country:niger

Diverting EU aid to stop migrants

Ahead of Europe’s development ministers meeting in Estonia on 11 September, Global Health Advocates research in Senegal and Niger shows that EU development aid is misused and diverted through the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa.

Development aid is meant to fund long-term programmes aimed at the eradication of poverty in line with partner countries’ own development priorities. However, the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa – a rather new instrument launched hastily by the EU and backed with close to €3 billion in development funds – does exactly the opposite: it prioritises quick fixes driven by Europe’s short-term domestic priorities, with little involvement of local governments let alone civil society actors.

Findings from the report published today reveal untransparent processes in-country, bypassing most good governance principles. No public calls for proposals, no consultation of local actors, no eligibility guidelines, prioritisation of short term projects and the development of retroactive strategies once most funds are disbursed.

Fanny Voitzwinkler, Head of the EU Office of Global Health Advocates, says: “Everyone we met in Niamey and Dakar agreed: the EU Trust Fund is first-and-foremost a political communication tool to show citizens the EU is responding fast to the so-called ‘migration crisis‘. Using development aid money as a bargaining chip to leverage African countries’ cooperation on migration tarnishes the image of the EU as a global development actor.”

Beyond the questionable use of development funds to address what is considered a political emergency in Europe, the EU is literally outsourcing the control of migration to countries such as Libya and Niger, to ensure migrants are no longer able to leave the northern shores of the African continent. Most concerning is that some countries have de facto boosted their domestic security spending over basic social services like health and education.

The NGO also warns against possible spill over-effects of the EU-driven effort to reduce migratory pressure to Europe. Repressive measures to curb migration are depriving communities of economic opportunities in the Agadez region of Niger without providing viable alternatives in already unstable environments. The EU’s eagerness to rapidly stem migration flows has taken precedence over seeking sustainable solutions for the local population.

Global Health Advocates is urging the EU to delink its political dialogue on migration from its development agenda, acknowledging that migration is a positive driver of development. In the spirit of European’s core founding values of tolerance, solidarity and respect for human dignity, the EU should actively support and promote a more nuanced narrative on migration and mobility, anchored in facts and reality.

Ms. Voitzwinkler concludes: “If the EU Trust Fund is not realigned to reflect a genuine partnership between the EU and African countries, promoting policies that can foster a positive development impact of mobility, the EU should stop replenishing the Fund.”

http://www.ghadvocates.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Cartoon_Misplaced-Trust-1024x724.jpg

Pour télécharger le #rapport:

▻http://www.ghadvocates.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Misplaced-Trust_FINAL-VERSION.pdf

#effet_réverbère

A growing number of policymakers, journalists and scholars are linking climate change to violent conflict9. Nevertheless, scientific evidence of this relationship remains elusive due to heterogeneous research designs, variables, data sets and scales of analysis10,11. Amid the array of disparate findings is a core of meta-analyses that are based on statistical methods12,13 as well as several in-depth studies linking climate change to highly prominent conflicts such as those in Darfur or Syria14,15.

Critics of this research point to an array of methodological problems, and to a lesser extent a deeper underlying problem with a study design that selects only cases where conflict is present or where data are readily available1,2,3,4,10. Researchers have, for instance, intensively studied the impact of a multi-year drought on the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, while there is little analysis of responses to the same drought in Jordan or Lebanon, where no large-scale violence erupted16. So, if the evidence of a causal association between climate and violent conflict is informed only by exceptional instances where violent conflict arises and climate also varies in some way, it is unable to explain the vastly more ubiquitous and continuing condition of peace under a changing climate.

Other critics of the research claiming a link between climate change and violent conflict have pointed to the way it stigmatizes some places—most often ‘Africa’ or a few African countries—as being more naturally violent than others. It does this ignoring the many similar and/or proximate places where peaceful responses are the norm, and the complex political, economic and institutional factors that cause violence and peace4,6,8,17. Such ‘mappings of danger’ can undermine the confidence of investors, local people and international donors and hence undermine sustainable development. They change the climate policy challenge from being one of adaptation with and in the interests of local people, to one of interventions to secure peace in the interests of those who fear the risk of contagious conflict and instability6,18.

So, it is important to understand whether the research claiming a link between climate change and violent conflict is based on a biased sampling strategy. Yet the extent to which this is the case remains untested. We therefore survey the relevant academic literature for the period 1990–2017 using the Scopus database and a systematic review—a method often used to analyse large bodies of literature with a high degree of rigour and replicability, and which is described in the Methods section with data provided in Supplementary Datasets 1 and 219,20.

The analysis of the relevant literature shows that Africa is by far the most frequently mentioned continent (77 mentions), followed by Asia (45) (see Table 1). The dominant focus on Africa in the literature is largely stable over time (see Fig. 1). This is surprising given that Asia is also home to places that are politically fragile and highly vulnerable to climate change21,22, but much more populous. Other continents with significant vulnerabilities to climate change (and that are at least in some places also prone to violent conflict), such as South America or Oceania, are hardly considered at all21.
Table 1 Most frequently mentioned continents and world regions in climate–conflict publications
Full size table
Fig. 1: Frequency of mentions of continents in the climate–conflict literature per year.
Fig. 1

The bars illustrate how frequently a continent was mentioned in the climate–conflict literature per year (2007–2017). No bar indicates that the continent was not mentioned in this year.
Full size image

With respect to world regions, Sub-Saharan Africa was by far most frequently mentioned in the literature analysed (44 times), although the Middle East (22) and the Sahel (22) were also discussed often (see Table 1). At the country level, Kenya and Sudan were most frequently analysed by climate–conflict researchers (11 mentions), followed by Egypt (8) as well as India, Nigeria and Syria (7). Complete lists of the continents, world regions and countries discussed in climate–conflict research can be found in Supplementary Dataset 1.

To check whether the selection of cases is biased towards the dependent variable, we run a number of Poisson regressions (see Supplementary Tables 1–3 for the full results) using data on, among others, the number of times a country is mentioned in the literature and on battle-related deaths between 1989 and 201522. Although the battle-related deaths data set is far from perfect and tends to underestimate small-scale violence (which many scholars believe is likely to be the most affected by climate change), it is currently the best global data set on violent conflict prevalence available.

The correlation between the number of mentions and a high death toll is positive and significant in all models (Fig. 2). This suggests that studies on climate–conflict links that research one or a few individual countries are disproportionally focusing on cases that are already experiencing violent conflict. Holding other factors constant, we estimate that countries with more than 1,000 battle-related deaths are mentioned almost three times as often as countries with a lower death toll. This is further supported by a comparison of the top ten countries of each list (Table 2). Six of the ten most-often-mentioned countries are also among the ten countries with the most battle-related deaths. The four remaining countries are also characterized by significant numbers of battle-related deaths, ranging from 2,775 (Egypt) to 8,644 (South Sudan).
Fig. 2: Changes in the frequency of mentions in the climate–conflict literature depending on country characteristics.
Fig. 2

Relative changes in the frequency with which countries are mentioned in the climate–conflict literature depending on climatic and other characteristics (estimated incidence rate ratios are shown, with 95% confidence intervals in grey). Estimated changes are not significant at the 5% level where confidence intervals cross the dashed line. Model 1 analyses the full sample. Model 2 includes English-speaking country instead of former British colony. Model 3 replaces Agriculture>25% of GDP with Agriculture>25% of employment. Model 4 uses high vulnerability rather than high exposure to climate change. Model 5 drops Kenya and Sudan from the analysis. Model 6 includes only African countries.
Full size image
Table 2 Countries most often mentioned in climate–conflict literature and countries with most battle-related deaths
Full size table

In contrast, the sampling of countries to be studied seems to be barely informed by the independent variable. A high exposure and a high vulnerability to climate change according to the ND-GAIN index23 are negatively, but not significantly, correlated with the number of times a country is mentioned (Fig. 2). The same holds true for the correlation with our climate risk measure based on the Global Climate Risk Index (CRI)24, although correlations are mostly significant here (Fig. 2), indicating that countries less at risk from climate change are more often discussed in the climate–conflict literature.

Table 3 adds further evidence to this claim. None of the ten most climate change-affected countries according to the ND-GAIN exposure score or the CRI are among the top ten countries considered in the climate–conflict literature. Further, the literature on climate change and conflict does not discuss 11 of these 20 high-climate risk-countries at all (Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nicaragua, Philippines, Seychelles, Tuvalu and Yemen), despite many of them being characterized by significant political instability. There may be several reasons for these disparities, which include a greater interest in conflict-prone countries, issues of accessibility (discussed in the next paragraph) and a preference for studying countries with a higher global political relevance.
Table 3 Countries most often mentioned in the climate–conflict literature compared with the countries most exposed to and at risk from climate change
Full size table

The literature largely agrees that climate change is a ‘threat multiplier’ that aggravates existing tensions. It would hence make little sense to focus predominantly on countries that are politically very stable. Also, several analyses explicitly select their cases based on a number of scope conditions that are hypothesized to make climate–conflict links more likely16,25. But if studies (especially when analysing a small number of cases) focus on places that are already suffering from intense violent conflict, while highly vulnerable countries receive little attention, results may be distorted and significant knowledge gaps left unaddressed. In line with this, we find that further climate sensitivity measures such as the contribution of the agricultural sector to employment (negative, insignificant effect) and to gross domestic product (GDP; slightly positive and significant, but not robust effect) are weak predictors for the number of mentions (Fig. 2).

Our results further indicate a streetlight effect in climate–conflict research, that is, researchers tend to focus on particular places for reasons of convenience5. On the continent level, the availability of conflict data might have played an important role, especially as statistical analyses are very widespread in climate–conflict research10. Large geo-referenced conflict data sets spanning several countries and longer time periods were until very recently only available for Africa26. Indeed, when just considering statistical studies (n = 35 in our sample), the focus on Africa as a continent (65%) and Sub-Saharan Africa as a region (57%) is even stronger than in the full sample.

On the country level, all models reveal a positive and significant correlation between the numbers of mentions in the literature and countries that are former British colonies (Fig. 2). A likely explanation for this finding is that countries formerly colonized by Great Britain have better data (for example, historic weather records), which makes research more convenient5. Further, in four of the six most-mentioned countries (Sudan, Kenya, India and Nigeria). English is an official language (which makes research more practicable for many Western scholars). However, the positive correlation between these two factors indicated by model 2 (Fig. 2) is not significant. The presence of a streetlight effect in climate–conflict research is a reason for concern as it suggests that case selection (and hence knowledge production) is driven by accessibility rather than concerns for the explanation or practical relevance27.

One should note that the database we used for the literature search (Scopus) mainly captures journal articles that are written in English. Including French and Spanish language journals would probably yield a different picture of countries and regions most frequently mentioned.

The statistical findings provided by this study are robust to the use of different model specifications, the inclusion of further control variables, and the removal of the two most frequently mentioned countries (Kenya and Sudan) from the analysis (see Fig. 2 and the Supplementary Information for further information). Results also hold when analysing Africa only, hence suggesting that the detected sampling biases occur not only on a global scale, but are also valid for the continent most intensively discussed in climate–conflict research.

