naturalfeature:italian island

Migrants of the Mediterranean

Migrants of the Mediterranean profiles the people who have crossed continents, countries, desert and sea to reach a life of freedom, safety and opportunity, and specifically those whose first stop in European territory is Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island south of mainland Sicily.

The first step in fixing a problem is to be aware of it. The purpose, then, of Migrants of the Mediterranean is to introduce migrants as individuals, to see their faces, and after having met them, to develop a higher level of empathy for them as people, and to develop a heightened awareness of the greater global migrant crisis.

Migrants of the Mediterranean, in short, aims to restore a piece of humanity to the people who in the course of their journeys have had it stripped away.

Each profile details the migrant’s individual journey: the means and routes taken, the length of time it took to reach Lampedusa, and the incredible and often inhumane difficulties each one encountered to finally reach this Italian shore.

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#témoignages #migrations #asile #réfugiés #Lampedusa #Méditerranée #survivants #Italie
cc @reka

The EU #hotspot approach at #Lampedusa

The hotspot works as a preemptive frontier, with the double goal of blocking migrants at Europe’s southern borders, and simultaneously impeding the highest number possible of refugees from claiming asylum.

The Mediterranean of migrants has taken centre stage in public and political debate. The struggle of people fleeing war and violence saturates the Mediterranean waters and shorelines, as people’s chances to find refuge in a safe country relies on informal crossing routes.

The European “response” to the migration crisis in the Mediterranean, meanwhile, focuses on Italian and Greek islands as hotspots to enforce full identification and border-posts of first deportation, as European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, recently spelled out in an interview.

This third piece in our series on the Mediterranean migration crisis, “Transit points and enduring struggles” takes a look at the Lampedusa hotspot, the first of the 11 hotspots along the Greek and Italian frontline of the EU, which is meant to function as a model for all others. Almost five months into its operation, the Lampedusa hotspot full-fingerprinting policy is mainly resulting in illegalisation and destitution paths for migrants and refugees, as we document below.

▻http://rightsinexile.tumblr.com/post/142070094802/the-eu-hotspot-approach-at-lampedusa
#asile #migrations #réfugiés #Italie

Avoiding Risky Seas, Migrants Reach Europe With an Arctic Bike Ride - The New York Times

signalé par @isskein à qui je dis merci comme d’hab (curieusement je n’ai pas vu passer cela dans la presse norvégienne).

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/europe/bypassing-the-risky-sea-refugees-reach-europe-through-the-arctic.html?_r=0

http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/10/10/world/10NORWAY1/10NORWAY1-facebookJumbo.jpg

STORSKOG, Norway — Pelted by hailstones and buffeted by an icy wind, Yasir Arslanuk, a 55-year-old Syrian engineer, his wife and two young sons wobbled across the border from Russia into Norway astride bicycles last week, the latest migrants to complete an improbable new route to Europe.

#réfugiés #norvège #syrie #kirkenes
This Norwegian outpost, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, is hardly Lampedusa, an Italian island where migrants coming on rickety boats across the Mediterranean from Libya often land, or Lesbos, a Greek island that has become the primary transit point for refugees coming by rubber raft from Turkey.

–—

La Norvège veut fermer la route du Grand Nord aux Syriens passés par la Russie

▻http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2015/10/20/la-norvege-veut-fermer-la-route-du-grand-nord-aux-syriens-passes-par

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Environ 1 600 demandeurs d’asile, selon la police, ont gagné la Norvège et l’espace Schengen depuis le début de l’année en passant par l’Arctique et en traversant sa frontière avec la Russie. Parmi eux, de nombreux Syriens qui préfèrent affronter le froid et la neige plutôt qu’une périlleuse traversée en Méditerranée ou la longue marche dans les Balkans, où les frontières sont le plus souvent fermées.

Death in the Mediterranean

After the drowning of more than 370 migrants on 3 October 2013 just off the Italian island of Lampedusa, Italy set up the Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue operation, through which the existing Italian coastguard operation would gain the support of the Italian navy.

After pressure from the EU, the operation was shut down in November 2014 in favour of an EU-sponsored surveillance operation – Triton. Triton is run by EU border agency Frontex and includes a limited search-and-rescue mandate, being primarily about border control.

In 2014, some 3,000 migrants died in the Mediterranean. In the first 4 months of 2015 alone, it is estimated that some 1,700 have died. In just one incident on 19 April a reported capsizing led to 700 deaths.

