naturalfeature:lampedusa

Carola Rackete, la capitaine du Sea-Watch, déclarée libre par la justice italienne
▻https://www.nouvelobs.com/monde/20190702.OBS15311/migrants-la-capitaine-du-sea-watch-carola-rackete-declaree-libre-par-la-j

Une juge italienne s’est prononcée mardi soir en faveur de la libération de Carola Rackete, la capitaine allemande du navire humanitaire Sea-Watch 3 arrêtée samedi pour avoir accosté de force dans la petite île de Lampedusa avec 40 migrants à bord.

La juge chargée de l’enquête préliminaire a en effet indiqué aux médias italiens qu’un décret italien sur la sécurité n’était « pas applicable aux actions de sauvetage ».

Le ministre italien de l’Intérieur Matteo Salvini, qui a vivement déploré la décision de la magistrature italienne, a précisé que la capitaine allemande allait faire l’objet d’une mesure d’expulsion vers l’Allemagne car elle est « dangereuse pour la sécurité nationale ».

La mesure d’éloignement du territoire italien, avec accompagnement à la frontière, doit encore être confirmée par les autorités judiciaires, a-t-il précisé.

« Elle retournera dans son Allemagne, où il ne seraient pas aussi tolérants avec une Italienne si elle devait attenter à la vie de policiers allemands », a commenté celui qui est aussi vice-Premier ministre et patron de la Ligue (extrême droite).

« L’Italie a relevé la tête : nous sommes fiers de défendre notre pays et d’être différents des autres petits leaders européens qui pensent pouvoir encore nous traiter comme leur colonie »

L’Union Européenne devra-t-elle un jour répondre de « crimes contre l’Humanité » devant la Cour Pénale Internationale ?

#Crimes_contre_l'humanité, et #responsabilité dans la mort de 14 000 migrants en 5 années : voilà ce dont il est question dans cette enquête menée par plusieurs avocats internationaux spécialisés dans les Droits de l’homme, déposée aujourd’hui à la CPI de la Haye, et qui pourrait donc donner lieu à des #poursuites contre des responsables actuels des institutions européennes.

La démarche fait l’objet d’articles coordonnés ce matin aussi bien dans le Spiegel Allemand (►https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fluechtlinge-in-libyen-rechtsanwaelte-zeigen-eu-in-den-haag-an-a-1270301.htm), The Washington Post aux Etats-Unis (►https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/fluechtlinge-in-libyen-rechtsanwaelte-zeigen-eu-in-den-haag-an-a-1270301.htm), El Pais en Espagne (▻https://elpais.com/internacional/2019/06/02/actualidad/1559497654_560556.html), The Guardian en Grande-Bretagne, et le Monde, cet après-midi en France... bref, ce qui se fait de plus retentissant dans la presse mondiale.

Les auteurs de ce #plaidoyer, parmi lesquels on retrouve le français #Juan_Branco ou l’israélien #Omer_Shatz, affirment que Bruxelles, Paris, Berlin et Rome ont pris des décisions qui ont mené directement, et en connaissance de cause, à la mort de milliers de personnes. En #Méditerrannée, bien sûr, mais aussi en #Libye, où la politique migratoire concertée des 28 est accusée d’avoir « cautionné l’existence de centres de détention, de lieux de tortures, et d’une politique de la terreur, du viol et de l’esclavagisme généralisé » contre ceux qui traversaient la Libye pour tenter ensuite de rejoindre l’Europe.

Aucun dirigeant européen n’est directement nommé par ce réquisitoire, mais le rapport des avocats cite des discours entre autres d’#Emmanuel_Macron, d’#Angela_Merkel. Il évoque aussi, selon The Guardian, des alertes qui auraient été clairement formulées, en interne par l’agence #Frontex en particulier, sur le fait que le changement de politique européenne en 2014 en Méditerranée « allait conduire à une augmentation des décès en mer ». C’est ce qui s’est passé : 2014, c’est l’année-bascule, celle où le plan Mare Nostrum qui consistait à organiser les secours en mer autour de l’Italie, a été remplacé par ce partenariat UE-Libye qui, selon les auteurs de l’enquête, a ouvert la voix aux exactions que l’on sait, et qui ont été documentées par Der Spiegel dans son reportage publié début mai, et titré « Libye : l’enfer sur terre ».

A présent, dit Juan Branco dans The Washington Post (et dans ce style qui lui vaut tant d’ennemis en France), c’est aux procureurs de la CPI de dire « s’ils oseront ou non » remonter aux sommet des responsabilités européennes. J’en terminerai pour ma part sur les doutes de cet expert en droit européen cité par El Pais et qui « ne prédit pas un grand succès devant la Cour » à cette action.

▻https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/revue-de-presse-internationale/la-revue-de-presse-internationale-emission-du-lundi-03-juin-2019

Submission to ICC condemns EU for ‘crimes against humanity’

EU Commission migration spokesperson Natasha Bertaud gave an official statement regarding a recently submitted 245-page document to the International Criminal Court by human rights lawyers Juan Branco and Omer Shatz on June 3, 2019. The case claimed the EU and its member states should face punitive action for Libyan migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. The EU says these deaths are not a result of EU camps, rather the dangerous and cruel routes on which smugglers take immigrants. Bertaud said the EU’s track record on saving lives “has been our top priority, and we have been working relentlessly to this end.” Bertaud said an increase in EU operations in the Mediterranean have resulted in a decrease in deaths in the past 4 years. The accusation claims that EU member states created the “world’s deadliest migration route,” which has led to more than 12,000 migrant deaths since its inception. Branco and Shatz wrote that the forcible return of migrants to Libyan camps and the “subsequent commission of murder, deportation, imprisonment, enslavement, torture, rape, persecution and other inhuman acts against them,” are the grounds for this indictment. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron were named specifically as those knowingly supporting these refugee camps, which the lawyers explicitly condemned in their report. The EU intends to maintain its presence on the Libyan coast and aims to create safer alternatives to detention centers.

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=AMGaKDNxcDg

Migration in the Mediterranean: why it’s time to put European leaders on trial

In June this year two lawyers filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) naming European Union member states’ migration policies in the Mediterranean as crimes against humanity.

The court’s Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, must decide whether she wants to open a preliminary investigation into the criminality of Europe’s treatment of migrants.

The challenge against the EU’s Mediterranean migrant policy is set out in a 245-page document prepared by Juan Branco and Omer Shatz, two lawyer-activists working and teaching in Paris. They argue that EU migration policy is founded in deterrence and that drowned migrants are a deliberate element of this policy. The international law that they allege has been violated – crimes against humanity – applies to state policies practiced even outside of armed conflict.

Doctrinally and juridically, the ICC can proceed. The question that remains is political: can and should the ICC come after its founders on their own turf?

There are two reasons why the answer is emphatically yes. First, the complaint addresses what has become a rights impasse in the EU. By taking on an area stymying other supranational courts, the ICC can fulfil its role as a judicial institution of last resort. Second, by turning its sights on its founders (and funders), the ICC can redress the charges of neocolonialism in and around Africa that have dogged it for the past decade.
ICC legitimacy

The ICC is the world’s first permanent international criminal court. Founded in 2002, it currently has 122 member states.

So far, it has only prosecuted Africans. This has led to persistent critiques that it is a neocolonial institution that “only chases Africans” and only tries rebels. In turn, this has led to pushback against the court from powerful actors like the African Union, which urges its members to leave the court.

The first departure from the court occurred in 2017, when Burundi left. The Philippines followed suit in March of this year. Both countries are currently under investigation by the ICC for state sponsored atrocities. South Africa threatened withdrawal, but this seems to have blown over.

In this climate, many cheered the news of the ICC Prosecutor’s 2017 request to investigate crimes committed in Afghanistan. As a member of the ICC, Afghanistan is within the ICC’s jurisdiction. The investigation included atrocities committed by the Taliban and foreign military forces active in Afghanistan, including members of the US armed forces.

The US, which is not a member of the ICC, violently opposes any possibility that its military personnel might be caught up in ICC charges. In April 2019 the ICC announced that a pre-trial chamber had shut down the investigation because US opposition made ICC action impossible.

Court watchers reacted with frustration and disgust.
EU migration

An estimated 30,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean in the past three decades. International attention was drawn to their plight during the migration surge of 2015, when the image of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi face-down on a Turkish beach circulated the globe. More than one million people entered Europe that year. This led the EU and its member states to close land and sea borders in the east by erecting fences and completing a Euro 3 billion deal with Turkey to keep migrants there. NATO ships were posted in the Aegean to catch and return migrants.

Migrant-saving projects, such as the Italian Mare Nostrum programme that collected 150,000 migrants in 2013-2014, were replaced by border guarding projects. Political pressure designed to reduce the number of migrants who made it to European shores led to the revocation and non-renewal of licenses for boats registered to NGOs whose purpose was to rescue migrants at sea. This has led to the current situation, where there is only one boat patrolling the Mediterranean.