To conclude, critics have warned for some time that environmental security and climate–conflict research tend to choose cases on the dependent variable2,3,28. Our study provides the first systematic, empirical evidence that such claims are warranted. Studies focusing on one or a few cases tend to study places where the dependent variable (violent conflict) is present and hardly relate to the independent variable (vulnerability to climate change). In addition, climate–conflict research strongly focuses on cases that are most convenient in terms of field access or data availability.

To be clear, we do not intent to criticize individual studies, which often have good reasons to focus on specific regions, countries and phenomena. However, the sampling biases of the climate–conflict research field as a whole are deeply problematic for at least four reasons.

First, they convey the impression that climate–conflict links are stronger or more prevalent than they actually are3. This is especially the case for studies using few cases. Large-N studies usually contain a large number of non-conflict cases in their sample, although they draw all of these cases from a few regions or countries (see below).

Second, focusing strongly on cases of violent conflict limits the ability of (qualitative) researchers to study how people adapt peacefully to the impacts of climate change or carry out the associated conflicts non-violently4,29. Such knowledge, however, would be particularly valuable from a policy-making perspective.

Third, evidence of climate–conflict links comes primarily from few regions and countries that are convenient to access, such as (Sub-Saharan) Africa. This is even more of an issue in large-N, statistical analyses. While such a bias is not problematic per se as considerable parts of (Sub-Saharan) Africa are vulnerable to both climate change and conflict, this also implies that other very vulnerable regions, for instance in Asia and especially in South America and Oceania, receive little scholarly attention.

Finally, over-representing certain places leads to them being stigmatized as inherently violent and unable to cope with climate change peacefully4,6. This is particularly the case for Africa as a continent, the world regions Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, and countries such as Kenya, Sudan or Egypt. Such stigmatization might contribute to the re-production of colonial stereotypes, especially as 81% of the first authors in our sample were affiliated with institutions in countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). And it can also provide legitimation for the imposed security responses in certain places at the expense of co-produced adaptation responses in all places at risk from climate change17,18,30.

Un tweet intéressant de l’#OIM / #IOM, 02.03.2018 :

Migrant arrivals by #Mediterranean sea in Italy in 2018 are the lowest in 5 years, our @MillmanIOM says:

▻https://twitter.com/UNmigration/status/969701973736947712

La personne qui commente les chiffres dit que jamais les arrivées ont été si peu nombreuses... voici ce qu’il dit, je transcrit :

“This is the lowest we have seen in the five years we have been compiling this data month by month with the Italian Ministry of Iterior. I can just tell you that in 2014, in the first two months almost 7700 people arrived. In 2015, in the first two months almost 7900. Over 9000 in 2016, over 13’000 in 2017. It’s pretty important I think, because Italians will vote this weekend. Immigration is a huge issue obviously, and to be able to report that arrivals are less than half of last year’s at this time and the lowest in five years I think it’s rather important. Our total for the year so far is 3’730. This week we took migrants back to #Benin, #Mali and #Niger. As I understood it we’ve done a total of 26 countries that we’ve returned from Libya this year, so I think that has had some impact on the flows to Italy.”

(By the way, peut-être qu’un bref rappel des morts en Méditerranée et des conditions dégradantes en Libye auraient aussi été une bonne chose à rappeler... Mais mieux vaut se vanter des « #retours_volontaires » vers les pays d’origine)

#renvois #expulsions #retour_volontaire

cc @isskein

Demandes d’asile dans les États membres de l’UE - 650 000 primo-demandeurs d’asile enregistrés en 2017 - Syriens, Irakiens et Afghans demeurent les principaux demandeurs

En 2017, 650 000 primo-demandeurs d’asile ont introduit une demande de protection internationale dans les États membres de l’Union européenne (UE), soit quasiment deux fois moins qu’en 2016, quand 1 206 500 primo-demandeurs d’asile ont été enregistrés, et à un niveau comparable à celui enregistré en 2014, avant les pics de 2015 et 2016.

https://i.imgur.com/58tWuCo.png

Les statistiques dans le document pdf d’Eurostat :
►http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/2995521/8754398/3-20032018-AP-FR.pdf/f7bca4e4-ab6d-40cb-ae35-1b2e9e71017c

Commissione parlamentare di inchiesta sul sistema di accoglienza, di identificazione ed espulsione, nonchè sulle condizioni di trattamento dei migranti e sulle risorse pubbliche impegnate

https://i.imgur.com/Sa7lU5Z.png https://i.imgur.com/moEDnW9.png https://i.imgur.com/RobTOEa.png https://i.imgur.com/IiGPnxP.png https://i.imgur.com/rImgWo4.png

https://i.imgur.com/0csD2dm.png

#hotspots:

https://i.imgur.com/86sgkfo.png

#MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés

https://i.imgur.com/86sgkfo.png

J’ai reçu ce rapport via email, que je ne trouve pas sur internet... mais j’ai fait des copies d’écran des graphiques.

« Voyages du désespoir », un rapport du HCR sur les mouvements de réfugiés en Europe

Malgré la diminution globale du nombre de réfugiés et de migrants arrivés en Europe l’année dernière, les dangers auxquels nombreux d’entre eux sont confrontés dans certaines situations ont augmenté comme l’indique un nouveau rapport du HCR, l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés, qui décrit l’évolution des tendances dans leurs déplacements.

Selon le rapport « Voyages du désespoir », le nombre d’arrivées en Italie par la mer, principalement en provenance de la Libye, a considérablement diminué depuis juillet 2017. Cette tendance s’est poursuivie au cours du premier trimestre 2018, avec une baisse de 74 pour cent par rapport à l’année dernière.

La traversée vers l’Italie s’est par contre révélée de plus en plus dangereuse et le taux de mortalité des candidats à la traversée depuis la Libye a grimpé à 1 personne sur 14 au cours du premier trimestre 2018, alors qu’il était de 1 sur 29 au cours de la même période en 2017.

Par ailleurs, on a également observé au cours des derniers mois une détérioration très préoccupante de la santé des nouveaux arrivants en provenance de la Libye, avec un nombre plus important de personnes dans un état de grande faiblesse, amaigries et globalement en mauvais état de santé.

Si le nombre total des traversées de la Méditerranée est resté bien en deçà de celui de 2016, le HCR a également constaté une recrudescence des arrivées en Espagne et en Grèce sur la fin de l’année 2017.

En 2017, l’Espagne a observé une augmentation de 101 pour cent par rapport à 2016 et a recensé 28 000 nouveaux arrivants. Les premiers mois de 2018 indiquent une tendance similaire, avec une augmentation de 13 pour cent des arrivées par rapport à l’année dernière. Les Marocains et les Algériens constituent désormais les deux principales nationalités, mais les Syriens forment toujours l’essentiel des arrivées par les frontières terrestres de l’Espagne.

En Grèce, le nombre total d’arrivées par la mer a diminué par rapport à 2016, mais on a cependant observé une recrudescence de 33 pour cent entre mai et décembre de l’année dernière, avec 24 600 arrivants par rapport à 18 300 au cours de la même période en 2016. La majorité d’entre eux étaient originaires de Syrie, d’Irak et d’Afghanistan, et comprenait un grand nombre de familles avec des enfants. Les demandeurs d’asile arrivés en Grèce par la mer ont vécu de longues périodes d’attente sur les îles grecques, dans des conditions de surpeuplement difficiles.

Le renforcement des restrictions en Hongrie a poussé de nombreux réfugiés et migrants à emprunter d’autres routes pour traverser l’Europe, indique le rapport. Ainsi, certains passent de Serbie en Roumanie tandis que d’autres passent de la Grèce en Albanie, puis au Monténégro et en Bosnie-Herzégovine pour rallier la Croatie.

« Les voyages des réfugiés et migrants vers l’Europe et à travers celle-ci restent parsemés de dangers », a déclaré Pascale Moreau, la Directrice du bureau du HCR pour l’Europe. On estime que plus de 3 100 personnes ont perdu la vie en mer l’année dernière pendant la traversée vers l’Europe, et ce chiffre était de 5 100 en 2016. Depuis le début de l’année 2018, 501 personnes se sont ajoutées à la liste des morts ou des disparus.

À ceux qui ont péri en mer, s’ajoutent au moins 75 autres personnes décédées le long des routes terrestres qui suivent les frontières extérieures de l’Europe ou alors qu’elles traversaient l’Europe en 2017, et les rapports sur la poursuite des refoulements sont profondément préoccupants.

« Il est vital pour les personnes qui nécessitent une protection internationale d’avoir accès au territoire ainsi qu’à des procédures de demande d’asile rapides, justes et efficaces. Gérer ses frontières et offrir une protection aux réfugiés conformément aux obligations internationales des États ne sont pas des objectifs qui s’excluent ou sont incompatibles », a ajouté Pascale Moreau.

Le rapport du HCR souligne également les abus et les pratiques d’extorsion que subissent les réfugiés et migrants aux mains des trafiquants, des passeurs ou des groupes armés sur les différentes routes vers l’Europe.

Les femmes, et surtout celles qui voyagent seules, ainsi que les enfants non accompagnés sont particulièrement exposés au risque de subir des violences sexuelles et sexistes sur les routes vers l’Europe, ainsi qu’à certains endroits au sein de l’Europe.

Plus de 17 000 d’enfants non accompagnés sont arrivés en Europe en 2017. La plupart de ces enfants sont arrivés en Italie par la mer, et 13 pour cent d’entre eux étaient des enfants voyageant seuls, une tendance similaire à celle de 2016.

Le rapport du HCR signale toutefois des progrès encourageants quant au nombre de personnes réinstallées en Europe l’année dernière, avec une augmentation de 54 pour cent par rapport à 2016. La majorité de ces 26 400 réfugiés étaient des Syriens (84 pour cent) réinstallés depuis la Turquie, le Liban et la Jordanie. Parmi les pays européens, ce sont le Royaume-Uni, la Suède et l’Allemagne qui en ont accueilli le plus grand nombre.

Un autre développement positif à la fin de l’année dernière a vu le HCR commencer à faciliter l’évacuation de réfugiés vulnérables de la Libye vers le Niger et de la Libye vers l’Italie.

« Les évacuations depuis la Libye et l’augmentation des opportunités de réinstallation que nous avons observées l’année dernière sont d’excellentes nouvelles. Il subsiste toutefois des obstacles significatifs qui entravent l’accès à des voies sûres et légales, dont le regroupement familial, pour les personnes nécessitant une protection internationale, et nous appelons à une plus grande solidarité », a déclaré Pascale Moreau.

Le rapport formule également des recommandations supplémentaires quant à la nécessité de renforcer la solidarité entre les États au sein de l’Europe ainsi qu’avec les pays de premier asile et de transit, afin d’améliorer la qualité de l’accueil — tout particulièrement l’accueil des enfants séparés et non accompagnés, et de ceux qui ont survécu à la violence sexuelle et sexiste — et de mieux protéger les enfants.

