisaged in Article 40 of the Deportations and Returns Bill, and to recognise the human rights work of NGOs saving lives at sea in keeping with their status as human rights defenders.
Islands
Close to one third of the population currently staying in squalid camps across the Aegean are children under 12, according to the UNHCR data. The official numbers of the Greek ministry state less than 5400 people are currently on the islands.
At the peak in April 2020, around 40,000 people were staying in the island camps, sometimes in horrific conditions that prompted international outrage. Most of the remaining migrants are now living in the Mavrovouni camp, usually referred to as the new Kara Tepe camp, on Lesbos. Currently, 3,400 people are there. The camp has a capacity of 8,000 people, InfoMigrants report.
Although the number of people on the move who are staying in these camps has significantly lessened, the living conditions and general treatment they are getting have not changed or improved.
These are classes of women and girls in Moria Acadamia our partner in Camp. Most if these students come from Afghanistan and their teachers too. All of them want to learn and improve and especially now in this situation such places become even more important. — Moria Corona Awareness Team
SERBIA
First 6 months of the year — a report
Belgrade Centre for Human Rights has compiled a periodic report “Right to Asylum in the Republic of Serbia — Periodic Report for January–June 2021”.
The Report analyses the treatment of the asylum seekers and refugees in Serbia in the first six months of 2021, based on information the BCHR team obtained during their legal representation in the asylum procedure and provision of support in their integration, and during the team’s field work.
The text is available here.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
Evictions continue in Velika Kladuša area
NNK field volunteers active in the area around Velika Kladuša report on the most recent evictions of the empty buildings squatted by people on the move who have no other or better solution for their current situation and are not offered real protection or any chance for a fair asylum process. Here is what they wrote:
Yesterday morning, Bosnian police evicted one of the occupied houses in Velika Kladusa, where about 230 people, mostly families, were “living” in tents. In the past days, IOM (International Organization for Migration), which is a partner of the UN and one of the actors working with governments and police to track and move moving people in motion to the “refugee” camps. arrived at abandoned buildings to make a list, as we witnessed, of how many people were there, what their country of origin was and whether they were unaccompanied families or young people. As some people told us, at night IOM also took and burned their blankets, apparently taking away the resources needed to face cold nights outside the camps.
Information collected by IOM probably helped police for the eviction that took place yesterday around 6 am. According to some people displaced in the afternoon, police arrived with a unit of about 40 police officers who broke and cut the tents with knives, burned personal items — which is a regular police procedure we have witnessed along the course of action of the years — and forced people to get on four large buses, dividing them between families and youth groups. The former were moved to Lipa camp near Bihac, while youth groups were taken to Miral camp in Velika Kladusa. Some of the displaced managed to escape from police and flee the camp (literally running, as they themselves said), others were released after saying they were going to move to the camp Sarajevo, others did not face the eviction because, as they told us, they were trying to do the game — the attempt to reach a European country crossing borders, walking through forests or saving deadly rivers, due to a lack of safe and legal pathways — and were illegally returned late in the morning , returning to the abandoned building when the eviction had already occurred.
In the afternoon and evening there were about 40 people out of the 230 who were there in the last few days and the feeling of uncertainty and fear of a new eviction and police violence was clear. Given that Camp Lipa 2.0 (which has been rebuilt after the December 23, 2020 fire) is expected to reopen shortly with greater capacity, further evictions are expected in the coming days and weeks.
FRANCE
Justice for Aleksandra!
Policies born of a succession of treaties and bilateral agreements between France and the United Kingdom have made this cross-border space a deadly area for exiles. They have caused more than 300 deaths in the past 20 years, and the tragic death of a newborn at the time, Aleksandra Hazhar, was one of them.
The proliferation of border control systems is forcing exiles to adopt increasingly dangerous crossing techniques and making the use of smuggling networks, which the authorities claim to be fighting against, ever more necessary. In the end, the responsibility lies not with the exiles, such as Rupak and Hazhar, Aleksandra’s parents, who are obliged to undertake these crossings, but indeed with the governments that deprive these people of any other option.
We, the signatories, declare our solidarity with Rupak and Hazhar and demand that justice be done for and in memory of Aleksandra Hazhar. We demand that all light be shed on the exact responsibility of the gendarmes, but also of the administrative and political authorities in this tragedy and in the implementation of murderous policies in Calais and the region.
This document was signed by more than 20 organisations active across the country, as well as many other individuals.
Calais needs volunteers
Refugee Info Bus is urgently recruiting a long term volunteer (6 months +) to join them in Calais as their field coordinator.
“This is a crucial role within the team, helping us ensure we deliver reliable services to displaced communities,” they wrote. Find out more and apply by following this link.
GERMANY
Cut off from the outside world
Racism, noise pollution, inadequate medical care and a lack of privacy — these are just some of the issues people staying at refugee centres across Germany face on a daily basis, according to many reports and personal accounts. Pro Asyl published a study by a German politologist whose findings support these claims. As they state, numerous passages from the interviews that the author, Nikolai Huke, conducted describe the conditions in the asylum shelters which are disturbing — “as if they didn’t come from innocent people seeking protection in German asylum seeker shelters, but from felons in high-security prisons from a science fiction film”.
DENMARK
Et øjeblik for Afghanistan (A moment for Afghanistan)
Next Sunday, in Copenhagen — Event link
BELARUS
And while our politicians are once again riding in helicopters to prove to us just how concerned, appalled and determined they are, all those who are equally interested in the contradiction between concern and action at the highest level in the EU as we are:
https://twitter.com/ISEUConcerned
That’s all from our team for now. Spread the news, get involved, and don’t just be saddened, concerned and appalled on social media.
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