The EU has handed search and rescue duties over to the Libyan coast guard, which has been accused repeatedly of atrocities against migrants. European countries now negotiate Mediterranean migrant reception on a case-by-case basis.
A rights impasse

International and supranational law applies to migrants, but so far it has inadequately protected them. The law of the sea mandates that ships collect people in need. A series of refusals to allow ships to disembark collected migrants has imperilled this international doctrine.

In the EU, the Court of Justice oversees migration and refugee policies. Such oversight now includes a two-year-old deal with Libya that some claim is tantamount to “sentencing migrants to death.”

For its part, the European Court of Human Rights has established itself as “no friend to migrants.” Although the court’s 2012 decision in Hirsi was celebrated for a progressive stance regarding the rights of migrants at sea, it is unclear how expansively that ruling applies.

European courts are being invoked and making rulings, yet the journey for migrants has only grown more desperate and deadly over the past few years. Existing European mechanisms, policies, and international rights commitments are not producing change.

In this rights impasse, the introduction of a new legal paradigm is essential.
Fulfilling its role

A foundational element of ICC procedure is complementarity. This holds that the court only intervenes when states cannot or will not act on their own.

Complementarity has played an unexpectedly central role in the cases before the ICC to date, as African states have self-referred defendants claiming that they do not have the resources to try them themselves. This has greatly contributed to the ICC’s political failure in Africa, as rights-abusing governments have handed over political adversaries to the ICC for prosecution in bad faith, enjoying the benefits of a domestic political sphere relieved of these adversaries while simultaneously complaining of ICC meddling in domestic affairs.

This isn’t how complementarity was supposed to work.

The present rights impasse in the EU regarding migration showcases what complementarity was intended to do – granting sovereign states primacy over law enforcement and stepping in only when states both violate humanitarian law and refuse to act. The past decade of deadly migration coupled with a deliberately wastrel refugee policy in Europe qualifies as just such a situation.

Would-be migrants don’t vote and cannot garner political representation in the EU. This leaves only human rights norms, and the international commitments in which they are enshrined, to protect them. These norms are not being enforced, in part because questions of citizenship and border security have remained largely the domain of sovereign states. Those policies are resulting in an ongoing crime against humanity.

The ICC may be the only institution capable of breaking the current impasse by threatening to bring Europe’s leaders to criminal account. This is the work of last resort for which international criminal law is designed. The ICC should embrace the progressive ideals that drove its construction, and engage.

▻https://theconversation.com/migration-in-the-mediterranean-why-its-time-to-put-european-leaders
#procès

Ces avocats qui veulent poursuivre l’Europe pour #crime_contre_l’humanité

Juan Branco et Omer Shatz ont déposé un dossier devant la Cour pénale internationale. Dans le viseur : la politique migratoire européenne, responsable selon eux du meurtre de 12.000 personnes en Méditerranée.

▻https://plus.lesoir.be/239652/article/2019-07-31/ces-avocats-qui-veulent-poursuivre-leurope-pour-crime-contre-lhumanite

Naufrages en Méditerranée : l’UE coupable de #crimes_contre_l’humanité ?

Deux avocats – #Omer_Shatz membre de l’ONG #Global_Legal_Action_Network et #Juan_Branco, dont le livre Crépuscule a récemment créé la polémique en France – ont déposé une plainte auprès de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) à Paris le 3 juin dernier.

Cette plainte qualifie de crimes contre l’humanité les politiques migratoires des États membres de l’Union européenne (UE) en Méditerranée.

Selon le journal Le Monde :
Pour les deux avocats, en permettant le refoulement des migrants en Libye, les responsables de l’UE se seraient rendus complices « d’expulsion, de meurtre, d’emprisonnement, d’asservissement, de torture, de viol, de persécution et d’autres actes inhumains, [commis] dans des camps de détention et les centres de torture libyens ».

Les deux avocats ont transmis un rapport d’enquête (▻https://www.la-croix.com/Monde/Europe/Deces-migrants-Mediterranee-lUnion-europeenne-poursuivie-crimes-contre-lhu) de 245 pages sur la politique méditerranéenne de l’UE en matière de migration, à la procureure de la Cour, Fatou Bensouda, qui doit décider si elle souhaite ouvrir une enquête préliminaire sur la criminalité liée au traitement des migrants en Europe.

Ils démontrent que la politique migratoire de l’UE est fondée sur la dissuasion et que les migrants noyés sont un élément délibéré de cette politique. Le droit international qu’ils allèguent avoir été violé – les crimes contre l’humanité – s’applique aux politiques étatiques pratiquées même en dehors des conflits armés.

Sur les plans doctrinal et juridique, la CPI peut agir. La question qui demeure est politique : la CPI peut-elle et doit-elle s’en prendre à ses fondateurs sur leurs propres territoires ?

Il y a deux raisons pour lesquelles la réponse est catégoriquement oui. Premièrement, la plainte porte sur ce qui est devenu une impasse en matière de droits au sein de l’UE. En s’attaquant à un domaine qui paralyse d’autres cours supranationales, la CPI peut remplir son rôle d’institution judiciaire de dernier ressort. Deuxièmement, en se tournant vers ses fondateurs (et ses bailleurs de fonds), la CPI peut répliquer à ses détracteurs qui l’accusent d’avoir adopté une posture néocolonialiste vis-à-vis du continent africain, une image qui la poursuit depuis au moins la dernière décennie.
La légitimité de la cour pénale

La CPI est la première cour pénale internationale permanente au monde. Fondée en 2002, elle compte actuellement 122 états membres.

Jusqu’à présent, la cour n’a poursuivi que des ressortissants issus de pays africains. Cela a conduit à des critiques persistantes selon lesquelles il s’agit d’une institution néocoloniale qui « ne poursuit que les Africains », ne jugeant que les adversaires politiques de certains leaders ayant fait appel à la CPI.

En retour, cela a conduit à des pressions à l’encontre de la cour de la part d’acteurs puissants comme l’Union africaine, qui exhorte ses membres à quitter la cour.

Le premier départ du tribunal a eu lieu en 2017, avec le Burundi. Les Philippines en est sorti en mars 2019.

Les deux états font actuellement l’objet d’enquêtes au sein de la CPI : respectivement au sujet d’exactions commises au Burundi depuis 2015 et aux Philippines concernant la campagne de lutte contre la drogue menée par le président Duterte. L’Afrique du Sud avait menacé de se retirer, avant de faire machine arrière.

C’est dans ce contexte sensible que le procureur de la CPI avait décidé en 2017 d’enquêter sur les exactions commises en Afghanistan par les talibans, mais aussi par les forces militaires étrangères actives en Afghanistan, y compris les forces armées américaines. Si l’acte avait été alors salué, le projet n’a pu aboutir.

Les États-Unis, qui ne sont pas membres de la CPI, se sont violemment opposés à toute possibilité d’investigation. En avril 2019, la CPI a annoncé qu’une chambre préliminaire avait mis fin à l’enquête car l’opposition américaine rendait toute action de la CPI impossible. Une décision qui a suscité de vives réactions et beaucoup de frustrations au sein des organisations internationales.

La CPI connaît une période de forte turbulence et de crise de légitimité face à des états récalcitrants. Un autre scénario est-il envisageable dans un contexte où les états mis en cause sont des états membres de l’Union européenne ?
Migrations vers l’Union européene

On estime que plus de 30 000 personnes migrantes se sont noyées en Méditerranée au cours des trois dernières décennies. L’attention internationale s’est attardée sur leur sort lors de la vague migratoire de 2015, lorsque l’image du jeune Alan Kurdi, 3 ans, face contre terre sur une plage turque, a circulé dans le monde.

Plus d’un million de personnes sont entrées en Europe cette année-là. Cela a conduit l’UE et ses États membres à fermer les frontières terrestres et maritimes à l’Est en érigeant des clôtures et en concluant un accord de 3 milliards d’euros avec la Turquie pour y maintenir les migrants. Des navires de l’OTAN ont été positionnés dans la mer Égée pour capturer et rapatrier les migrants.

Les projets de sauvetage des migrants, tels que le programme italien Mare Nostrum – qui a permis de sauver 150 000 migrants en 2013-2014,- ont été remplacés par des projets de garde-frontières. Les pressions politiques visant à réduire le nombre de migrants qui ont atteint les côtes européennes ont conduit à la révocation et non-renouvellement des licences pour les bateaux enregistrés auprès d’ONG dont l’objectif était de sauver les migrants en mer. Cela a conduit à la situation actuelle, où il n’y a qu’un seul bateau de patrouille la Méditerranée.

L’UE a confié des missions de recherche et de sauvetage aux garde-côtes libyens, qui ont été accusés à plusieurs reprises d’atrocités contre les migrants. Les pays européens négocient désormais l’accueil des migrants méditerranéens au cas par cas et s’appuyant sur des réseaux associatifs et bénévoles.

Une impasse juridique

Le droit international et supranational s’applique aux migrants, mais jusqu’à présent, il ne les a pas suffisamment protégés. Le droit de la mer est par ailleurs régulièrement invoqué.

