• Stepping Over the Dead on a Migrant Vessel ‘Just Like a Slavery Boat’
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/world/europe/migrants-mediterranean.html
• Stepping Over the Dead on a Migrant Vessel ‘Just Like a Slavery Boat’
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/world/europe/migrants-mediterranean.html
EU’s secret ultimatum to Afghanistan: accept 80,000 deportees or lose aid | Global development | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/sep/28/eu-secret-ultimatum-afghanistan-accept-80000-deportees-lose-aid-brussel
When international donors and the Afghan government convene in Brussels next week, the EU secretly plans to threaten Afghanistan with a reduction in aid if the war-torn country does not accept at least 80,000 deported asylum seekers.
According to a leaked restricted memo (pdf), the EU will make some of its aid “migration sensitive”, even while acknowledging that security in Afghanistan is worsening.
‘I never heard from them again’: an Afghan family’s doomed journey
Read more
Meanwhile, the Afghan government is also struggling with internal turmoil, and has failed to revive the economy or produce jobs for the young who leave the country in droves.
It would be challenging for Afghanistan to absorb 80,000 deportations. So far, in 2016, about 5,000 Afghans have returned voluntarily from Europe.
“This is putting unreasonable pressure on the Afghan government, which is not able to respond to such numbers,” said Timor Sharan, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Afghanistan.
Afghans make up the second largest group of migrants arriving in Europe, with 196,170 applying for asylum (pdf) last year.
At the two-day summit in Brussels, which begins on 4 October, international donors are expected to roughly match the $4bn (£3bn) annually pledged at the 2012 Tokyo conference over the next four years.
The pressure on Afghanistan is part of a broader EU strategy of making aid to poor countries conditional on them accepting deported migrants.
The best known example is the €6bn deal (£5.2bn) offered to Turkey in exchange for taking back asylum seekers and improving border controls. Other targeted countries include Niger, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Lebanon and Libya. The EU has also considered similar deals with Eritrea and Sudan, the governments of which are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
EU-Afghanistan returns plan: Another “dodgy” deal
- Deal to be signed next week to start immediate refugee “return” flights
– Is Afghanistan a “safe country”?
– Quick return of 80,000 refugees planned
– “effectively implement readmission commitments” - by-passing parliamentary scrutiny
▻http://www.statewatch.org/news/2016/sep/eu-afghanistan-dodgy-deal.htm
L’Union européenne s’apprête à développer les retours vers l’Afghanistan
L’association britannique Statewatch révèle que l’Union européenne s’apprête à signer, à l’occasion de la conférence des 4 et 5 octobre sur l’Afghanistan, un accord avec ce pays pour amplifier les retours volontaires et forcés et l’organisation de vols charters. L’accord prendra effet dès le jour de sa signature, et les expulsions pourront être facilitées par l’émission de laissez-passer européens.
►https://passeursdhospitalites.wordpress.com/2016/10/01/lunion-europeenne-sapprete-a-developper-les-retours
Plans to repatriate 3 million Afghan refugees are dangerous and misguided
Europe and Pakistan’s proposals to send millions of people back to Afghanistan will cause mayhem in an already fragile country
▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/30/afghanistan-refugee-crisis-europe-pakistan?CMP=share_btn_tw
Greece: Afghan refugees in #Elliniko face camp closure
As EU prepares for Brussels Afghanistan conference, Afghan refugees weigh returning to homeland consumed by violence.
EU signs deal to deport unlimited numbers of Afghan asylum seekers
Plans for dedicated reception terminal in Kabul, but experts warn that violence and instability in Afghanistan make deportations unsafe
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/03/eu-european-union-signs-deal-deport-unlimited-numbers-afghan-asylum-see
Comment l’Union européenne espère faciliter les renvois vers l’Afghanistan
Demain la Conférence de Bruxelles sur l’Afghanistan se réunira avec la participation des représentants de 70 pays et 20 organisations et agences internationales. Elle sera l’occasion pour le gouvernement afghan d’exposer sa vision et son bilan en matière de réformes. Pour la communauté internationale, la conférence sera l’occasion d’affirmer sa volonté de fournir un soutien politique et financier durable en faveur de la paix, de la consolidation de l’État et du développement en Afghanistan.