▻http://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/press/2018/4/5acf30b3a/voyages-desespoir-rapport-hcr-mouvements-refugies-europe.html
#Grèce #Italie #Espagne #mortalité #mourir_aux_frontières #décès #femmes #réinstallation #MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés #corridors_humanitaires #desperate_journeys

Lien vers le #rapport :
►https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/63039

https://i.imgur.com/1jbSvTA.png https://i.imgur.com/FUu8aCE.png https://i.imgur.com/d8nDTFi.png https://i.imgur.com/bZZKtAl.png

Suffering for migrants in Libya ’worse’ since fall-off in sea crossings

Conditions for migrants already suffering severe abuse in Libya have deteriorated further since a European-backed push to stop boat departures led to a sharp drop in the number of crossings to Italy, community representatives say.

▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-libya/suffering-for-migrants-in-libya-worse-since-fall-off-in-sea-crossings-idUSK
#Libye

Gli arrivi in Italia dei MSNA negli ultimi anni

▻http://www.meltingpot.org/local/cache-vignettes/L440xH367/1-3-b94ad.png?1525094055
▻http://www.meltingpot.org/local/cache-vignettes/L440xH245/2-5-29411.png?1525094055
▻http://www.meltingpot.org/local/cache-vignettes/L440xH367/3-4-190b6.png?1525094055

▻http://www.meltingpot.org/local/cache-vignettes/L440xH367/4-5-c3548.png?1525094055
►http://www.meltingpot.org/SOS-Minori-Stranieri-Non-Accompagnati.html
#MNA #mineurs #enfants #enfance #mineurs_non_accompagnés

https://i.imgur.com/HqEgurf.png https://i.imgur.com/JnHgstK.png

►https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/63039

Calo degli arrivi: continuerà?

https://i.imgur.com/LB6zfph.png

Nei primi quattro mesi del 2018 sono sbarcati in Italia circa 9.300 migranti, il 75% in meno rispetto allo stesso periodo del 2017. Si tratta di un trend del tutto in linea con il calo verificatosi negli ultimi sei mesi del 2017 (-75% rispetto allo stesso periodo del 2016). I dati relativi ai primi mesi dell’anno (quelli invernali) risultano tuttavia poco indicativi del livello dei flussi nei mesi successivi. Gli sbarchi iniziano a crescere solo da aprile e raggiungono un picco tra giugno e agosto, seguendo un tipico trend stagionale.

L’andamento degli sbarchi nel mese di aprile può dunque essere considerato un primo segnale di quanti arrivi potrebbero essere registrati nel corso di tutto l’anno. Particolare attenzione meritano, al riguardo, gli avvenimenti di metà aprile, quando in quattro giorni sono sbarcate 1.500 persone.

È comunque necessaria un’ulteriore dose di prudenza, perché ai trend stagionali si affiancano anche le decisioni e le politiche degli attori coinvolti lungo la rotta. Il 2017 lo dimostra: fino al 15 luglio dell’anno scorso gli sbarchi sulle coste italiane erano stati circa il 30% in più rispetto al 2016, e proprio da metà luglio, nel periodo dell’anno in cui solitamente si registrano più arrivi, è iniziato il calo degli sbarchi che prosegue a tutt’oggi.

►https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/fact-checking-migrazioni-2018-20415

Calo degli arrivi: meno morti in mare?

Il calo delle partenze ha ridotto drasticamente il numero assoluto di persone che perde la vita durante la traversata: se la frequenza delle morti in mare dei primi sette mesi dell’anno scorso fosse rimasta invariata nella restante parte del 2017, a fine anno si sarebbero registrate 4.155 morti – un livello comparabile a quello degli anni precedenti. Al contrario, se la frequenza delle morti in mare nei nove mesi successivi al calo degli sbarchi restasse costante per altri tre mesi, si registrerebbero circa 1.250 morti in un anno: una riduzione del 70%.

L’Organizzazione mondiale per le migrazioni ha tuttavia fatto notare come, tra gennaio e marzo 2018, il già alto rischio della traversata lungo la rotta del Mediterraneo Centrale sia quasi raddoppiato rispetto allo stesso periodo dell’anno precedente (dal 3,3% al 5,8%). Ma in realtà questo aumento sembra dipendere più dalle condizioni meteorologiche invernali e da singoli casi “eccezionali” che dagli avvenimenti e dalle politiche alla base del calo degli sbarchi. Infatti, estendendo il confronto all’intero periodo del calo degli sbarchi (16 luglio 2017 - 30 aprile 2018) e confrontandolo con lo stesso periodo dell’anno precedente si nota sì un incremento, ma molto meno significativo: dal 2,6% al 3,0%.

https://i.imgur.com/0ngwq9z.png

Que cache la baisse des arrivées de personnes migrantes en méditerranée centrale ?

Les États membres de l’Union européenne se félicitent depuis quelques mois de la baisse des arrivées sur les côtes européennes et de celle du nombre de personnes migrantes mortes ou disparues en Méditerranée. Mais que cache cette chute spectaculaire ?

https://www.lacimade.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/201802_ACTU-MED_GRAPH_DEF.png

▻https://www.lacimade.org/cache-baisse-arrivees-de-personnes-migrantes-mediterranee-centrale
#Méditerranée_centrale

Pour #2018, voir :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/705781

Italie : des Nigérianes dupées et contraintes de se prostituer

En Italie, le fléau de la prostitution concerne particulièrement les femmes nigérianes, souvent arrivées mineures dans le pays. Tenues de rembourser des dettes de plusieurs dizaines de milliers d’euros, elles se retrouvent prisonnières d’organisations criminelles qui les obligent à vendre leurs corps. Enquête de notre correspondante en Italie.

▻https://www.france24.com/fr/20190429-focus-italie-prostitution-exploitation-sexuelle-nigerianes

#ressources_pédagogiques

Ajouter à la compilation #archéologie :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/633249

Le Mali, berceau de la domestication du riz africain
▻https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/agronomie/le-mali-berceau-de-la-domestication-du-riz-africain-14301.php

En 2014, une étude américaine avait estimé que la domestication du riz africain datait de 3 000 ans. Toutefois, le foyer de cette domestication restait assez flou. Yves Vigouroux et son équipe ont eu l’idée d’analyser l’ADN de 163 plants de riz domestiqués, s’intéressant tout particulièrement à des petites séquences, les SNP, très variables d’un individu à l’autre. Par la suite, ils ont comparé ces séquences à celles de 83 plants sauvages de Oryza barthii provenant de tout le Sahel, l’espèce dont est issu le riz domestiqué Oryza glaberrima. Ces analyses ont permis de délimiter la zone géographique où le riz sauvage et le riz cultivé sont les plus proches d’un point de vue génétique, c’est-à-dire le berceau de la domestication du riz : au Mali, dans la région du delta intérieur du fleuve Niger.

Les routes de l’orge
►https://seenthis.net/messages/710253

Freed from Libyan jails, frustrated migrants pose challenge to new Gambia

Thousands of thwarted migrants are returning to Gambia, straining its government as officials scramble to get European-funded reintegration projects up and running

▻http://news.trust.org/item/20180130000138-tbxxg
#frustration #réintégration #intégration

Gambia’s Migration Paradox: The Horror and Promise of the Back Way

Since democracy returned to The Gambia last year, many Gambians are coming home, including from Libya with E.U. aid. Some returnees are warning others against the journey, but many are frustrated that returns and deterrence took precedence over reintegration and jobs.
By November 2017, IOM received 3.9 million euro ($4.8 million) for a three-year returns and reintegration project in The Gambia, part of a region-wide project funded by the E.U. Trust Fund for Africa (#EUTF). IOM’s office in Banjul only had two staff before the EUTF project; it now has around two dozen.
In the year since February 2017, some 2,210 Gambian migrants returned from Libya and 520 others from Niger with IOM assistance. Among them, 1,375 arrived under the new EUTF project.
The deportation of Gambians from E.U. countries remained stubbornly low under the Jammeh government: 12,000 Gambians arrived in Italy in 2016 and just 15 returned, according to latest available Eurostat figures. (2017 figures reflecting the returns under the Barrow government will be published in May.)

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20180326080437/IRomanoMigrantsLanding0630171.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20180326134435/GettyImages-841999592.jpg https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20180326134547/DSC_0269.jpg

Gambie : back home

Ils s’appellent Mustapha et Karamo. Torturés, réduits en esclavage, ils ont vécu les pires sévices en essayant de se rendre en Europe.

Dans une geôle libyenne, ils se font fait une promesse : celle de rentrer chez eux et de dissuader leurs compatriotes de se rendre en Europe de façon illégale à travers le « #backway », cette route de tous les périls qui passe par la Libye. Des centaines de Gambiens y ont perdu la vie. La Gambie, ex-colonie britannique, est le plus petit pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest. C’est pourtant l’un des plus importants contributeurs au flot de migrants traversant la Méditerranée.

Une quinzaine d’ex-migrants bénévoles, parcourt en caravane les régions rurales du nord du pays. Là où sévissent la pauvreté et le chômage, là où les enfants grandissent avec la seule perspective de quitter leur pays. Dans des écoles, au cours de séances de cinéma en plein air ou encore lors de rencontres avec les chefs locaux, les rapatriés vont partager leur calvaire pour essayer de mettre un terme à cette hémorragie humaine. Ils espèrent aussi convaincre les forces vives du pays du potentiel de cette « Nouvelle Gambie » et des ressources à développer.

Mais la route risque d’être longue. Malgré la récente stabilité politique, les promesses d’essor économique du nouveau gouvernement et les aides internationales, les changements radicaux se font attendre. Le tourisme et l’agriculture, asphyxiés par l’ancienne dictature de Jammeh, ne suffisent pas à donner de perspectives à cette nouvelle génération.

▻https://info.arte.tv/fr/gambie-back-home

#retour_au_pays #retour_volontaire #OIM #IOM #Libye #réintégration #dissuasion #sensibilisation #association_AIM #remittances

Ici un billet avec une suite des articles sur ce sujet :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/649717
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/649717#message653433

#retour_volontaire

cf. aussi ici :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/652350#message656947

#merci @02myseenthis01, en effet il s’agit d’articles qui traitent du retour volontaire, mais non pas de ce que je cherche (à moins que je n’ai pas loupé quelque chose), soit de personnes qui, une fois rapatriées via le programme de retour volontaires, décident de reprendre la route de la migration (comme c’est le cas des Afghans, beaucoup plus documenté, notamment par Liza Schuster : ▻https://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/liza-schuster)

De rien, @cdb_77, merci surtout pour le lien de Liza Schuster - elle a l’air de toucher pas mal des points sensibles dans la discussion scientifique et de la pratique.

Encore un essai de ma part - selon l’information donnée peut-être dans le billet ici, commencé au Déc 2016 jusqu’à Juin/Julliet on l’y peut trouver.

►https://seenthis.net/messages/548137

@02myseenthis01 : j’ai pas mal utilisé les travaux de Liza Schuster pour soutenir mon propos dans cet article que j’ai publié sur le site de @lacite (si jamais cela t’intéresse) :

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b0a2c5e4b07fa072ccba33/t/56c256180c4a682f8c8691bd/1455579578161/ruckkehr_1021_683.jpg?format=2500w#.jpg

Libya return demand triggers reintegration headaches

“This means that the strain on the assistance to integration of the country of origin has been particularly high because of the success, paradoxically of the return operation,” said Eugenio Ambrosi, IOM’s Europe director, on Monday (12 February).