Il exige que les navires recueillent les personnes dans le besoin.

Une série de refus d’autoriser les navires à débarquer des migrants sauvés en mer a mis en péril cette doctrine internationale.

Au sein de l’UE, la Cour de justice supervise les politiques relatives aux migrations et aux réfugiés.

Mais cette responsabilité semble avoir été écartée au profit d’un accord conclu il y a déjà deux ans avec la Libye. Cet accord est pour certains une dont certains l’équivalent d’une « condamnation à morts » vis-à-vis des migrants.

De son côté, la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme a été perçue comme une institution ne soutenant pas spécialement la cause des migrants.

Certes, en 2012 ce tribunal avait mis en avant la situation de ressortissants somaliens et érythréens. Interceptés en mer par les autorités italiennes, ils avaient été forcés avec 200 autres à retourner en Libye où leurs droits civiques et physiques n’étaient pas respectés, et leurs vies en danger. Portée par des organisations humanitaires, l’affaire avait conduit à un jugement de la cour stipulant :

« que quand des individus sont interceptés dans des eaux internationales, les autorités gouvernementales sont obligées de s’aligner sur les lois internationales régulant les droits de l’Homme. »

Cette position avait été célébrée dans ce qui semblait constituer une avancée pour les droits des migrants en mer. Il n’est cependant pas clair dans quelle mesure cette affaire peut s’appliquer dans d’autres cas et faire jurisprudence.

Si les tribunaux européens sont invoqués et rendent leurs avis, le contexte migratoire empire, or les mécanismes, les politiques et les engagements européens et internationaux existants en matière de droits ne produisent pas de changement.

Dans cette impasse juridique, l’introduction d’un nouveau paradigme semble essentielle.
Remplir pleinement son rôle

Dans ce contexte complexe, un élément fondateur de la CPI peut jouer un rôle : le principe de complémentarité.

Elle [la complémentarité] crée une relation inédite entre les juridictions nationales et la Cour permettant un équilibre entre leurs compétences respectives.

Cela signifie que le tribunal n’intervient que lorsque les États ne peuvent ou ne veulent pas agir de leur propre chef.

Jusqu’à présent, la complémentarité a joué un rôle central inattendu dans les affaires dont la CPI a été saisie jusqu’à présent, les États africains s’étant autoproclamés incompétents, invoquant le manque de ressources (notamment juridiques) nécessaires.

Cela a cependant grandement contribué à l’échec politique de la CPI sur le continent africain. Des gouvernements abusifs ont ainsi profité de ce système pour remettre à la CPI des adversaires politiques tout en se plaignant simultanément de l’ingérence de la CPI dans leurs affaires internes.

Ce n’est pas ainsi que la complémentarité devait fonctionner.
Le refus d’action de l’UE doit pousser la CPI à agir

L’impasse dans laquelle se trouve actuellement l’UE en ce qui concerne les droits en matière de migration montre ce que la complémentarité est censée faire – accorder la primauté aux États souverains sur l’application de la loi et intervenir uniquement lorsque les États violent le droit humanitaire et refusent d’agir.

La dernière décennie de migrations meurtrières, conjuguée à une politique de réfugiés délibérément délaissée en Europe, constitue une telle situation.

Les migrants potentiels ne votent pas et ne peuvent pas être représentés politiquement dans l’UE.

Leur protection ne dépend donc que des normes relatives aux droits de l’Homme et des engagements internationaux qui les entérinent. Ces normes ne sont pas appliquées, en partie parce que les questions de citoyenneté et de sécurité des frontières sont restées largement du ressort des États souverains. Ces politiques se traduisent aujourd’hui par un « crime contre l’humanité » continu.

La CPI est peut-être l’institution qui sera capable de dénouer la situation complexe et l’impasse actuelle en menaçant de traduire les dirigeants européens en justice, faisant ainsi écho avec les idéaux progressistes qui ont nourri sa construction.

▻https://theconversation.com/naufrages-en-mediterranee-lue-coupable-de-crimes-contre-lhumanite-1

décembre 2022 :
Une ONG allemande dépose une plainte contre des dirigeants européens pour #crimes_contre_l'humanité envers des migrants
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/982048

Les autres épisodes :
Esclave en Tunisie : le calvaire d’une migrante ivoirienne séquestrée par une riche famille de Tunis (1/4)
►http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/12875/esclave-en-tunisie-le-calvaire-d-une-migrante-ivoirienne-sequestree-pa

#Racisme en Tunisie : « Ils nous lapident, nous jettent des pierres et nous traitent de ‘singe’ » (2/4)

▻http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/12896/racisme-en-tunisie-ils-nous-lapident-nous-jettent-des-pierres-et-nous-
#xénophobie

Tunisie : le découragement des migrants « abandonnés » de Médenine (3/4)
▻http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/12952/tunisie-le-decouragement-des-migrants-abandonnes-de-medenine-3-4

v. aussi:
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/614968

Italy’s Smuggling Prosecutions Ruin Lives While Real Criminals Go Free
►https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/07/14/italys-smuggling-prosecutions-ruin-lives-while-real-criminals-go-free

v. aussi :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/620933
–-> lien vers une #vidéo intéressante

Commentaires de Charles Heller sur FB :

Last year these Tunisian fishermen prevented the identitarian C-Star - chartered to prevent solidarity at sea - from docking in Zarzis. Now they have been arrested for exercising that solidarity.

Back to the bad old days of criminalising Tunisian fishermen who rescue migrants at sea. Lets make some noise and express our support and solidarity in all imaginable ways!

Des pêcheurs tunisiens poursuivis pour avoir tracté des migrants jusqu’en Italie

Surpris en train de tirer une embarcation de migrants vers l’Italie, des pêcheurs tunisiens -dont un militant connu localement- ont été écroués en Sicile. Une manifestation de soutien a eu lieu en Tunisie et une ONG essaie actuellement de leur venir en aide.

Des citoyens tunisiens sont descendus dans la rue lundi 3 septembre à Zarzis, dans le sud du pays, pour protester contre l’arrestation, par les autorités italiennes, de six pêcheurs locaux. Ces derniers sont soupçonnés d’être des passeurs car ils ont été "surpris en train de tirer une barque avec 14 migrants à bord en direction de [l’île italienne de] Lampedusa", indique la police financière et douanière italienne.

La contestation s’empare également des réseaux sociaux, notamment avec des messages publiés demandant la libération des six membres d’équipage parmi lesquels figurent Chamseddine Bourassine, président de l’association des pêcheurs de Zarzis. “Toute ma solidarité avec un militant et ami, le doyen des pêcheurs Chamseddine Bourassine. Nous appelons les autorités tunisiennes à intervenir immédiatement avec les autorités italiennes afin de le relâcher ainsi que son équipage”, a écrit lundi le jeune militant originaire de Zarzis Anis Belhiba sur Facebook. Une publication reprise et partagée par Chamesddine Marzoug, un pêcheur retraité et autre militant connu en Tunisie pour enterrer lui-même les corps des migrants rejetés par la mer.

Sans nouvelles depuis quatre jours

Un appel similaire a été lancé par le Forum tunisien pour les droits économiques et sociaux, par la voix de Romdhane Ben Amor, chargé de communication de cette ONG basée à Tunis. Contacté par InfoMigrants, il affirme n’avoir reçu aucune nouvelle des pêcheurs depuis près de quatre jours. “On ne sait pas comment ils vont. Tout ce que l’on sait c’est qu’ils sont encore incarcérés à Agrigente en Sicile. On essaie d’activer tous nos réseaux et de communiquer avec nos partenaires italiens pour leur fournir une assistance juridique”, explique-t-il.

Les six pêcheurs ont été arrêtés le 29 août car leur bateau de pêche, qui tractait une embarcation de fortune avec 14 migrants à son bord, a été repéré -vidéo à l’appui- par un avion de Frontex, l’Agence européenne de garde-côtes et garde-frontières.

Selon une source policière italienne citée par l’AFP, les pêcheurs ont été arrêtés pour “aide à l’immigration clandestine” et écroués. Le bateau a été repéré en train de tirer des migrants, puis de larguer la barque près des eaux italiennes, à moins de 24 milles de Lampedusa, indique la même source.

Mais pour Romdhane Ben Amor, “la vidéo de Frontex ne prouve rien”. Et de poursuivre : “#Chamseddine_Bourassine, on le connaît bien. Il participe aux opérations de sauvetage en Méditerranée depuis 2008, il a aussi coordonné l’action contre le C-Star [navire anti-migrants affrété par des militant d’un groupe d’extrême droite]”. Selon Romdhane Ben Amor, il est fort probable que le pêcheur ait reçu l’appel de détresse des migrants, qu’il ait ensuite tenté de les convaincre de faire demi-tour et de regagner la Tunisie. N’y parvenant pas, le pêcheur aurait alors remorqué l’embarcation vers l’Italie, la météo se faisant de plus en plus menaçante.