After this incident, EU ministers increased funding for Triton, while simultaneously focusing on a counter-strategy against smugglers and more resettlement programmes into Europe – although this last policy has been contested by some EU governments.

http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2015/05/27/captainisabelleblog.jpg

▻http://newint.org/features/web-exclusive/2015/05/27/mediterranean-refugee-crisis
#Méditerranée #sauvetage #migration #asile #réfugiés #mourir_en_mer

Fortress Europe

Projects » TD

▻http://td-architects.eu/projects/show/fortress-europe/#imgid-2567

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Mark Magazine #52 October/November 2014

The tragedy of 3 October 2013, the day that more than 360 people died when their boat sank off the island of Lampedusa, was a clear signal that something is fundamentally wrong with Europe’s borders. Sailing from Libya, these migrants were attempting to reach the Italian island. The prosperity, equality and freedom of travel that are celebrated within Europe are not automatically granted to outsiders, and the deadly disasters at its borders are a direct consequence of an insular attitude.

The implementation of the Schengen Agreement in 1999 eliminated the borders within Europe and led to the externalization of security and the creation of ‘Fortress Europe’. This resultedin a shift from sharp, linear borders to borders in the form of buffer areas, as expressed in the concept of a ‘hard core’ surrounded by‘concentric circles’.1The hard core is secured by the Schengen system andthe extended core by the Frontex system. Around the latter is a ring of countries regulated by the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

At the Gates of Europe

The consequences of conflicts related to the Arab Spring, such as the wars in Libya and Syria, have triggered a massive wave of refugees. On 3 October 2013, 366 immigrants trying to reach the Italian island of Lampedusa drowned in the Mediterranean Sea. Shortly after, the Italian government launched Operation Mare Nostrum, involving five Italian navy war ships and other additional resources. This short documentary follows a search and rescue operation of nearly 200 immigrants, mainly from Pakistan and Syria, who were found drifting in the sea between Lampedusa and Tunisia. The film ends with rare footage of the refugee center of Mineo, Sicily, the largest of its kind in Europe, where many rescued by the Italian navy end up.

▻http://www.worldpressphoto.org/multimedia-gallery/2015/at-the-gates-of-europe?gallery=2918986
#migration #asile #réfugiés #frontière #Mineo #film #mer #printemps_arabe #Méditerranée #Libye #Lampedusa #Forteresse_Europe #mourir_en_mer
cc @albertocampiphoto

Nombre record de #migrants morts en #Méditerranée en 2014
▻http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2014/09/29/nombre-record-de-migrants-morts-en-mediterranee-en-2014_4496383_3214

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L’anné 2014 enregistre d’ores et déjà un sinistre record en Méditerranée. Plus de trois mille migrants y ont péri depuis le mois de janvier, selon les chiffres de l’Organisation internationale pour les #migrations (OIM) publiés lundi 29 septembre.

#frontières

Exploiting a Tragedy: The Securitization of EU Borders in the Wake of Lampedusa

On the 3rd of October 2013, Europe awoke to the news that a boat carrying hundreds of migrants had capsized off the coast of Lampedusa, a small Italian island off the coast of Sicily. Labelled the ‘Lampedusa tragedy,’ politicians and bureaucrats were quick to declare their sorrow, as it emerged that over 360 migrants had lost their lives in the incident. Yet, far from being an isolated accident, the Lampedusa tragedy is only one particularly grave example of the price paid by migrants on a daily basis as they try to cross European borders. The Parliamentary Assembly for the Council of Europe (PACE), for example, has highlighted that at least 1,200 migrants died attempting to cross the Mediterranean in 2012. Similarly, in the face of the Arab Spring in 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that over 1,500 people had died or had gone missing at sea attempting to reach Europe during the first six months of that year alone.

The ‘Lampedusa Tragedy’ was just that – a tragedy. However, in branding it as such, Member States and the EU institutions have tried to shirk from the role their own policies had in bringing it about, attempting to keep the true cost of their ‘Fortress Europe’ approach to migration below the surface. Far from acting as a wake up call to the EU, Lampedusa has, quite cynically, been used as a catalyst for further securitization. There have been no discreet U-turns behind the scenes. Instead, lip service has been paid to the protection of migrants, while the EU pushes on with the same hazardous polices as before. Guild and Carrera have suggested that ‘solidarity’ in the EU collides with the boundaries of the principle of national sovereignty on issues of migration, encouraging national resistance. This is undoubtedly true, and is evidenced by the on-going tensions between northern and southern European states with regard to the Dublin regulations. The one thing, however, that unsurprisingly gets pan-European consensus is the need to tighten external borders the need for greater security at all costs. As Europeans, living in the so-called birthplace of human rights, we must surely ask how many more people must pay for out security with their lives?

▻http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/exploiting-a-tragedy

#frontière #Lampedusa #mourir_en_mer #migration #asile #réfugiés

31 migrants drown en route to #Lampedusa

Survivors say vessel capsized during attempted crossing from Libya to Italian island

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/7/28/1375033396635/Migrants-off-the-coast-of-008.jpg

▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/28/migrants-drown-lampedusa-crossing?CMP=twt_gu

#Italie #drame #mer #Méditerranée #décès #morts #Libye