“We had to try, and we are still trying, to scale up the reintegration assistance,” he said.

Since November, It has stepped up operations, along with the African Union, and helped 8,581 up until earlier this month. Altogether some 13,500 were helped given that some were also assisted by African Union states. Most ended up in Nigeria, followed by Mali and Guinea.

People are returned to their home countries in four ways. Three are voluntary and one is forced. The mixed bag is causing headaches for people who end up in the same community but with entirely different integration approaches.

“The level of assistance and the type of reintegration assistance that these different programmes offer is not the same,” noted Ambrosi.

►https://euobserver.com/migration/140967
#réintégration

Et une partie de cet article est consacrée à l’#aide_au_retour par les pays européens :

Some EU states will offer in-kind support, used to set up a business, training or other similar activities. Others tailor their schemes for different countries of origin.

Some others offer cash handouts, but even those differ vastly.

Sweden, according to a 2015 European Commission report, is the most generous when it comes to cash offered to people under its voluntary return programme.

It noted that in 2014, the maximum amount of the in-cash allowance at the point of departure/after arrival varied from €40 in the Czech Republic and €50 in Portugal to €3,750 in Norway for a minor and €3,300 in Sweden for an adult.

Anti-migrant Hungary gave more (€500) than Italy (€400), the Netherlands (€300) and Belgium (€250).

However, such comparisons on cash assistance does not reveal the full scope of help given that some of the countries also provide in-kind reintegration support.

For Refugees Detained in Libya, Waiting is Not an Option

Niger generously agreed to host these refugees temporarily while European countries process their asylum cases far from the violence and chaos of Libya and proceed to their resettlement. In theory it should mean a few weeks in Niger until they are safely transferred to countries such as France, Germany or Sweden, which would open additional spaces for other refugees trapped in Libya.

But the resettlement process has been much slower than anticipated, leaving Helen and hundreds of others in limbo and hundreds or even thousands more still in detention in Libya. Several European governments have pledged to resettle 2,483 refugees from Niger, but since the program started last November, only 25 refugees have actually been resettled – all to France.

As a result, UNHCR announced last week that Niger authorities have requested that the agency halt evacuations until more refugees depart from the capital, Niamey. For refugees in Libya, this means their lifeline to safety has been suspended.

Many of the refugees I met in Niger found themselves in detention after attempting the sea journey to Europe. Once intercepted by the Libyan coast guard, they were returned to Libya and placed in detention centers run by Libya’s U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA). The E.U. has prioritized capacity building for the Libyan coast guard in order to increase the rate of interceptions. But it is an established fact that, after being intercepted, the next stop for these refugees as well as migrants is detention without any legal process and in centers where human rights abuses are rife.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2018/03/12/for-refugees-detained-in-libya-waiting-is-not-an-option

#limbe #attente

#réinstallation (qui évidemment ne semble pas vraiment marcher, comme pour les #relocalisations en Europe depuis les #hotspots...) :

Several European governments have pledged to resettle 2,483 refugees from Niger, but since the program started last November, only 25 refugees have actually been resettled – all to France.

“Death Would Have Been Better” : Europe Continues to Fail Refugees and Migrants in Libya

Today, European policies designed to keep asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants from crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Italy are trapping thousands of men, women and children in appalling conditions in Libya. This Refugees International report describes the harrowing experiences of people detained in Libya’s notoriously abusive immigration detention system where they are exposed to appalling conditions and grave human rights violations, including arbitrary detention and physical and sexual abuse.

►https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/libyaevacuations2018

#rapport

Lien vers le rapport :

The report is based on February 2018 interviews conducted with asylum seekers and refugees who had been evacuated by UNHCR from detention centers in Libya to Niamey, Niger, where these men, women, and children await resettlement to a third country. The report shows that as the EU mobilizes considerable resources and efforts to stop the migration route through Libya, asylum seekers, refugees and migrants continue to face horrendous abuses in Libya – and for those who attempt it, an even deadlier sea crossing to Italy. RI is particularly concerned that the EU continues to support the Libyan coast guard to intercept boats carrying asylum seekers, refugees and migrants and bring them back to Libyan soil, even though they are then transferred to detention centers.

►https://static1.squarespace.com/static/506c8ea1e4b01d9450dd53f5/t/5ad3ceae03ce641bc8ac6eb5/1523830448784/2018+Libya+Report+PDF.pdf
#évacuation #retour_volontaire #renvois #Niger #Niamey

#Return_migration – a regional perspective

The current views on migration recognize that it not necessarily a linear activity with a migrant moving for a singular reason from one location to a new and permanent destination. Within the study of mixed migration, it is understood that patterns of movements are constantly shifting in response to a host of factors which reflect changes in individual and shared experiences of migrants. This can include the individual circumstance of the migrant, the environment of host country or community, better opportunities in another location, reunification, etc.[1] Migrants returning to their home country or where they started their migration journey – known as return migration—is an integral component of migration.

Return migration is defined by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as the act or process of going back to the point of departure[2]. It varies from spontaneous, voluntary, voluntary assisted and deportation/forced return. This can also include cyclical/seasonal return, return from short or long term migration, and repatriation. Such can be voluntary where the migrant spontaneously returns or assisted where they benefit from administrative, logistical, financial and reintegration support. Voluntary return includes workers returning home at the end of their labour arrangements, students upon completion of their studies, refugees and asylum seekers undertaking voluntary repatriation either spontaneously or with humanitarian assistance and migrants returning to their areas of origin after residency abroad. [3] Return migration can also be forced where migrants are compelled by an administrative or judicial act to return to their country of origin. Forced returns include the deportation of failed asylum seekers and people who have violated migration laws in the host country.

Where supported by appropriate policies and implementation and a rights-based approach, return migration can beneficial to the migrant, the country of origin and the host country. Migrants who successfully return to their country of origin stand to benefit from reunification with family, state protection and the possibility of better career opportunities owing to advanced skills acquired abroad. For the country of origin, the transfer of skills acquired by migrants abroad, reverse ‘brain drain’, and transactional linkages (i.e. business partnerships) can bring about positive change. The host country benefits from such returns by enhancing strengthened ties and partnerships with through return migrants. However, it is critical to note that return migration should not be viewed as a ‘solution’ to migration or a pretext to arbitrarily send migrants back to their home country. Return migration should be studied as a way to provide positive and safe options for people on the move.
Return migration in East Africa

The number of people engaging in return migration globally and in the Horn of Africa and Yemen sub-region has steadily increased in recent years. In 2016, IOM facilitated voluntary return of 98,403 persons worldwide through its assisted voluntary return and re-integration programs versus 69,540 assisted in 2015. Between December 2014 and December 2017, 76,589 refugees and asylum seekers were assisted by humanitarian organisations to return to Somalia from Kenya.

In contexts such as Somalia, where conflict, insecurity and climate change are common drivers for movement (in addition to other push and pull factors), successful return and integration of refugees and asylum seekers from neighbouring countries is likely to be frustrated by the failure to adequately address such drivers before undertaking returns. In a report titled ‘Not Time To Go Home: Unsustainable returns of refugees to Somalia’,Amnesty International highlights ongoing conflict and insecurity in Somalia even as the governments of Kenya and Somali and humanitarian agencies continue to support return programs. The United Nations has cautioned that South and Central parts of Somalia are not ready for large scale returns in the current situation with over 2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country and at least half of the population in need of humanitarian assistance; painting a picture of returns to a country where safety, security and dignity of returnees cannot be guaranteed.

In March 2017, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ordered all undocumented migrants to regularize their status in the Kingdom giving them a 90-day amnesty after which they would face sanctions including deportations. IOM estimates that 150,000 Ethiopians returned to Ethiopia from Saudi Arabia between March 2017 and April 2018. Since the end of the amnesty period in November 2017, the number of returns to Ethiopia increased drastically with approximately 2,800 migrants being deported to Ethiopia each week. Saudi Arabia also returned 9,563 Yemeni migrants who included migrants who were no longer able to meet residency requirements. Saudi Arabia also forcibly returned 21,405 Somali migrants between June and December 2017.

Migrant deportations from Saudi Arabia are often conducted in conditions that violate human rights with migrants from Yemen, Somalia and Ethiopia reporting violations. An RMMS report titled ‘The Letter of the Law: Regular and irregular migration in Saudi Arabia in a context of rapid change’ details violations which include unlawful detention prior to deportation, physical assault and torture, denial of food and confiscation of personal property. There were reports of arrest and detention upon arrival of Ethiopian migrants who had been deported from Saudi Arabia in 2013 during which the migrants were reportedly tortured by Ethiopian security forces.

Further to this, the sustainability of such returns has also been questioned with reports of returnees settling in IDP camps instead of going back to their areas of origin. Such returnees are vulnerable to (further) irregular migration given the inability to integrate. Somali refugee returnees from Kenya face issues upon return to a volatile situation in Somalia, often settling in IDP camps in Somalia. In an RMMS research paper ‘Blinded by Hope: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Ethiopian Migrants’, community members in parts of Ethiopia expressed concerns that a large number of returnees from Saudi Arabia would migrate soon after their return.

In November 2017, following media reports of African migrants in Libya being subjected to human rights abuses including slavery, governments, humanitarian agencies and regional economic communities embarked on repatriating vulnerable migrants from Libya. African Union committed to facilitating the repatriation of 20,000 nationals of its member states within a period of six weeks. African Union, its member states and humanitarian agencies facilitated the return of 17,000 migrants in 2017 and a further 14,000 between January and March 2018.[4]
What next?

Return migration can play an important role for migrants, their communities, and their countries, yet there is a lack of research and data on this phenomenon. For successful return migration, the drivers to migration should first be examined, including in the case of forced displacement or irregular migration. Additionally, legal pathways for safe, orderly and regular migration should be expanded for all countries to reduce further unsafe migration. Objective 21 of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (Draft Rev 1) calls upon member states to ‘cooperate in facilitating dignified and sustainable return, readmission and reintegration’.

In addition, a legal and policy framework facilitating safe and sustainable returns should be implemented by host countries and countries of origin. This could build on bilateral or regional agreements on readmissions, creation of reception and integration agencies for large scale returns, the recognition and assurance of migrant legal status, provision of identification documents where needed, amending national laws to allow for dual citizenship, reviewing taxes imposed on the diaspora, recognition of academic and vocational skills acquired abroad, support to vulnerable returnees, financial assistance where needed, incentives to returnee entrepreneurs, programs on attracting highly skilled returnees. Any frameworks should recognize that people have the right to move, and should have their human rights and dignity upheld at all stages of the migration journey.

▻http://www.mixedmigration.org/articles/return-migration-a-regional-perspective

Reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, le 20.09.2018

Niamey, le 20 septembre 2018

D’après des témoignages recueillis près du #centre_de_transit des #mineurs_non_accompagnés du quartier #Bobiel à Niamey (Niger), des rixes ont eu lieu devant le centre, ce mardi 18 septembre.