La Tunisie, pays d’origine le plus représenté en Italie

Un nombre croissant de Tunisiens en quête d’emploi et de perspectives d’avenir tentent de se rendre illégalement en Italie via la Méditerranée. D’ailleurs, avec 3 300 migrants arrivés entre janvier et juillet 2018, la Tunisie est le pays d’origine le plus représenté en Italie, selon un rapport du Haut commissariat de l’ONU aux réfugiés (HCR) publié lundi.

La Méditerranée a été "plus mortelle que jamais" début 2018, indique également le HCR, estimant qu’une personne sur 18 tentant la traversée meurt ou disparaît en mer.

http://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/8df206b97354fc8993d78eeeb3fa27b0fd22d76c.jpeg

Note de Catherine Teule :

Cela rappelle le procès ( à Agrigente déjà) de 7 pêcheurs tunisiens en 2007.... ( voir les archives de Migreurop )

Et aussi les procès contres les pêcheurs à #Mazara_del_vallo, en Italie, v. livre de Gabriele Del Grande :
Il mare di mezzo
▻https://www.infinitoedizioni.it/prodotto/il-mare-di-mezzoal-tempo-dei-respingimenti

Lampedusa, in cella ad Agrigento il pescatore tunisino che salva i migranti

Insieme al suo equipaggio #Chameseddine_Bourassine è accusato di favoreggiamento dell’immigrazione illegale. La Tunisia chiede il rilascio dei sei arrestati. L’appello per la liberazione del figlio di uno dei pescatori e del fratello di Bourassine

Per la Tunisia Chameseddine Bourassine è il pescatore che salva i migranti. Protagonista anche del film documentario «Strange Fish» di Giulia Bertoluzzi. Dal 29 agosto Chameseddine e il suo equipaggio sono nel carcere di Agrigento, perchè filmati mentre trainavano un barchino con 14 migranti fino a 24 miglia da Lampedusa. Il peschereccio è stato sequestrato e rischiano molti anni di carcere per favoreggiamento aggravato dell’immigrazione illegale. Da Palermo alcuni parenti giunti da Parigi lanciano un appello per la loro liberazione.

Ramzi Lihiba, figlio di uno dei pescatori arrestati: «Mio padre è scioccato perchè è la prima volta che ha guai con la giustizia. Mi ha detto che hanno incontrato una barca in pericolo e hanno fatto solo il loro dovere. Non è la prima volta. Chameseddine ha fatto centinaia di salvataggi, portando la gente verso la costa più vicina. Prima ha chiamato la guardia costiera di Lampedusa e di Malta senza avere risposta».

Mohamed Bourassine, fratello di Chameseddine: «Chameseddine l’ha detto anche alla guardia costiera italiana, se trovassi altre persone in pericolo in mare, lo rifarei».
La Tunisia ha chiesto il rilascio dei sei pescatori di Zarzis. Sit in per loro davanti alle ambasciate italiane di Tunisi e Parigi. Da anni i pescatori delle due sponde soccorrono migranti con molti rischi. Ramzi Lihiba: «Anche io ho fatto la traversata nel 2008 e sono stato salvato dai pescatori italiani, altrimenti non sarei qui oggi».

▻https://www.rainews.it/tgr/sicilia/video/2018/09/sic-lampedusa-carcere-pescatore-tunisino-salva-migranti-8f4b62a7-b103-48c0-8

#Tunisie demain, à Palerme, se tient l’audience des 6 marins pêcheurs de Zarzis, Chamseddine Bourassin et son équipage, détenus en Italie depuis le 31 août dernier dans la ville d’Agrigento près de Lampedusa, pour avoir tracté 14 migrants à la dérive.

▻https://twitter.com/lmgaveriaux/status/1042826264447475718

Tweets à défiler.

ping @_kg_

Posté par Charles Heller sur FB :

Yesterday, people demonstrated in the streets of Zarzis in solidarity with the Tunisian fishermen arrested by Italian authorities for exercising their solidarity with migrants crossing the sea. Tomorrow, they will be heard in front of a court in Sicily. While rescue NGOs have done an extraordinary job, its important to underline that European citizens do not have the monopoly over solidarity with migrants, and neither are they the only ones being criminalised. The Tunisian fishermen deserve our full support.

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

I pescatori, eroi di Zarzis, in galera

Il 29 agosto 2018 sei pescatori tunisini sono stati arrestati ad Agrigento, accusati di favoreggiamento dell’immigrazione clandestina, reato punibile fino a quindici anni di carcere. Il loro racconto e quello dei migranti soccorsi parla invece di una barca in panne che prendeva acqua, del tentativo di contattare la Guardia Costiera italiana e infine - dopo una lunga attesa – del trasporto del barchino verso Lampedusa, per aiutare le autorità nelle operazioni di soccorso. Mentre le indagini preliminari sono in corso, vi raccontiamo chi sono questi pescatori. Lo facciamo con Giulia Bertoluzzi, che ha girato il film “Strange Fish” – vincitore al premio BNP e menzione speciale della giuria al festival Visioni dal Mondo - di cui Bourassine è il protagonista, e Valentina Zagaria, che ha vissuto oltre due anni a Zarzis per un dottorato in antropologia.

Capitano, presidente, eroe. Ecco tre appellativi che potrebbero stare a pennello a Chamseddine Bourassine, presidente della Rete Nazionale della Pesca Artigianale nonché dell’associazione di Zarzis “Le Pêcheur” pour le Développement et l’Environnement, nominata al Premio Nobel per la Pace 2018 per il continuo impegno nel salvare vite nel Mediterraneo. I pescatori di Zarzis infatti, lavorando nel mare aperto tra la Libia e la Sicilia, si trovano da più di quindici anni in prima linea nei soccorsi a causa della graduale chiusura ermetica delle vie legali per l’Europa, che ha avuto come conseguenza l’inizio di traversate con mezzi sempre più di fortuna.
I frutti della rivoluzione

Sebbene la legge del mare abbia sempre prevalso per Chamseddine e i pescatori di Zarzis, prima della rivoluzione tunisina del 2011 i pescatori venivano continuamente minacciati dalla polizia del regime di Ben Ali, stretto collaboratore sia dell’Italia che dell’Unione europea in materia di controlli alle frontiere. “Ci dicevano di lasciarli in mare e che ci avrebbero messo tutti in prigione”, spiegava Bourassine, “ma un uomo in mare è un uomo morto, e alla polizia abbiamo sempre risposto che piuttosto saremmo andati in prigione”. In prigione finivano anche i cittadini tunisini che tentavano la traversata e che venivano duramente puniti dal loro stesso governo.

Tutto è cambiato con la rivoluzione. Oltre 25.000 tunisini si erano imbarcati verso l’Italia, di cui tanti proprio dalle coste di Zarzis. “Non c’erano più né stato né polizia, era il caos assoluto” ricorda Anis Souei, segretario generale dell’Associazione. Alcuni pescatori non lasciavano le barche nemmeno di notte perché avevano paura che venissero rubate, i più indebitati invece tentavano di venderle, mentre alcuni abitanti di Zarzis, approfittando del vuoto di potere, si improvvisavano ‘agenti di viaggi’, cercando di fare affari sulle spalle degli harraga – parola nel dialetto arabo nord africano per le persone che ‘bruciano’ passaporti e frontiera attraversando il Mediterraneo. Chamseddine Bourassine e i suoi colleghi, invece, hanno stretto un patto morale, stabilendo di non vendere le proprie barche per la harga. Si sono rimboccati le maniche e hanno fondato un’associazione per migliorare le condizioni di lavoro del settore, per sensibilizzare sulla preservazione dell’ambiente – condizione imprescindibile per la pesca – e dare una possibilità di futuro ai giovani.

E proprio verso i più giovani, quelli che più continuano a soffrire dell’alto tasso di disoccupazione, l’associazione ha dedicato diverse campagne di sensibilizzazione. “Andiamo nelle scuole per raccontare quello che vediamo e mostriamo ai ragazzi le foto dei corpi che troviamo in mare, perché si rendano conto del reale pericolo della traversata”, racconta Anis. Inoltre hanno organizzato formazioni di meccanica, riparazione delle reti e pesca subacquea, collaborando anche con diversi progetti internazionali, come NEMO, organizzato dal CIHEAM-Bari e finanziato dalla Cooperazione Italiana. Proprio all’interno di questo progetto è nato il museo di Zarzis della pesca artigianale, dove tra nodi e anforette per la pesca del polipo, c’è una mostra fotografica dei salvataggi in mare intitolata “Gli eroi anonimi di Zarzis”.

La guerra civile libica

Con l’inasprirsi della guerra civile libica e l’inizio di veri e propri traffici di esseri umani, le frontiere marittime si sono trasformate in zone al di fuori della legge.
“I pescatori tunisini vengono regolarmente rapiti dalle milizie o dalle autorità libiche” diceva Bourassine. Queste, una volta sequestrata la barca e rubato il materiale tecnico, chiedevano alle autorità tunisine un riscatto per il rilascio, cosa peraltro successa anche a pescatori siciliani. Sebbene le acque di fronte alla Libia siano le più ricche, soprattutto per il gambero rosso, e per anni siano state zone di pesca per siciliani, tunisini, libici e anche egiziani, ad oggi i pescatori di Zarzis si sono visti obbligati a lasciare l’eldorado dei tonni rossi e dei gamberi rossi, per andare più a ovest.