►http://blogs.letemps.ch/jasmine-caye/2016/10/04/comment-lunion-europeenne-espere-faciliter-les-renvois-vers-lafghanist
Europe Makes Deal to Send Afghans Home, Where War Awaits Them
BRUSSELS — The European Union and Afghanistan announced a deal on Wednesday that would send tens of thousands of Afghan migrants who had reached Europe back home to an increasingly hazardous war zone.
L’Afghanistan bientôt fixé sur le niveau de réengagement de ses donateurs
L’Afghanistan, ravagé par la guerre et porté à bout de bras depuis quinze ans par la communauté internationale, saura mercredi dans quelle mesure ses principaux donateurs se réengagent à ses côtés pour les quatre prochaines années, à l’occasion d’une conférence à Bruxelles.
▻http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/136-milliards-deuros-promis-lafghanistan.afp.com.20161005.doc
#aide_au_développement
Afghan Refugees Forced to Return to a Home Many Have Never Known
Umer Ali travels to the Pakistani border city of Peshawar for the first in our ‘Return to Afghanistan’ series, finding that the forced return of thousands of Afghan refugees is breaking up marriages and dividing families.
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/04/afghan-refugees-forced-to-return-to-a-home-many-have-never-known
Broken on the Border
It’s the world’s untold migration crisis. Every day, up to 1,000 dazed and confused Afghan migrants, some carrying serious injuries, arrive on buses from Iran at the remote Islam Qala border crossing. Over 250,000 have crossed since the start of 2016. They tell stories of theft, beatings, exploitation and abuse. Some labour migrants have been paid in heroin and are now addicted, cast off by their employers. Some are mere kids: teenagers turned breadwinners. There are single women, elderly people, and Afghans born as refugees in Iran. IOM and the Afghan Government help them to get back to their home towns, but most are going back to abject poverty, joblessness and the horrors of war.
Vu sur twitter avec ce commentaire (07.10.2016) :
Così l’Ue aiuta l’Afghanistan:voli charter e un nuovo terminal per i rimpatri forzati degli afghani in Europa
Afghan Refugees: Conversations Along the Migration Trail
In the first part of our op-ed series “Afghans on the Migration Trail,” which coincides with the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, migration specialist Nassim Majidi discusses her research, illustrating the diverse tapestry of Afghans seeking asylum.
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/06/afghan-refugees-conversations-along-the-migration-trail
EU–Afghanistan deportation–aid deal: Classic strategy or classic mistake?
At a conference in Brussels this week, world powers including the EU, US and Japan pledged $15 billion towards development aid and peace building in Afghanistan over the next four years. The day before the start of the conference, the EU signed an agreement with the Afghan government allowing its member states to deport an unlimited number of the country’s asylum seekers, which the Afghan government are obliged to receive.
▻https://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/blog/eu2013afghanistan-deportation2013aid-deal-classic-strategy-or-classic-mist
EU strong-arms Afghanistan to accept back people in exchange for aid
In the run-up to the Brussels Donor Conference on Afghanistan on 4 and 5 October, leaked documents illustrated how the EU is pressuring Afghanistan to take back Afghan nationals who were refused international protection in Europe and failed to return voluntarily in exchange for aid. Over 85,000 Afghans applied for asylum in the EU in the first half of 2016, and 200,000 Afghans lodged a protection claim in 2015, making them the second-largest group of asylum seekers in Europe.
▻http://www.ecre.org/eu-strong-arms-afghanistan-to-accept-back-people-in-exchange-for-aid
Viewpoint: Why Afghan refugees are facing a humanitarian catastrophe
Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Europe, Pakistan and Iran are being forced to return home to Afghanistan by the European Union, UN agencies and governments in the region.
Why are Afghan refugees being forced back to a worsening war?
The UN planned to provide assistance to about 250,000 displaced people in Afghanistan this year. Now it’s looking at a million — far more than the government and aid agencies are able to handle.
Life in Greece’s Elliniko refugee camp
Wet clothes were draped from the chain-link fence spanning the perimeter of the dilapidated airport hangar now being used to house hundreds of refugees and migrants, mostly Afghans, on an April afternoon.
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/04/life-greece-elliniko-refugee-camp-170427092441621.html