A ce jour, le centre compterait 23 mineurs et une dizaine de femmes avec des enfants en bas âge, exceptionnellement hébergés dans ce centre en raison du surpeuplement des structures réservées habituellement aux femmes.

Les jeunes du centre font régulièrement état de leurs besoins et du non-respect de leurs droits au directeur du centre. Certains y résident en effet depuis plusieurs mois et ils sont informés des services auxquels ils devraient avoir accès grâce à une #charte des centre de l’OIM affichée sur les murs (accès aux soins de santé, repas, vêtements - en particulier pour ceux qui sont expulsés de l’Algérie sans leurs affaires-, activité récréative hebdomadaire, assistance légale, psychologique...). Aussi, en raison de la lourdeur des procédures de « #retours_volontaires », la plupart des jeunes ne connaissent pas la date de leur retour au pays et témoignent d’un #sentiment_d'abandon.

Ces derniers jours certains jeunes ont refusé de se nourrir pour protester contre les repas qui leur sont servis (qui seraient identiques pour tous les centres et chaque jour).
Ce mardi, après un vif échange avec le directeur du centre, une délégation de sept jeunes s’est organisée et présentée au siège de l’OIM. Certains d’entre eux ont été reçus par un officier de protection qui, aux vues des requêtes ordinaires des migrants, s’est engagé à répondre rapidement à leurs besoins.
Le groupe a ensuite rejoint le centre où les agents de sécurité du centre auraient refusé de les laisser entrer. Des échanges de pierres auraient suivi, et les gardiens de la société #Gadnet-Sécurité auraient utilisé leurs matraques et blessé légèrement plusieurs jeunes. Ces derniers ont été conduits à l’hôpital, après toutefois avoir été menottés et amenés au siège de la société de gardiennage.

L’information a été diffusée hier soir sur une chaine de télévision locale mais je n’ai pas encore connaissance d’articles à ce sujet.

Alizée

#MNA #résistance #violence

Agadez, des migrants manifestent pour rentrer dans leurs pays

Des migrants ont manifesté lundi matin au centre de transit de l’Organisation Internationale pour les Migrations (OIM). Ce centre est situé au quartier #Sabon_Gari à Agadez au Niger. Il accueille à ce jour 800 migrants.

Parmi eux, une centaine de Maliens. Ces migrants dénoncent la durée de leurs séjours, leurs conditions de vie et le manque de communication des responsables de l’OIM.

https://www.studiotamani.org/images/image/magazine/Aout_18/mag-210818.jpg

Il budget oscuro tra cooperazione e migrazione

Accoglierli, come accoglierli, salvarli in mare, respingerli, rimpatriarli, fermare i flussi o governarli. Parole ed espressioni già ricorrenti nel dibattito pubblico che sicuramente saranno temi centrali della campagna elettorale. A maggior ragione diventa imprescindibile la sempre valida domanda: con quali costi? Seguire i soldi in questo caso vuol dire accostare due settori apparentemente distanti: la cooperazione internazionale allo sviluppo e la gestione del fenomeno migratorio.

https://i.imgur.com/qnxvRHy.png https://i.imgur.com/jUPzjfn.png

Coopération UE-Afrique sur les migrations. Chronique d’un chantage

Alors que la communauté internationale fait mine de s’offusquer de la situation dramatique des personnes en migration en Libye, la Cimade, le collectif Loujna-Tounkaranké et le réseau Migreurop publient le rapport conjoint Coopération UE–Afrique, chronique d’un chantage. Outil de décryptage critique des mécanismes financiers et politiques de la coopération européenne sur les migrations avec les pays tiers, l’ouvrage appuie son analyse sur quatre pays africains : le Maroc, le Mali, le Sénégal et le Niger.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUuNGmhXkAIBzPe.jpg:large

▻http://www.lacimade.org/presse/cooperation-ue-afrique-migrations-chronique-dun-chantage
#fonds_fiduciaire #fonds_fiduciaire_d’urgence #trust_fund

How weavers in Burkina Faso are now on Europe’s migration front line

The EU is pumping millions of euros of development aid into the poor Sahelian country to keep migrants at bay

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Aide au développement : les ONG réfutent le lien migration/développement

« Nous, ONG, réfutons le lien entre #APD et politiques migratoires. L’APD doit réduire la pauvreté, c’est ça son objectif » a martelé avec conviction Bernard Pinaud du CCFD solidaire, suscitant de vifs applaudissements de l’ensemble des ONGs présentes.

▻https://blogs.mediapart.fr/aide-et-action/blog/230218/aide-au-developpement-les-ong-refutent-le-lien-migrationdeveloppemen

Respect des engagements : adoption de nouveaux programmes sur la protection des migrants et l’aide au retour et à la réintégration en Afrique, d’un montant de 150 millions d’euros

L’Union européenne adopte ce jour trois nouveaux programmes, d’une valeur supérieure à 150 millions d’euros, au titre du fonds fiduciaire d’urgence de l’Union européenne pour l’Afrique, faisant suite directement aux engagements pris par le groupe de travail commun Union africaine-Union européenne-Nations unies en vue de remédier à la situation des migrants en #Libye.

▻http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-1143_fr.htm

Aid and Migration : externalisation of Europe’s responsibilities

European countries have seen over 3.8 million people seeking asylum in its territories between 2013 and 2016. In response, Europe has developed several plans, agreements and policy Frameworks on Migration. The EU has also established a number of cooperation agreements with third countries, highlighting the importance of “addressing the root causes behind irregular migration to non-EU countries”. On top, we notice EU Aid budgets being increasingly spent in favour of “migration management”.

Development cooperation is more and more perceived by EU leaders as a tool to “control migration”, “manage migration” or “tackle the root causes of migration”. Why is that?

https://i.imgur.com/w2UQaN1.png

Pour télécharger le #rapport :
▻https://concordeurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/CONCORD_AidWatchPaper_Aid_Migration_2018_online.pdf?7c2b17&7c2b17

Les partenariats entre l’Union européenne et les pays africains sur les migrations. Un enjeu commun, des intérêts contradictoires

Pour atteindre ses objectifs, l’UE s’est dotée d’un instrument financier qui s’est rapidement imposé comme l’outil le plus visible de la politique de partenariat en matière de migration. Le #Fonds_fiduciaire_d’urgence_pour_l’Afrique (#FFU), adopté au cours du sommet de #la_Valette de novembre 2015, est devenu le signe d’une synergie renforcée, voire d’un alignement, entre les objectifs des politiques migratoires, de #sécurité et de #développement. Cependant, loin de répondre aux principes de partenariat et de responsabilité partagée, le FFU, comme les autres cadres de dialogue, reste entre les mains des Européens qui imposent leurs objectifs et contrôlent leur mise en œuvre. Les pays africains y trouvent peu d’espace dans lequel ils pourraient participer à la définition des objectifs et des moyens d’action.

https://i.imgur.com/6dhv0dn.png

The 2017 Annual Report of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa is available

The 2017 Annual report of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa has been adopted by the Operational Comittee on 2 March 2018. It outlines the current state of affairs and the achievements of the Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa (the EUTF for Africa) up to December 2017.

The Report provides an overview of the strategic orientations, implementation and results achieved in each of the three regions of the EUTF for Africa.

In 2017, the EUTF for Africa focused on deploying activities at country and regional level to address the compelling needs of African partner countries while further translating the Trust Fund’s strategic priorities into action. During the year, 40 new programmes have been approved in the three regions, bringing the total of approved programmes at the end of 2017 to 143 including three which operate across several regions. With EUR 900 million contracted, the implementation pace of the EUTF for Africa has significantly improved in 2017 bringing the overall amount of signed contracts to EUR 1.5 billion with implementing partners since the inception of the Trust Fund.

Two years after its inception at the Valletta Summit on Migration, held in November 2015, the EUTF for Africa has further demonstrated its added value as a quick and effective implementing tool that facilitates political dialogue with partner countries, covers new sectors, allows innovative approaches, produces results, and pulls and attracts funding, expertise and experience from a variety of stakeholders and partners.

Through its activities, the EUTF for Africa has been working actively in the three regions to limit the combined effects of worsened security conditions and long-lasting challenges such as demographic pressure, institutional weaknesses and extreme poverty.

▻https://ec.europa.eu/trustfundforafrica/all-news-and-stories/2017-annual-report_en
#rapport

v. aussi :

https://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/migration_graphs_7-07.jpg?v=1524048399#.jpg

Protecting and supporting migrants and refugees: new actions worth €467 million under the EU Trust Fund for Africa

European Commission - Press release

Brussels, 29 May 2018

The EU continues to deliver on its commitments to assist vulnerable migrants and refugees and address root causes of irregular migration. The new support measures in the Sahel/ Lake Chad region and the Horn of Africa will foster stability, jobs and growth, especially for young people and vulnerable groups.

They complement ongoing bilateral and multilateral efforts, such as through the Joint African Union – European Union – United Nations Task Force. Today’s additional funds will allow for live-saving assistance to be taken forward, including accelerating resettlements of refugees from Niger as a priority.

High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini said: "We continue working to save lives, provide safe and dignified returns and legal avenues, and tackle the root causes of migration, by creating jobs and growth. With the UNHCR, we have evacuated 1,287 refugees from Libya to Niger, who need to be resettled swiftly now. With the IOM, we helped 22,000 people to return home and provide reintegration assistance. Today’s additional commitments will further consolidate our work towards managing human mobility - in a humane, secure and dignified way together with our partners.”

Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development, Neven Mimica, said: “The majority of today’s €467 million assistance package will be dedicated towards improving employment opportunities, especially for young people. But challenges remain, and the Trust Fund’s resources are running out. If we want to continue our live-saving assistance, additional contributions by EU member states’ and other donors will be crucial.”

Measures adopted today focus on the following areas:

Protection and assistance for people on the move

The European Union’s work with the UNHCR has so far allowed for 1,287 refugees to be evacuated from Libya to Niger through the Emergency Transit Mechanism, with 108 people having been further resettled to Europe. In parallel, together with the International Organisation for Migration, 22,000 migrants stranded along the routes have been assisted to voluntarily return home, where they receive reintegration support. Today, the EU mobilises an additional €70 million, of which €10 million will support accelerating resettlements under the UNHCR’s Emergency Transit Mechanism and €60 million ensure that voluntary return and reintegration assistance can be continuously provided by the IOM. In Kenya, an innovative approach to piloting private sector development will promote better economic integration of refugees and supports the implementation of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework. Additional €20 million in regional support will help countries in the Horn of Africa, in developing and implementing sustainable and rights-based return and reintegration policies.

Increase stability, resilience of local populations and improve migration management

Increasing stability and supporting the resilience of local populations is one of the pillars of the EU’s integrated approach. In central Mali, activities worth €10 million will address the rapidly degrading security situation, to increase trust between Malian security forces and local populations. Further new activities will promote conflict prevention, foster food security in South Sudan or improve knowledge on malnutrition in Sudan. In Sudan, support will also enable humanitarian and development actors to access hard-to-reach areas. In Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau new measureswill help to set up a reliable civil identification registration and document issuance system, to allow the population to benefit from enhanced mobility, document security and better access to rights.