“Io pesco nelle zone della rotta delle migrazioni, quindi è possibile che veda migranti ogni volta che esco” diceva Bourassine, indicando sul monitor della sala comandi del suo peschereccio l’est di Lampedusa, durante le riprese del film.

Con scarso sostegno delle guardie costiere tunisine, a cui non era permesso operare oltre le proprie acque territoriali, i pescatori per anni si sono barcamenati tra il lavoro e la responsabilità di soccorrere le persone in difficoltà che, con l’avanzare del conflitto in Libia, partivano su imbarcazioni sempre più pericolose.

“Ma quando in mare vedi 100 o 120 persone cosa fai?” si chiede Slaheddine Mcharek, anche lui membro dell’Associazione, “pensi solo a salvare loro la vita, ma non è facile”. Chi ha visto un’operazione di soccorso in mare infatti può immaginare i pericoli di organizzare un trasbordo su un piccolo peschereccio che non metta a repentaglio la stabilità della barca, soprattutto quando ci sono persone che non sanno nuotare. Allo stesso tempo non pescare significa non lavorare e perdere soldi sia per il capitano che per l’equipaggio.
ONG e salvataggio

Quando nell’estate del 2015 le navi di ricerca e soccorso delle ONG hanno cominciato ad operare nel Mediterraneo, Chamseddine e tutti i pescatori si sono sentiti sollevati, perché le loro barche non erano attrezzate per centinaia di persone e le autorità tunisine post-rivoluzionarie non avevano i mezzi per aiutarli. Quell’estate, l’allora direttore di Medici Senza Frontiere Foued Gammoudi organizzò una formazione di primo soccorso in mare per sostenere i pescatori. Dopo questa formazione MSF fornì all’associazione kit di pronto soccorso, giubbotti e zattere di salvataggio per poter assistere meglio i rifugiati in mare. L’ONG ha anche dato ai pescatori le traduzioni in italiano e inglese dei messaggi di soccorso e di tutti i numeri collegati al Centro di coordinamento per il soccorso marittimo (MRCC) a Roma, che coordina i salvataggi tra le imbarcazioni nei paraggi pronte ad intervenire, fossero mercantili, navi delle ONG, imbarcazioni militari o della guardia costiera, e quelle dei pescatori di entrambe le sponde del mare. Da quel momento i pescatori potevano coordinarsi a livello internazionale e aspettare che le navi più grandi arrivassero, per poi riprendere il loro lavoro. Solo una settimana dopo la formazione, Gammoudi andò a congratularsi con Chamseddine al porto di Zarzis per aver collaborato con la nave Bourbon-Argos di MSF nel salvataggio di 550 persone.

Oltre al primo soccorso, MSF ha offerto ai membri dell’associazione una formazione sulla gestione dei cadaveri, fornendo sacchi mortuari, disinfettanti e guanti. C’è stato un periodo durato vari mesi, prima dell’arrivo delle ONG, in cui i pescatori avevano quasi la certezza di vedere dei morti in mare. Nell’assenza di altre imbarcazioni in prossimità della Libia, pronte ad aiutare barche in difficoltà, i naufragi non facevano che aumentare. Proprio come sta succedendo in queste settimane, durante le quali il tasso di mortalità in proporzione agli arrivi in Italia è cresciuto del 5,6%. Dal 26 agosto, nessuna ONG ha operato in SAR libica, e questo a causa delle politiche anti-migranti di Salvini e dei suoi omologhi europei.

Criminalizzazione della solidarietà

La situazione però è peggiorata di nuovo nell’estate del 2017, quando l’allora ministro dell’Interno Marco Minniti stringeva accordi con le milizie e la guardia costiera libica per bloccare i rifugiati nei centri di detenzione in Libia, mentre approvava leggi che criminalizzano e limitano l’attività delle ONG in Italia.

Le campagne di diffamazione contro atti di solidarietà e contro le ONG non hanno fatto altro che versare ancora più benzina sui sentimenti anti-immigrazione che infiammano l’Europa. Nel bel mezzo di questo clima, il 6 agosto 2017, i pescatori di Zarzis si erano trovati in un faccia a faccia con la nave noleggiata da Generazione Identitaria, la C-Star, che attraversava il Mediterraneo per ostacolare le operazioni di soccorso e riportare i migranti in Africa.

Armati di pennarelli rossi, neri e blu, hanno appeso striscioni sulle barche in una mescolanza di arabo, italiano, francese e inglese: “No Racists!”, “Dégage!”, “C-Star: No gasolio? No acqua? No mangiaro?“.

Chamseddine Bourassine, con pesanti occhiaie da cinque giorni di lavoro in mare, appena appresa la notizia ha organizzato un sit-in con tanto di media internazionali al porto di Zarzis. I loro sforzi erano stati incoraggiati dalle reti antirazziste in Sicilia, che a loro volta avevano impedito alla C-Star di attraccare nel porto di Catania solo un paio di giorni prima.
La reazione tunisina dopo l’arresto di Bourassine

Non c’è quindi da sorprendersi se dopo l’arresto di Chamseddine, Salem, Farhat, Lotfi, Ammar e Bachir l’associazione, le famiglie, gli amici e i colleghi hanno riempito tre pullman da Zarzis per protestare davanti all’ambasciata italiana di Tunisi. La Terre Pour Tous, associazione di famiglie di tunisini dispersi, e il Forum economico e sociale (FTDES) si sono uniti alla protesta per chiedere l’immediato rilascio dei pescatori. Una protesta gemella è stata organizzata anche dalla diaspora di Zarzis davanti all’ambasciata italiana a Parigi, mentre reti di pescatori provenienti dal Marocco e dalla Mauritania hanno rilasciato dichiarazioni di sostegno. Il Segretario di Stato tunisino per l’immigrazione, Adel Jarboui, ha esortato le autorità italiane a liberare i pescatori.

Nel frattempo Bourassine racconta dalla prigione al fratello: “stavo solo aiutando delle persone in difficoltà in mare. Lo rifarei”.

http://openmigration.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/strange-fish-7-di-14.jpg

When rescue at sea becomes a crime: who the Tunisian fishermen arrested in Italy really are

Fishermen networks from Morocco and Mauritania have released statements of support, and the Tunisian State Secretary for Immigration, Adel Jarboui, urged Italian authorities to release the fishermen, considered heroes in Tunisia.

On the night of Wednesday, August 29, 2018, six Tunisian fishermen were arrested in Italy. Earlier that day, they had set off from their hometown of Zarzis, the last important Tunisian port before Libya, to cast their nets in the open sea between North Africa and Sicily. The fishermen then sighted a small vessel whose engine had broken, and that had started taking in water. After giving the fourteen passengers water, milk and bread – which the fishermen carry in abundance, knowing they might encounter refugee boats in distress – they tried making contact with the Italian coastguard.

After hours of waiting for a response, though, the men decided to tow the smaller boat in the direction of Lampedusa – Italy’s southernmost island, to help Italian authorities in their rescue operations. At around 24 miles from Lampedusa, the Guardia di Finanza (customs police) took the fourteen people on board, and then proceeded to violently arrest the six fishermen. According to the precautionary custody order issued by the judge in Agrigento (Sicily), the men stand accused of smuggling, a crime that could get them up to fifteen years in jail if the case goes to trial. The fishermen have since been held in Agrigento prison, and their boat has been seized.

This arrest comes after a summer of Italian politicians closing their ports to NGO rescue boats, and only a week after far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini[1] prevented for ten days the disembarkation of 177 Eritrean and Somali asylum seekers from the Italian coastguard ship Diciotti. It is yet another step towards dissuading anyone – be it Italian or Tunisian citizens, NGO or coastguard ships – from coming to the aid of refugee boats in danger at sea. Criminalising rescue, a process that has been pushed by different Italian governments since 2016, will continue to have tragic consequences for people on the move in the Mediterranean Sea.
The fishermen of Zarzis

Among those arrested is Chamseddine Bourassine, the president of the Association “Le Pêcheur” pour le Développement et l’Environnement, which was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year for the Zarzis fishermen’s continuous engagement in saving lives in the Mediterranean.

Chamseddine, a fishing boat captain in his mid-40s, was one of the first people I met in Zarzis when, in the summer of 2015, I moved to this southern Tunisian town to start fieldwork for my PhD. On a sleepy late-August afternoon, my interview with Foued Gammoudi, the then Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Head of Mission for Tunisia and Libya, was interrupted by an urgent phone call. “The fishermen have just returned, they saved 550 people, let’s go to the port to thank them.” Just a week earlier, Chamseddine Bourassine had been among the 116 fishermen from Zarzis to have received rescue at sea training with MSF. Gammoudi was proud that the fishermen had already started collaborating with the MSF Bourbon Argos ship to save hundreds of people. We hurried to the port to greet Chamseddine and his crew, as they returned from a three-day fishing expedition which involved, as it so often had done lately, a lives-saving operation.

