France sending unaccompanied minors back to Italy, MSF
France is pushing back even unaccompanied minor migrants at the Italian border at Ventimiglia, the head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic assisting migrants in transit between the two countries told ANSA in an interview. This kind of pushback is a violation of regulations in place, Sergio Di Dato noted.
In recent days, even unaccompanied minors are among the foreigners pushed back to the Italian border town of Ventimiglia by French gendarme, ANSA was told in an interview last week with Sergio Di Dato, the head of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) mobile clinic assisting migrants in transit between Italy and France.
French authorities, Di Dato said, “are no longer able to absorb unaccompanied minors into their reception system and so have started to send them back to Italy, something they should not do according to the regulations in place. ... They are obliged to take care of them.”
Pushbacks may rise after 150 more police sent to borders
“On average,” MSF’s Di Dato , “there are 20-25 pushbacks of people from France to Italy every day. There is concern that this number may rise after 150 additional border police were sent to the borders.”
The activities of the mobile clinic were started in the second half of February and, Di Dato said, “unlike in the past, when in the winter months there was a slowdown in pushbacks at the Menton border by the French police, this year a steady stream has been seen.”
Di Dato underscored that there had been a “reduction at the same time as protests against pension reform, which probably led to a drop in the number of police deployed for border control.However, afterwards the number returned to about 20-25 [pushbacks] per day.”
The MSF mobile clinic provides assistance to those pushed back from Menton with a “refusal of entry” document and transferred to containers while waiting to be handed over to the Italian police.
The vulnerable face risks and deprivation
“Some have told us that they were left without water for several hours. It also happened that young girls are left in containers alone with several men. These are situations that can be difficult,” Di Dato said, adding that the situation is complicated “also in Ventimiglia, where some of the migrants pushed back — women, children and the vulnerable — are taken care of by associations focusing on these things, while others end up under the Roia Bridge in camps without washing facilities and amid rats.”
The crackdown by French authorities has now raised concern among humanitarian aid workers in the Italian-French border area.
“If the unaccompanied minors are sent back systematically and in an arbitrary manner, there is the issue of how to protect these individuals - who are the weakest - in an effective manner, especially since [migrant] facilities in Italy are full,” Di Dato said.
▻https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/48774/france-sending-unaccompanied-minors-back-to-italy-msf
#refoulements #push-backs #mineurs #MNA #France #Italie #frontières #frontière_sud-alpine #migrations #réfugiés #France #asile #Italie #Vintimille #Alpes_Maritimes #refus_d'entrée
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Sur l’annonce du renforcement des contrôles frontaliers dans les Alpes Maritimes :
Immigration : 150 policiers et gendarmes supplémentaires dès la semaine prochaine à la frontière de #Menton