Economic opportunities for young people

Providing sustainable employment opportunities for young people is key to tackle the root causes of irregular migration. New actions will support the skills development and vocational training of young people to help create better employment opportunities, for example in Ethiopia, Nigeria or The Gambia. In Sudan, a new support project, will strengthen the job skills of young people and support them through training to establish and grow businesses. This project will target disadvantaged groups, such as refugees and internally displaced people and, like all EU assistance in Sudan, will be realised through trusted implementing partners.

In order to ensure continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of Trust Fund for Africa programmes, the funding of the dedicated monitoring and learning system has been doubled from €2 million to €4 million.

Background

The EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa was established in 2015 in order to address the root causes of instability, irregular migration and forced displacement. Resources currently allocated to this Trust Fund are €3.4 billion from EU institutions, European Member States and other donors.

Today’s assistance adds to the 147 programmes that were already previously approved across the three regions (North of Africa, Sahel and Lake Chad region and Horn of Africa) worth a total of €2,594 million, which was divided as follows: Sahel/Lake Chad €1,293 million (79 programmes), Horn of Africa €820.3 million (50 programmes), North of Africa €335 million (14 programmes). This amount also includes 4 cross-region programmes (€145.1 million).

▻https://reliefweb.int/report/world/protecting-and-supporting-migrants-and-refugees-new-actions-worth-467-mil

Protection et aide pour les migrants et les réfugiés : nouvelles mesures d’un montant de 467 millions d’euros au titre du fonds fiduciaire de l’UE pour l’Afrique

L’Union européenne adopte ce jour des nouveaux programmes et projets pour un montant total de 467 millions d’euros au titre du fonds fiduciaire d’urgence pour l’Afrique.

L’UE continue de tenir les engagements qu’elle a pris de venir en aide aux migrants et réfugiés vulnérables et de lutter contre les causes profondes de la migration irrégulière. Les nouvelles mesures d’aide en faveur de la région du Sahel/du bassin du Lac Tchad et de la Corne de l’Afrique favoriseront la stabilité, l’emploi et la croissance, en particulier pour les jeunes et les groupes vulnérables.

Ces mesures viennent compléter les efforts actuellement déployés dans des cadres bilatéraux et multilatéraux, notamment par l’intermédiaire du groupe de travail conjoint de l’Union africaine, de l’Union européenne et des Nations unies. Les ressources financières supplémentaires débloquées ce jour permettront de poursuivre l’aide vitale, y compris d’accélérer en priorité les réinstallations de réfugiés en provenance du Niger.

Mme Federica Mogherini, haute représentante/vice-présidente, s’est exprimée dans les termes suivants : « Nous continuons à œuvrer pour sauver des vies, assurer le retour des réfugiés et des migrants en toute sécurité et dans la dignité, mettre en place des voies d’entrée légales et lutter contre les causes profondes de la migration en créant des emplois et de la croissance. Avec le HCR, nous avons procédé à l’évacuation de 1 287 réfugiés de la Libye vers le Niger, qu’il convient de réinstaller dans les plus brefs délais. Avec l’OIM, nous avons aidé 22 000 personnes à rentrer dans leur pays et avons fourni une aide à leur réintégration. Avec les nouveaux engagements pris ce jour, nous continuerons à consolider nos travaux pour gérer, conjointement avec nos partenaires, la mobilité des personnes de façon humaine, sûre et digne. »

M. Neven Mimica, commissaire chargé de la coopération internationale et du développement a, quant à lui, fait la déclaration suivante : « La majeure partie du programme d’aide de 467 millions d’euros annoncé ce jour visera à améliorer les possibilités d’emploi, en particulier pour les jeunes. Mais des problèmes subsistent et les ressources du fonds fiduciaire s’épuisent. Il est essentiel que les États membres de l’UE et d’autres bailleurs de fonds fournissent des contributions supplémentaires si nous voulons continuer à apporter une aide vitale. »

Les mesures adoptées aujourd’hui se concentrent sur les domaines suivants :

Protection et assistance pour les populations en déplacement

Grâce à la coopération entre l’Union européenne et le HCR, 1 287 réfugiés ont jusqu’à présent pu être évacués de Libye vers le Niger par l’intermédiaire du mécanisme de transit d’urgence ; 108 personnes ont en outre été réinstallées en Europe. En parallèle, 22 000 migrants bloqués le long des routes migratoires ont bénéficié d’une aide au retour volontaire vers leur pays d’origine, où ils ont reçu une aide à la réintégration, fournie conjointement avec l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations. L’UE mobilise ce jour un montant supplémentaire de 70 millions d’euros ; sur cette somme, 10 millions d’euros seront consacrés à accélérer les réinstallations dans le cadre du mécanisme de transit d’urgence du HCR et 60 millions d’euros permettront de garantir que la continuité de l’aide au retour volontaire et à la réintégration apportée par l’OIM. Au #Kenya, une approche innovante pour conduire le développement du secteur privé favorisera une meilleure intégration économique des réfugiés et soutiendra la mise en œuvre du cadre d’action global pour les réfugiés. Un soutien régional supplémentaire de 20 millions d’euros aidera les pays de la #Corne_de_l'Afrique à élaborer et à mettre en œuvre des #politiques_de_retour et de #réintégration durables et fondées sur les droits.

Renforcement de la stabilité et de la résilience des populations locales et amélioration de la gestion de la migration

Le renforcement de la stabilité et le soutien à la résilience des populations locales sont l’un des piliers de l’approche adoptée par l’UE. Dans le centre du #Mali, des mesures, dotées d’un budget de 10 millions d’euros, seront destinées à remédier à la situation en matière de sécurité, qui se détériore rapidement, afin d’accroître la confiance entre les forces de sécurité maliennes et les populations locales. En outre, des activités nouvelles favoriseront la prévention des conflits, encourageront la #sécurité_alimentaire au #Soudan_du_Sud ou amélioreront les connaissances sur la malnutrition au #Soudan. Au Soudan, l’aide permettra également aux acteurs de l’aide humanitaire et à ceux du développement de se rendre dans des zones difficiles d’accès. Au #Cap-Vert et en #Guinée-Bissau, les nouvelles mesures contribueront à mettre en place un système fiable d’état civil et de délivrance de documents pour permettre à la population de bénéficier d’une mobilité accrue, de la sécurité des documents et d’un meilleur accès aux droits.

Des perspectives économiques pour les jeunes

Il est essentiel d’offrir des possibilités d’emploi durable aux jeunes pour lutter contre les causes profondes de la migration irrégulière. Les nouvelles actions soutiendront le développement des compétences et la #formation_professionnelle des jeunes pour contribuer à améliorer les possibilités d’#emploi, par exemple en #Éthiopie, au #Nigeria ou en #Gambie. Au Soudan, un nouveau programme d’aide renforcera les compétences professionnelles des jeunes et les aidera à créer et à développer des entreprises grâce à des actions de #formation. Ce projet ciblera les groupes défavorisés, comme les réfugiés et les personnes déplacées à l’intérieur du pays et, à l’instar de tous les programmes d’assistance de l’UE au Soudan, sera mis en œuvre par des partenaires de confiance.

Les ressources financières du système spécifique de suivi et d’apprentissage ont été doublées et sont passées de 2 millions à 4 millions d’euros afin de garantir le suivi permanent de l’efficacité des programmes financés par le fonds fiduciaire pour l’Afrique.

Contexte

Le fonds fiduciaire d’urgence de l’UE pour l’Afrique a été créé en 2015 en vue de remédier aux causes profondes de l’instabilité, de la migration irrégulière et des déplacements forcés. Ce fonds fiduciaire est actuellement doté d’un budget de 3,4 milliards d’euros provenant des institutions de l’UE, des États membres ainsi que d’autres bailleurs de fonds.

L’aide annoncée ce jour vient s’ajouter aux 147 programmes approuvés précédemment en faveur de trois régions (Afrique du Nord, région du Sahel/bassin du lac Tchad et Corne de l’Afrique) pour un montant total de 2 594 millions d’euros, répartis de la façon suivante : 1 293 millions d’euros pour la région du Sahel/le bassin du Lac Tchad (79 programmes) ; 820,3 millions d’euros pour la Corne de l’Afrique (50 programmes) et 335 millions d’euros pour l’Afrique du Nord (14 programmes). Ce montant inclut également quatre programmes multi-volets (145,1 millions d’euros).

▻http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-3968_fr.htm
#développement

Instrumentalisation de l’aide publique au développement

L’Union européenne utilise les financements de l’#Aide_publique_au_développement (#APD) pour contrôler les flux migratoires, comme avec le #Centre_d’Information_et_de_Gestion_des_Migrations (#CIGEM) inauguré en octobre 2008 à #Bamako au #Mali par exemple4. Ainsi, le 10e #Fonds_européen_de_développement (#FED) finance, en #Mauritanie, la #formation de la #police_aux_frontières. Pour atteindre les objectifs qu’ils se sont eux mêmes fixés (allouer 0,7 % du revenu national brut à l’APD), certains États membres de l’UE comptabilisent dans l’APD des dépenses qui n’en sont clairement pas. Malgré les réticences des États membres à harmoniser leurs politiques migratoires internes, ils arrivent à se coordonner pour leur gestion extérieure.

►https://www.lautrequotidien.fr/articles/lesprofiteurs

Le #Parlement_européen vote pour conditionner son aide au développement au contrôle des migrations (novembre 2020)

▻https://seenthis.net/messages/888486

Les États-Unis étendent leur présence militaire en Afrique - France 24
▻http://www.france24.com/fr/20170519-etats-unis-afrique-presence-militaire-vice-africom-trump-rapport-

http://scd.france24.com/fr/files_fr/imagecache/home_1024/article/image/soudan_spla.jpg

Mais non, #AFRICOM est une organisation humanitaire, voyons... “AFRICOM’s media shop has consistently produced stories that portray it as something more akin to a humanitarian organization than the combatant command it actually is. From their coverage. you might think that AFRICOM almost exclusively trains chaplains and drills water wells, provides Africans with medical and dental care, carries out “disease prevention assistance,” teaches “basic hand washing methods,” hosts, sponsors, or takes part in an almost endless number of innocuous conferences, colloquia, symposia, summits, ceremonies, meetings, fora, and panels, while also teaching “local children oral hygiene,” providing school supplies to children, improving “education opportunities for children,” playing music to “entertain children,” and giving shoes to, you guessed it, children” - ►https://theintercept.com/2018/01/13/we-dont-consider-you-a-legitimate-journalist-how-i-got-blacklisted-by-

Dans la série “AFRICOM sauve les chatons” : ▻https://twitter.com/USAfricaCommand/status/959450949499662336 - “U.S. Airmen at Air Base 201 in Agadez, Niger recently helped rescue a two-year-old girl who had wandered away from home”... Et sûrement ils ont fait traverser une vieille dame !