The fishermen of Zarzis have been on the frontline of rescue in the Central Mediterranean for over fifteen years. Their fishing grounds lying between Libya – the place from which most people making their way undocumented to Europe leave – and Sicily, they were often the first to come to the aid of refugee boats in distress. “The fishermen have never really had a choice: they work here, they encounter refugee boats regularly, so over the years they learnt to do rescue at sea”, explained Gammoudi. For years, fishermen from both sides of the Mediterranean were virtually alone in this endeavour.
Rescue before and after the revolution

Before the Tunisian revolution of 2011, Ben Ali threatened the fishermen with imprisonment for helping migrants in danger at sea – the regime having been a close collaborator of both Italy and the European Union in border control matters. During that time, Tunisian nationals attempting to do the harga – the North African Arabic dialect term for the crossing of the Sicilian Channel by boat – were also heavily sanctioned by their own government.

Everything changed though with the revolution. “It was chaos here in 2011. You cannot imagine what the word chaos means if you didn’t live it”, recalled Anis Souei, the secretary general of the “Le Pêcheur” association. In the months following the revolution, hundreds of boats left from Zarzis taking Tunisians from all over the country to Lampedusa. Several members of the fishermen’s association remember having to sleep on their fishing boats at night to prevent them from being stolen for the harga. Other fishermen instead, especially those who were indebted, decided to sell their boats, while some inhabitants of Zarzis took advantage of the power vacuum left by the revolution and made considerable profit by organising harga crossings. “At that time there was no police, no state, and even more misery. If you wanted Lampedusa, you could have it”, rationalised another fisherman. But Chamseddine Bourassine and his colleagues saw no future in moving to Europe, and made a moral pact not to sell their boats for migration.

They instead remained in Zarzis, and in 2013 founded their association to create a network of support to ameliorate the working conditions of small and artisanal fisheries. The priority when they started organising was to try and secure basic social security – something they are still struggling to sustain today. With time, though, the association also got involved in alerting the youth to the dangers of boat migration, as they regularly witnessed the risks involved and felt compelled to do something for younger generations hit hard by staggering unemployment rates. In this optic, they organised training for the local youth in boat mechanics, nets mending, and diving, and collaborated in different international projects, such as NEMO, organised by the CIHEAM-Bari and funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate General for Cooperation Development. This project also helped the fishermen build a museum to explain traditional fishing methods, the first floor of which is dedicated to pictures and citations from the fishermen’s long-term voluntary involvement in coming to the rescue of refugees in danger at sea.

This role was proving increasingly vital as the Libyan civil war dragged on, since refugees were being forced onto boats in Libya that were not fit for travel, making the journey even more hazardous. With little support from Tunisian coastguards, who were not allowed to operate beyond Tunisian waters, the fishermen juggled their responsibility to bring money home to their families and their commitment to rescuing people in distress at sea. Anis remembers that once in 2013, three fishermen boats were out and received an SOS from a vessel carrying roughly one hundred people. It was their first day out, and going back to Zarzis would have meant losing petrol money and precious days of work, which they simply couldn’t afford. After having ensured that nobody was ill, the three boats took twenty people on board each, and continued working for another two days, sharing food and water with their guests.

Sometimes, though, the situation on board got tense with so many people, food wasn’t enough for everybody, and fights broke out. Some fishermen recall incidents during which they truly feared for their safety, when occasionally they came across boats with armed men from Libyan militias. It was hard for them to provide medical assistance as well. Once a woman gave birth on Chamseddine’s boat – that same boat that has now been seized in Italy – thankfully there had been no complications.
NGO ships and the criminalisation of rescue

During the summer of 2015, therefore, Chamseddine felt relieved that NGO search and rescue boats were starting to operate in the Mediterranean. The fishermen’s boats were not equipped to take hundreds of people on board, and the post-revolutionary Tunisian authorities didn’t have the means to support them. MSF had provided the association with first aid kits, life jackets, and rescue rafts to be able to better assist refugees at sea, and had given them a list of channels and numbers linked to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome for when they encountered boats in distress.

They also offered training in dead body management, and provided the association with body bags, disinfectant and gloves. “When we see people at sea we rescue them. It’s not only because we follow the laws of the sea or of religion: we do it because it’s human”, said Chamseddine. But sometimes rescue came too late, and bringing the dead back to shore was all the fishermen could do.[2] During 2015 the fishermen at least felt that with more ships in the Mediterranean doing rescue, the duty dear to all seafarers of helping people in need at sea didn’t only fall on their shoulders, and they could go back to their fishing.

The situation deteriorated again though in the summer of 2017, as Italian Interior Minister Minniti struck deals with Libyan militias and coastguards to bring back and detain refugees in detention centres in Libya, while simultaneously passing laws criminalising and restricting the activity of NGO rescue boats in Italy.

Media smear campaigns directed against acts of solidarity with migrants and refugees and against the work of rescue vessels in the Mediterranean poured even more fuel on already inflamed anti-immigration sentiments in Europe.

In the midst of this, on 6 August 2017, the fishermen of Zarzis came face to face with a far-right vessel rented by Generazione Identitaria, the C-Star, cruising the Mediterranean allegedly on a “Defend Europe” mission to hamper rescue operations and bring migrants back to Africa. The C-Star was hovering in front of Zarzis port, and although it had not officially asked port authorities whether it could dock to refuel – which the port authorities assured locals it would refuse – the fishermen of Zarzis took the opportunity to let these alt-right groups know how they felt about their mission.

Armed with red, black and blue felt tip pens, they wrote in a mixture of Arabic, Italian, French and English slogans such as “No Racists!”, “Dégage!” (Get our of here!), “C-Star: No gasoil? No acqua? No mangiato?” ?” (C-Star: No fuel? No water? Not eaten?), which they proceeded to hang on their boats, ready to take to sea were the C-Star to approach. Chamseddine Bourassine, who had returned just a couple of hours prior to the impending C-Star arrival from five days of work at sea, called other members of the fishermen association to come to the port and join in the peaceful protest.[3] He told the journalists present that the fishermen opposed wholeheartedly the racism propagated by the C-Star members, and that having seen the death of fellow Africans at sea, they couldn’t but condemn these politics. Their efforts were cheered on by anti-racist networks in Sicily, who had in turn prevented the C-Star from docking in Catania port just a couple of days earlier.

It is members from these same networks in Sicily together with friends of the fishermen in Tunisia and internationally that are now engaged in finding lawyers for Chamseddine and his five colleagues.

Their counterparts in Tunisia joined the fishermen’s families and friends on Thursday morning to protest in front of the Italian embassy in Tunis. Three busloads arrived from Zarzis after an 8-hour night-time journey for the occasion, and many others had come from other Tunisian towns to show their solidarity. Gathered there too were members of La Terre Pour Tous, an association of families of missing Tunisian migrants, who joined in to demand the immediate release of the fishermen. A sister protest was organised by the Zarzis diaspora in front of the Italian embassy in Paris on Saturday afternoon. Fishermen networks from Morocco and Mauritania also released statements of support, and the Tunisian State Secretary for Immigration Adel Jarboui urged Italian authorities to release the fishermen, who are considered heroes in Tunisia.

The fishermen’s arrest is the latest in a chain of actions taken by the Italian Lega and Five Star government to further criminalise rescue in the Mediterranean Sea, and to dissuade people from all acts of solidarity and basic compliance with international norms. This has alarmingly resulted in the number of deaths in 2018 increasing exponentially despite a drop in arrivals to Italy’s southern shores. While Chamseddine’s lawyer hasn’t yet been able to visit him in prison, his brother and cousin managed to go see him on Saturday. As for telling them about what happened on August 29, Chamseddine simply says that he was assisting people in distress at sea: he’d do it again.

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▻https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/valentina-zagaria/when-rescue-at-sea-becomes-crime-who-tunisian-fishermen-arrested-in-i

Les pêcheurs de Zarzis, ces héros que l’Italie préfère voir en prison

Leurs noms ont été proposés pour le prix Nobel de la paix mais ils risquent jusqu’à quinze ans de prison : six pêcheurs tunisiens se retrouvent dans le collimateur des autorités italiennes pour avoir aidé des migrants en Méditerranée.

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▻https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/reportages/les-p-cheurs-de-zarzis-ces-h-ros-que-l-italie-pr-f-re-voir-en-prison-

Les pêcheurs tunisiens incarcérés depuis fin août en Sicile sont libres

Arrêtés après avoir tracté une embarcation de quatorze migrants jusqu’au large de Lampedusa, un capitaine tunisien et son équipage sont soupçonnés d’être des passeurs. Alors qu’en Tunisie, ils sont salués comme des sauveurs.

Les six pêcheurs ont pu reprendre la mer afin de regagner Zarzis, dans le sud tunisien. Les familles n’ont pas caché leur soulagement. Un accueil triomphal, par des dizaines de bateaux au large du port, va être organisé, afin de saluer le courage de ces sauveteurs de migrants à la dérive.

Et peu importe si l’acte est dénoncé par l’Italie. Leurs amis et collègues ne changeront pas leurs habitudes de secourir toute embarcation en danger.

A l’image de Rya, la cinquantaine, marin pêcheur à Zarzis qui a déjà sauvé des migrants en perdition et ne s’arrêtera pas : « Il y a des immigrés, tous les jours il y en a. De Libye, de partout. Nous on est des pêcheurs, on essaie de sauver les gens. C’est tout, c’est très simple. Nous on ne va pas s’arrêter, on va sauver d’autres personnes. Ils vont nous mettre en prison, on est là, pas de problème. »

Au-delà du soulagement de voir rentrer les marins au pays, des voix s’élèvent pour crier leur incompréhension. Pour Halima Aissa, présidente de l’Association de recherche des disparus tunisiens à l’étranger, l’action de ce capitaine de pêche ne souffre d’aucune légitimité : « C’est un pêcheur tunisien, mais en tant qu’humaniste, si on trouve des gens qui vont couler en mer, notre droit c’est de les sauver. C’est inhumain de voir des gens mourir et de ne pas les sauver, ça c’est criminel. »

Ces arrestations, certes suivies de libérations, illustrent pourtant la politique du nouveau gouvernement italien, à en croire Romdhane Ben Amor, du Forum tunisien des droits économiques et sociaux qui s’inquiète de cette nouvelle orientation politique : « Ça a commencé par les ONG qui font des opérations de sauvetage dans la Méditerranée et maintenant ça va vers les pêcheurs. C’est un message pour tous ceux qui vont participer aux opérations de sauvetage. Donc on aura plus de danger dans la mer, plus de tragédie dans la mer. » Pendant ce temps, l’enquête devrait se poursuivre encore plusieurs semaines en Italie.

■ Dénoncés par Frontex

Détenus dans une prison d’Agrigente depuis le 29 août, les six pêcheurs tunisiens qui étaient soupçonnés d’aide à l’immigration illégale ont retrouvé leur liberté grâce à la décision du tribunal de réexamen de Palerme. L’équivalent italien du juge des libertés dans le système français.

Le commandant du bateau de pêche, Chamseddine Bourassine, président de l’association des pêcheurs de Zarzis, ville du sud de la Tunisie, avait été arrêté avec les 5 membres d’équipage pour avoir secouru au large de l’île de Lampedusa une embarcation transportant 14 migrants.

C’est un #avion_de_reconnaissance, opérant pour l’agence européenne #Frontex, qui avait repéré leur bateau tractant une barque et averti les autorités italiennes, précise notre correspondante à Rome, Anne Le Nir.

▻http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20180923-pecheurs-tunisiens-incarceres-depuis-fin-aout-sicile-sont-libres

A Zarzis, les pêcheurs sauveurs de migrants menacés par l’Italie

Après l’arrestation le 29 août de six pêcheurs tunisiens à Lampedusa, accusés d’être des passeurs alors qu’ils avaient secouru des migrants, les marins de la petite ville de Zarzis au sud de la Tunisie ont peur des conséquences du sauvetage en mer.

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▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/121118/zarzis-les-pecheurs-sauveurs-de-migrants-menaces-par-l-italie
#pêcheurs_tunisiens

Migrants : quand les pêcheurs tunisiens deviennent sauveteurs

En Méditerranée, le sauvetage des candidats à l’exil et les politiques européennes de protection des frontières ont un impact direct sur le village de pêcheurs de #Zarzis, dans le sud de la Tunisie. Dans le code de la mer, les pêcheurs tout comme les gardes nationaux ont l’obligation de sauver les personnes en détresse en mer. Aujourd’hui, ce devoir moral pousse les pêcheurs à prendre des risques, et à se confronter aux autorités européennes.

Chemssedine Bourassine a été arrêté fin août 2018 avec son équipage par les autorités italiennes. Ce pêcheur était accusé d’avoir fait le passeur de migrants car il avait remorqué un canot de 14 personnes en détresse au large de Lampedusa. Lui arguait qu’il ne faisait que son devoir en les aidant, le canot étant à la dérive, en train de couler, lorsqu’il l’avait trouvé.

Revenu à bon port après trois mois sans son navire, confisqué par les autorités italiennes, cet épisode pèse lourd sur lui et ses compères. Nos reporters Lilia Blaise et Hamdi Tlili sont allés à la rencontre de ces pêcheurs, pour qui la mer est devenue une source d’inquiétudes.

▻https://www.france24.com/fr/20190306-focus-tunisie-migrants-mediterranee-mer-sauvetage-pecheurs

▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKpxQxiJCSc

Les pêcheurs tunisiens, sauveurs d’hommes en Méditerranée

Lorsque Chamseddine Bourassine a vu l’embarcation de 69 migrants à la dérive au large de la Tunisie, il a appelé les secours et continué à pêcher. Mais deux jours plus tard, au moment de quitter la zone, il a bien fallu les embarquer.

Les pêcheurs tunisiens se retrouvent de plus en plus seuls pour secourir les embarcations clandestines quittant la Libye voisine vers l’Italie, en raison des difficultés des ONG en Méditerranée orientale et du désengagement des navires militaires européens.

Le 11 mai, les équipages de M. Bourassine et de trois autres pêcheurs ont ramené à terre les 69 migrants partis cinq jours plus tôt de Zouara dans l’ouest libyen.

« La zone où nous pêchons est un point de passage » entre Zouara et l’île italienne de Lampedusa, souligne Badreddine Mecherek, un patron de pêche de Zarzis (sud), port voisin de la Libye plongée dans le chaos et plaque tournante pour les migrants d’Afrique, mais aussi d’Asie.

Au fil des ans, la plupart des pêcheurs de Zarzis ont ramené des migrants, sauvant des centaines de vies.

Avec la multiplication de départs après l’hiver, les pêcheurs croisent les doigts pour ne être confrontés à des tragédies.

« On prévient d’abord les autorités, mais au final on les sauve nous-mêmes », soupire M. Mecherek, quinquagénaire bougonnant, en bricolant le Asil, son sardinier.

La marine tunisienne, aux moyens limités, se charge surtout d’intercepter les embarcations clandestines dans ses seules eaux territoriales.

Contactées par l’AFP pour commenter, les autorités tunisiennes n’ont pas souhaité s’exprimer. Celles-ci interdisent depuis le 31 mai le débarquement de 75 migrants sauvés de la noyade dans les eaux internationales, sans avancer de raisons.

– « Comme un ange » -

« Tout le monde s’est désengagé », déplore M. Mecherek.

« Si nous trouvons des migrants au deuxième jour (de notre sortie en mer), nous avons pu travailler une nuit, mais si nous tombons sur eux dès la première nuit, il faut rentrer », ajoute-t-il. « C’est très compliqué de terminer le travail avec des gens à bord ».

La situation est particulièrement complexe quand les pêcheurs tombent sur des migrants à proximité de l’Italie.

M. Bourassine, qui a voulu rapprocher des côtes italiennes une embarcation en détresse mi-2018 au large de Lampedusa, a été emprisonné quatre semaines avec son équipage en Sicile et son bateau confisqué pendant de longs mois.

Ces dernières années, les navires des ONG et ceux de l’opération antipasseurs européenne Sophia étaient intervenus pour secourir les migrants. Mais les opérations ont pâti en 2019 de la réduction du champ d’action de Sophia et des démarches contre les ONG des Etats européens cherchant à limiter l’arrivée des migrants.

« Avec leurs moyens, c’était eux qui sauvaient les gens, on arrivait en deuxième ligne. Maintenant le plus souvent on est les premiers, et si on n’est pas là, les migrants meurent », affirme M. Mecherek.

C’est ce qui est arrivé le 10 mai. Un chalutier a repêché de justesse 16 migrants ayant passé huit heures dans l’eau. Une soixantaine s’étaient noyés avant son arrivée.

Ahmed Sijur, l’un des miraculés, se souvient de l’arrivée du bateau, comme « un ange ».

« J’étais en train d’abandonner mais Dieu a envoyé des pêcheurs pour nous sauver. S’ils étaient arrivés dix minutes plus tard, je crois que j’aurais lâché », explique ce Bangladais de 30 ans.

– « Pas des gens » ! -

M. Mecherek est fier mais inquiet. « On aimerait ne plus voir tous ces cadavres. On va pêcher du poisson, pas des gens » !.

« J’ai 20 marins à bord, il disent +qui va faire manger nos familles, les clandestins ?+ Et ils ont peur des maladies, parfois des migrants ont passé 15-20 jours en mer, ils ne se sont pas douchés, il y a des odeurs, c’est compliqué ». « Mais nos pêcheurs ne laisseront jamais des gens mourir ».