Et la série #AFRICOMBoyscoutsClub continue :
▻https://twitter.com/USAfricaCommand/status/960540942464962560

#réfugiés #migrations #asile #dépopulation

#ressources_pédagogiques

Une belle #exposition sur les #touaregs a lieu en ce moment au musée des confluences à Lyon (avec une approche très déconstructiviste) :
Touaregs

Partez à la rencontre des Touaregs, une population de tradition nomade vivant dans le désert du Sahara. Découvrez comment l’artisanat, la poésie et la musique, supports privilégiés de l’expression du style touareg, témoignent du dynamisme d’une société confrontée aujourd’hui à de multiples bouleversements sociopolitiques, climatiques et économiques.

http://www.museedesconfluences.fr/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/touaregs.jpg?itok=aCI6rkyS#.jpg

v. aussi :
Exposition : « Touaregs », mythes et réalités

Du 19è siècle à nos jours, les Touaregs sont au centre d’une grande exposition au musée des Confluences de Lyon, dans le centre-est de la France. Une exposition en partenariat avec RFI qui s’intéresse aussi bien à l’histoire qu’à l’artisanat, au rock et à la mode ! Une plongée dans la culture d’un peuple nomade réparti entre le Mali, le Niger, le Burkina Faso, l’Algérie et la Libye.

►http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20180116-touaregs-mythes-realites-exposition-lyon-confluences-musee
signalé ici ▻http://seen.li/e5my

la mort de Rémi Fraisse, l’indépendance des médias, les élections, les représentants du peuple au théâtre de l’entre soi

Source : ▻https://twitter.com/mathieurigouste?lang=fr

Zone euro : le chômage au plus bas Le Figaro - Armelle Bohineust - 09/01/2018
▻http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/2018/01/09/20002-20180109ARTFIG00300-zone-euro-le-chomage-au-plus-bas.php

Ca vient de sortir.
Faut y croire ! Si, Si

Si les dominants et les possédants avaient le monopole de l’occultation, du travestissement des faits, des "théories d’ensemble "insoutenables, cela se saurait.
Un exemple parmi tant d’autres de ceux venu « d’en bas » et de la « liberté » universitaire, non sans succès, y compris ici même Annie Lacroix-Riz (Staline, sors de ce corps !)
►https://seenthis.net/messages/657577

As tu conscience de ce que tu postes ?
Qualifier de critique la « recension » de Tietie006 sur forum hardware doit faire de toi quelqu’un d’assez désespéré.
Tietie006-forumhardware...

Quoooiii, Jésus ne serait pas blanc, les diamants de Bokassa des strass, la justice neutre « gag », etc...oulala mais a qui se confier ?

@unagi Ah quand même enfin quelqu’un qui connait le fameux Tietie006 ou 7 qui sévit aussi sur un forum « hardware » ? Connais pas mais « lui » est grave quand on fréquente un certain B. Schalscha et la Règle du jeu il y a de quoi se poser des questions...merci pour Mme Lacroix-Riz

#city_plaza #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Athènes #Grèce #solidarité #squat #auto-gestion #visualisation

Refugees can achieve so much if they’re not caged in isolated camps

Rooms were lying empty at the City Plaza hotel in Athens. Now it’s an autonomous hive where refugees are empowered

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ae5e94f2bd244a9582173797dc2a26607227acb7/0_46_960_576/master/960.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=42b5d21bc2ffc53a23c3b36d8efe5647#.jpg

« City Plaza Hotel will become your home in Athens » / Entre lieu de vie et espace politique, les enjeux d’appropriation d’un squat athénien

« Que vous soyez à Athènes pour affaires ou pour votre loisir, vous serez comme chez vous au City Plaza. »1 Cet extrait du site internet de l’hôtel City Plaza d’Athènes, non actualisé depuis sa fermeture en 2010, est une présentation à l’attention des touristes qui s’apprêtent à y séjourner quelques jours. Rénové grâce à des fonds de l’État octroyés à l’occasion des Jeux Olympiques de 2004 puis fermé après sa faillite sans indemnisation de ses employés, cet hôtel trois étoiles fait figure de symbole de la crise grecque. Huit ans plus tard, c’est un « chez-soi » (home) dénué de toute valeur marchande que le Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Space City Plaza, propose à ses nouveaux habitants. Le 22 avril 2016, une centaine de militants grecs et un groupe de réfugiés2 squattent le bâtiment pour fournir sur sept étages un logement à environ 350 réfugiés. Leur objectif est de montrer par un exemple concret et de grande envergure qu’une politique d’accueil solidaire au centre d’Athènes est possible. Ils placent en effet au cœur de leurs actions la critique « en pratique » (expression d’un local) de la politique migratoire de l’Union Européenne et du gouvernement grec, des conditions de vie dans les camps et des hotspots3. Pour cela, ils proposent en miroir un modèle incarné par l’appropriation d’un lieu commun et autogéré.

▻http://www.revue-urbanites.fr/city-plaza-athenes-squat

Greece’s Tower of Babel: An unusual place

City Plaza functions collectively with refugees and activists cooking, cleaning, and making decisions together.

From the outside, City Plaza Hotel might not look like much, just another shabby building in the Greek capital of Athens, neglected during the years of the economic crisis. Step inside its doors to find a unique space for hundreds of people from all over the world: refugees.

Their plan was never to stay in Greece. They had hopes of reaching northern Europe. But, once the “Balkan Route” closed in March 2016, those who had made the dangerous trip in rubber dinghies from Turkey had nowhere else to go.

That’s when activists in Athens intervened and occupied spaces such as City Plaza, a hotel that had been abandoned years earlier, to prevent the weary travellers from sleeping in overcrowded camps or, even worse, in the streets of Athens, as many who could not find shelter were forced to do.

Since it was occupied, City Plaza has become home to some 400 refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan, Iran and elsewhere. Unlike most refugee accommodations in Europe, City Plaza affords its guests a level of dignity they wouldn’t find elsewhere.

People have private rooms and their own bathrooms. It’s an unusual space - where most asylum centres are hierarchical and segregated based on nationality, City Plaza functions collectively, with refugees and activists cooking, cleaning, living and making decisions together.

In such a diverse space, things can easily get lost in translation. But people find a way to communicate, and when they can’t there are people such as Rabea, himself a refugee from Damascus, to make sure that Greek and international activists can communicate with the refugees and migrants living in City Plaza.

https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2016/11/28/51f2814ae88a4f1d9009c19576a56d0d_18.jpg https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2016/11/28/9cad05b190c44d4cb498d58959ec16b6_18.jpg

City Plaza, la #fin...
Message reçu le 12.07.2019 de Vicky Skoumbi via la mailing-list de Migreurop:

Après 39 mois de fonctionnement l’occupation City Plaza, un hôtel athénien transformé en lieu de vie et d’hébergement pour réfugiés a fermé. City Plaza avait accueilli 2.500 réfugiés dans un espace exemplaire, géré collectivement par les solidaires et par les réfugiés eux-mêmes. L’évacuation a été programmée par le collectif Solidarity 2 refugees qui a été à l’origine de l’occupation. La décision de ne plus continuer l’occupation fut prise en mai 2018 et depuis juin de la même année City Plaza n’acceptait plus de nouveaux arrivants. D’après le communiqué mise en ligne sur FB, la décision fut prise pour trois raisons :

A) le refus de normaliser/légaliser une occupation qui s’est voulue un acte militant tandis que deux ordres successives d’évacuation du procureur restaient en attente.

B) Un manque grandissant des moyens et de forces vives ; il fallait que chaque nuit un service de sécurité de huit personnes soit de garde afin d’assurer la sécurité des réfugiés qui pouvaient à n’importe quel moment devenir la cible d’une attaque de l’Aube Dorée ou d’autres groupuscules d’extrême droite, la possibilité d’une intrusion de la propriétaire accompagnée de ses sbires étant toujours en ligne de mire.

C) Les élections et la formation d’un gouvernent de droite qui a déjà annoncé son intention d’y envoyer les CRS pour évacuer de force l’hôtel et en finir avec la soi-disant « anomie » de l’occupation ; ont précipité l’évacuation : il fallait protéger les migrants sans-papiers d’une arrestation qui pourrait être suivi d’un internement et d’une expulsion

Tous les résidents de City Plaza ont été relogés dans des bonnes conditions, soit à d’autres occupations, soit à des appartements.

Le collectif remercie tous ceux et celles ont soutenu d’une façon ou d’une autre et leur donne rendez-vous pour des nouveaux combats en commun

Voir leur communiqué en anglais
▻https://www.facebook.com/sol2refugeesen/posts/2117692658523066?__tn__=K-R

39 months City Plaza: the end of an era, the beginning of a new one. (here is the text in Greek ▻https://urlzs.com/dtFsv)

Yesterday, on 10th July 2019, the keys of squatted City Plaza were handed back to the former employees of the hotel, to whom the mobile equipment in the building belongs. All refugees living at City Plaza have been moved to safe housing within the city.

On 22 April 2016, the Economic and Political Refugee Solidarity Initiative squatted the empty City Plaza building with a two-fold goal: to create, on the one hand, a space of safety and dignity in which to house refugees in the centre of the city and, on the other, to create a centre of struggle against racism, borders, and social exclusion. For the freedom of movement and for the right to stay.

The decision to squat was taken at a critical political juncture. On 18th March 2016, one month before the squat opened, the EU-Turkey deal to restrict the movement of refugees to Europe was signed. It was the deal that marked the end of the “summer of migration” - the period which began in July 2015 when, under pressure from approximately one million people, the European borders “opened”. This was the deal that turned the islands of the Aegean into a sort of prison for migrants, and which turned mainland Greece into a trap for over 60,000 people. The SYRIZA-ANEL government, following its capitulation to the neoliberal management of the economic crisis, took on the the implementation of a policy of control, deterrence and discouragement of migration. With Frontex and NATO patrolling the Aegean, with detention centres such as Moria on the islands, with awful camps as the only policy for housing refugees on the mainland, by punishing solidarity and the struggle of refugees. During that time, the housing issue was very pressing. The refugees who had arrived in Athens were either homeless or were being housed in the awful camps of Elliniko, Malakasa, or the port of Piraeus, while hundreds of people slept in tents or cardboard boxes in city streets and squares.

It was while these were happening that a discussion began within the Economic and Political Refugee Solidarity Initiative, which led to the decision to squat City Plaza, a hotel on Acharnon street which remained shut for seven years. The decision had certain features of voluntarism, and was not justified by the forces in our disposal, nor by the state of the anti-authoritarian movement at the time. Yet it was a move which addressed the political situation and the great struggle of the refugees who had, over the previous months, opened the borders of Fortress Europe and thus won their right to freedom of movement. It also matched the massive and spontaneous social solidarity movement which developed along the length of the migration route.

City Plaza as an example of dignified housing, space for social solidarity and cooperation between locals and migrants.

From its inception, City Plaza was organized around two key goals:
– to create a space for safe and dignified housing for migrants in the centre of the city, a space of solidarity and cooperation between locals and migrants.
– to function as a centre of struggle in which political and social demands by migrants and locals will interweave and complement each other.

CP proved in practice that the state policy of “hospitality” towards refugees is a mixture of harshness, incompetence, and political expediency. Where the solidarity movement, without any funding from formal institutions, without any “experts” or employees, managed to create one of the best housing spaces in the centre of the city, the state continued to abide by the trapping of refugees in makeshift camps and tents in the mainland, and by imposing a regime of refuting the rights of refugees and detaining them in hot spots on the islands, at the threat of deportation.
This contrast was the key element which led to mass support for CP at the beginning of its operation, by individual activists, organizations/collectives of the left, as well as by people who joined the movement for the first time there. Of course, because of the ownership status of the hotel, there were several attacks “from the left” which, fully aligned with the narrative of the owner and the petty bourgeois rhetoric on the “supreme human right to property”, attempt to belittle the effort, by spreading conspiracy theories (ranging from claims that we’re being funded by Soros, SYRIZA, the German State, to claims that we traffic drugs, firearms, children, and sex workers), slandering the collective and the activists who are part of it.

City Plaza proved in practice that refugees and locals can live together when, instead of isolation, punishment, and hatred, there is solidarity, struggle, and community. At the opposite pole from the camps, located outside the cities and in awful conditions, CP managed, in a difficult neighbourhood, until recently patrolled by neonazis, to brighten the formerly dark corner between Acharnon and Katrivanou, by giving it the character of security truly valued by those from below: the security of dignified housing, community, solidarity, and vitality of the people selflessly fighting for better lives.

At the same time, dozens of people showed their solidarity around the world. Through their daily presence, their participation in shifts, positive attitude and a large-scale international campaign for the financial support of the project. Dozens of crates of food and other essentials were sent to Plaza, thousands of people and groups made donations to support the project, which relied solely on donations for its survival.

City Plaza also served as a centre for struggle. Aiming to internationally denounce the anti-refugee policies of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the EU, we brought to the fore topics such as criminal responsibility for shipwrecks and loss of human life, the delay or obstruction of sea rescue, the practice of illegal pushbacks in Evros and the Aegean, the conditions of imprisonment in hotspots. City Plaza hosted dozens of open discussions on the border regime, racism, the struggle for rights, often featuring contributions by well-known intellectuals from around the world, such as Judith Butler, Angela Davis, David Harvey, Alain Badiou, Sandro Mezzandra, among others. Yet the goal was not just to highlight issues relating to migrant struggles, but also to link them to the struggles of locals. In the rallies for International Worker’s Day, the Polytechnic Uprising, antifascist and feminist protests, the City Plaza block was present throughout the three years.

The City Plaza community: Practices, Rights, Cooperation.

The answer to the question of what City Plaza is is known to the thousands of people who passed through its doors: CP is a project for the realisation of a conception of everyday life which aims to empower those “from below”, in the constitution of a space of freedom, which practically realises an aspect of the society we envision.

Its mode of operation expressed a politics of everyday life which is in opposition to the dominant model of managing migration, especially to its “NGOisation”. At the core of this voluntary contribution of time, effort, and emotion was not the “provision of services” to “the vulnerable” but the attempt to combat insecurity and fear, to empower and encourage confidence and trust in the collective. Help to refugees was re-politicised - and became solidarity and common struggle. Self-organisation, shared responsibility and decision making were central, as was a constant reflection on the inequalities permeating relations within the project: localisation, class, gender, language, education, etc.

Despite the inherent contradictions and difficulties, the collective experience of organising everyday life was the foundation for building a strong community of solidarity. At the same time, in this context, and in contrast to dominant victimising narratives, refugees and migrants became dynamic subjects with an active role on social and political life.

Daily life at CP was based on the principle of participatory organisation and collective decision making and operations, processes particularly complex in a community of 350 people speaking different languages, and with different ethnic, class, and social backgrounds, and different plans for the future. Regular coordination meetings became the space in which equal discussion took place on issues of operation and organisation, while House meetings were - especially in the beginning - a real lesson in how we can and should discuss, operate, and co-implement, as refugees and as locals. The organisation of residents and solidarians into working groups was a component of organising the project but also an essential basis for developing personal and political relationships amongst ourselves. The working groups were: Reception, Education, Children’s Activities, Health Centre, Kitchen, Security, Economics, Cleaning, Communications, as well as a self-organized Women’s Space.

In its 36 months of operation, City Plaza hosted over 2,500 refugees from 13 different countries. About 100 of the 126 rooms of the hotel hosted 350 refugees at any one time, while the remaining 26 either served as communal spaces (classrooms, women’s space, storage space) or to host solidarians from around the world. It was, after all, City Plaza’s political choice to not serve as a housing space “for” refugees but as a space of cohabitation and shared everyday life.

Yet we will not provide statistics referring to countries of origin, ages or ‘vulnerable” cases. In contrast, we will provide “statistics” on the enormous amount of resources that the movement was able to mobilise in order to keep City Plaza going:

812,250 hot meals were prepared by the kitchen team

74,500 work hours on security shifts

28,630 hours of shifts at reception

5,100 hours of language teaching and creative educational activities

* 69,050 rolls of toilet paper

However, the most important things cannot be counted. They have to do with human relationships, mutual respect and solidarity, emotions and experiences, optimism born out of common struggle.

The end of an era, the beginning of a new one

Such a project demands enormous resources. It is not a political squat which can stay closed for a couple of days in August without any problems. It is a space which demands a daily commitment, responsibility, and presence. Besides, the way we see it, self-organization is not automatic. To the contrary, it requires many hours of work, often endless processes of shared decision making, and interminable difficulties. In other words, self-organization and solidarity are not theory. They are action in the here and now. Action full of contradictions and life’s problems. In a society in which authoritarianism, war, capitalism, and competition between the subjugated is considered normal, while multiple divisions and hierarchies permeate us all, because of our origins, genders, and class backgrounds, self-organisation is not a slogan. It is a struggle.

Unfortunately, as often happens in many self-organized projects, enthusiasm, commitment, and participation dwindle over time - especially when circumstances are so demanding. The fact that the overwhelming majority of City Plaza residents are in transit made it impossible to hand the operation of the squat completely over to the refugees as most of them, sooner or later, left for Europe. At the same time, the material resources required for a project of such size - for food, hygiene products, medications, building maintenance - became harder to come by, despite the fact that comrades throughout Europe have demonstrated extraordinary commitment.

On the basis of all of the above, shortly before City Plaza celebrated its two-year anniversary, and following calls to collectives and spaces which supported the project from its inception, there opened a difficult and contradictory discussion on how long City Plaza can carry on, or whether and how it should adapt, given that we did not wish to see the project decline. There was a dilemma on whether we would move towards the direction of “normalising/ legalising” the squat or towards completing the project, while also looking for new ways to keep the community it created alive in a different context.
The first option was found to be politically undesirable, as it clashes with City Plaza’s character as a political alternative to NGOisation, and leads to a disconnect between the issues of safe housing and collective struggle and rights demands more generally.

We decided that, despite it being a difficult choice, City Plaza should rightly close the way it began and operated: as a political project, by protecting the central element which turned it into a example, that is organisation from below, safe and dignified living, community of struggle, and addressed to society as a whole.

During the House meeting of 26th May 2018, we jointly decided on this direction - not without contradictions and disagreements - and there was an extensive discussion about how to implement such a decision. Beginning in June 2018, City Plaza did not accept new residents, while there was a collective commitment that the project would not wind down until every resident had found acceptable accommodation. This commitment was not at all simple to implement. The wider circumstances of dealing with the refugee question - both from the point of view of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and from the point of view of NGOs, did not provide an opportunity to provide institutionally guaranteed housing to residents, while other spaces and squats could not house such a large number of refugees, despite positive attempts to support this.

One year on, and while the project was winding down, the expected change in the political landscape, with the imminent re-election of New Democracy, made it imperative to once more address the pace at which the project is progressing towards its close, taking into account the fact that, over the past several months, several refugees had gradually moved to safe housing. Plaza has two pending court orders for its evacuation, while high-ranking New Democracy members made daily references to the “destruction of private property” and the “lawlessness” at City Plaza. In this respect, evacuation could be used as a deterrent, while many refugees, especially those with no fixed legal status, could face disproportionate consequences (deportation, detention, etc.). Even though, for some, an evacuation by New Democracy could be seen as a “heroic exit”, for which few political explanations would need to be given, nevertheless most City Plaza residents would be put in danger, especially in view of their already vulnerable and unstable status.

This reconfirmed the decision to bring City Plaza to a close, on a collective basis and in our own terms. All refugees found safe housing. In the almost eighteen months between the decision to shut down and its implementation, most refugees moved on towards Northern Europe. Out of those who remained at City Plaza, some had the opportunity to rent their own place, as they had since found employment, while others still resorted to collective solutions. Through shared spaces and other housing projects which we have already put in place, along with the impossibly persistent network of all the people who actively participated in the project (refugees and solidarians), the community will continue to exist long after the building has been abandoned.

City Plaza’s closure is linked to the wider movement’s inability to develop effective forms of organization, mobilisation, and discourse on the refugee questions, which match the demands of the time. It is true that many parts of the wider social movement decided on different degrees of involvement, being unable to support the project and/or develop similar ones, which would galvanise our efforts through a new dynamic. This position is not apportioning blame, but highlights the project as part of a wider social and political process, reflecting the ideological-political and organisational crisis within the movement, with which we will have to deal in the next phase.

City Plaza was an invaluable political experience for all who took part, but also a political event far greater than the sum of its parts. Without exaggeration, CP was the pan-European symbol which concentrated resistance to the racist and repressive migration regime of the EU, following the closure of the borders after the EU-Turkey deal was signed. Equally, it served as a strong counter-example at a time of pessimism and demobilisation for the left, and a time of resurgence for the far right.

City Plaza was a great struggle which, like all great struggles, cannot be counted as a clear victory or a clear defeat. It is a chapter in antiracist and migration struggles and, at the same time, an experiment in social movements, an unexpected mix of different needs, sociopolitical, gendered, and class experiences. This meeting, like every mixture, needs some time for the multiple experiences to settle and leave their trace on our individual and collective consciousness.In this milieu, new forms of resistance, struggle, and relationships of cooperation and solidarity will form - in Athens as well as in the dozens of cities at which City Plaza residents will arrive, as well as in the daily struggles against the barbarism or racism and repressive policies. Σ

The City Plaza collective was, from the beginning, aware of its contradictory makeup. The alternative it proposed could not but me incomplete, dependent on the circumstances in which it was born and the subjective capacities of the movement and its people, with their brains, hearts, and bodies. Yet it was also restricted, like every struggle for rights and equal participation, which impinges on the power of capitalist exploitation, the imposition and reproduction of nationalist, racist, and gendered hierarchies and divisions.

City Plaza is a link in a chain of struggles for social emancipation. A peculiar struggle, as it began from the small and the everyday, from how to cook the food and how to clean the building, and extended to resistance to the border regime and to multiple levels of discrimination. For those of us who took part in it, CP was an opportunity to redefine and to reflect on political thought and practice, relations of power, everyday life, cohabitation and its terms, self-organisation and its contradictions. We say goodbye to S(p)iti Plaza with one promise: to transfer this rich experience, to continue to enrich and broaden the ways and the places of common struggle.

Solidarity will win!