Pour Mongi Slim, responsable du Croissant-Rouge tunisien, « les pêcheurs font pratiquement les gendarmes de la mer et peuvent alerter. Des migrants nous disent que certains gros bateaux passent » sans leur porter secours.

Même les gros thoniers de Zarzis, sous pression pour pêcher leur quota en une sortie annuelle, reconnaissent éviter parfois d’embarquer les migrants mais assurent qu’ils ne les abandonnent pas sans secours.

« On signale les migrants, mais on ne peut pas les ramener à terre : on n’a que quelques semaines pour pêcher notre quota », souligne un membre d’équipage.

Double peine pour les sardiniers : les meilleurs coins de pêche au large de l’ouest libyen leur sont inaccessibles car les gardes-côtes et les groupes armés les tiennent à l’écart.

« Ils sont armés et ils ne rigolent pas », explique M. Mecherek. « Des pêcheurs se sont fait arrêter », ajoute-t-il, « nous sommes des témoins gênants ».

Pour M. Bourassine « l’été s’annonce difficile : avec la reprise des combats en Libye, les trafiquants sont de nouveau libres de travailler, il risque d’y avoir beaucoup de naufrages ».

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Les pêcheurs tunisiens, désormais en première ligne pour sauver les migrants en Méditerranée

https://img.lemde.fr/2019/06/17/0/0/4960/3292/688/0/60/0/059fdd9_gvvs7HAlCrkfvNExepdSiZMq.jpg

Les embarcations en péril sont quasiment vouées à l’abandon avec le recul forcé des opérations de sauvetage des ONG et de la lutte contre les passeurs.

Lorsque Chamseddine Bourassine a vu l’embarcation de 69 migrants à la dérive au large de la Tunisie, il a appelé les secours et continué à pêcher. Mais, deux jours plus tard, au moment de quitter la zone, il a bien fallu les embarquer puisque personne ne leur était venu en aide.

Les pêcheurs tunisiens se retrouvent de plus en plus seuls pour secourir les embarcations clandestines quittant la Libye voisine vers l’Italie, en raison des difficultés des ONG en Méditerranée orientale et du désengagement des navires militaires européens.

Le 11 mai, les équipages de M. Bourassine et de trois autres pêcheurs ont ramené à terre les 69 migrants partis cinq jours plus tôt de Zouara, dans l’Ouest libyen. « La zone où nous pêchons est un point de passage » entre Zouara et l’île italienne de Lampedusa, explique Badreddine Mecherek, un patron de pêche de Zarzis (sud). Le port est voisin de la Libye, plongée dans le chaos et plaque tournante pour les migrants d’Afrique, mais aussi d’Asie.
« Tout le monde s’est désengagé »

Au fil des ans, la plupart des pêcheurs de Zarzis ont ramené des migrants, sauvant des centaines de vies. Avec la multiplication de départs après l’hiver, les pêcheurs croisent les doigts pour ne pas être confrontés à des tragédies. « On prévient d’abord les autorités, mais au final on les sauve nous-mêmes », soupire M. Mecherek, quinquagénaire bougonnant, en bricolant le Asil, son sardinier.

La marine tunisienne, aux moyens limités, se charge surtout d’intercepter les embarcations clandestines dans ses seules eaux territoriales. Contactées par l’AFP pour commenter, les autorités tunisiennes n’ont pas souhaité s’exprimer. Celles-ci interdisent depuis le 31 mai le débarquement de 75 migrants sauvés de la noyade dans les eaux internationales, sans avancer de raisons.

« Tout le monde s’est désengagé, déplore M. Mecherek. Si nous trouvons des migrants au deuxième jour de notre sortie en mer, cela nous laisse le temps de travailler une nuit. Mais si nous tombons sur eux dès la première nuit, il faut rentrer. C’est très compliqué de terminer le travail avec des gens à bord. »

La situation est particulièrement complexe quand les pêcheurs tombent sur des migrants à proximité de l’Italie. M. Bourassine, qui avait voulu rapprocher des côtes italiennes une embarcation en détresse mi-2018 au large de Lampedusa, a été emprisonné quatre semaines en Sicile avec son équipage et son bateau, confisqué pendant de longs mois.
« Un ange »

Ces dernières années, les navires des ONG et ceux de l’opération européenne antipasseurs Sophia intervenaient pour secourir les migrants. Mais ces manœuvres de sauvetage ont pâti en 2019 de la réduction du champ d’action de Sophia et des démarches engagées contre les ONG par des Etats européens qui cherchent à limiter l’arrivée des migrants.

« Avec leurs moyens, c’était eux qui sauvaient les gens, on arrivait en deuxième ligne. Maintenant, le plus souvent, on est les premiers, et si on n’est pas là, les migrants meurent », affirme M. Mecherek.

C’est ce qui est arrivé le 10 mai. Un chalutier a repêché de justesse 16 migrants ayant passé huit heures dans l’eau. Une soixantaine d’entre eux s’étaient noyés avant son arrivée.

Ahmed Sijur, l’un des miraculés, se souvient de l’arrivée du bateau, comme d’« un ange ». « J’étais en train d’abandonner, mais Dieu a envoyé des pêcheurs pour nous sauver. S’ils étaient arrivés dix minutes plus tard, je crois que j’aurais lâché », explique ce Bangladais de 30 ans.

M. Mecherek est fier mais inquiet : « On aimerait ne plus voir tous ces cadavres. On va pêcher du poisson, pas des gens ! ». « J’ai vingt marins à bord, explique-t-il encore. Ils disent “Qui va faire manger nos familles, les clandestins ?” Et ils ont peur des maladies, parfois des migrants ont passé quinze à vingt jours en mer, ils ne se sont pas douchés. C’est compliqué, mais nos pêcheurs ne laisseront jamais des gens mourir. » Les petits chalutiers ont donc pris l’habitude d’emporter de nombreux gilets de sauvetage avant leur départ en mer.
« L’été s’annonce difficile »

Pour Mongi Slim, responsable du Croissant-Rouge tunisien, « les pêcheurs sont devenus en pratique les gendarmes de la mer et peuvent alerter. Des migrants nous disent que certains gros bateaux passent » sans leur porter secours.

Les gros thoniers de Zarzis, sous pression pour pêcher leur quota en une seule sortie annuelle, reconnaissent éviter parfois d’embarquer les migrants, mais assurent qu’ils ne les abandonnent pas sans secours. « On signale les migrants, mais on ne peut pas les ramener à terre : on n’a que quelques semaines pour pêcher notre quota », explique un membre d’équipage.

Double peine pour les sardiniers : les meilleurs coins de pêche au large de l’Ouest libyen leur sont devenus inaccessibles, car les garde-côtes et les groupes armés les tiennent à l’écart. « Ils sont armés et ils ne rigolent pas, témoigne M. Mecherek. Des pêcheurs se sont fait arrêter. Nous sommes des témoins gênants. »

Pour M. Bourassine, « l’été s’annonce difficile : avec la reprise des combats en Libye, les trafiquants sont de nouveau libres de travailler, il risque d’y avoir beaucoup de naufrages ».

►https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/06/17/les-pecheurs-tunisiens-desormais-en-premiere-ligne-pour-sauver-les-migrants-

#Sarah_Mardini #délit_de_solidarité #Lesbos #Grèce

#gorafi_encore_plagie
Mais en vrai, comment dire... Plus envie de rire.

GRÈCE : LA POLICE ARRÊTE 30 MEMBRES D’UNE ONG D’AIDE AUX RÉFUGIÉS

La police a arrêté, mardi 28 août, 30 membres de l’ONG grecque #ERCI, dont les soeurs syriennes Yusra et Sarah Mardini, qui avaient sauvé la vie à 18 personnes en 2015. Les militant.e.s sont accusés d’avoir aidé des migrants à entrer illégalement sur le territoire grec via l’île de Lesbos. Ils déclarent avoir agi dans le cadre de l’assistance à personnes en danger.

Par Marina Rafenberg

L’ONG grecque Emergency response centre international (ERCY) était présente sur l’île de Lesbos depuis 2015 pour venir en aide aux réfugiés. Depuis mardi 28 août, ses 30 membres sont poursuivis pour avoir « facilité l’entrée illégale d’étrangers sur le territoire grec » en vue de gains financiers, selon le communiqué de la police grecque.

L’enquête a commencé en février 2018, rapporte le site d’information protagon.gr, lorsqu’une Jeep portant une fausse plaque d’immatriculation de l’armée grecque a été découverte par la police sur une plage, attendant l’arrivée d’une barque pleine de réfugiés en provenance de Turquie. Les membres de l’ONG, six Grecs et 24 ressortissants étrangers, sont accusés d’avoir été informés à l’avance par des personnes présentes du côté turc des heures et des lieux d’arrivée des barques de migrants, d’avoir organisé l’accueil de ces réfugiés sans en informer les autorités locales et d’avoir surveillé illégalement les communications radio entre les autorités grecques et étrangères, dont Frontex, l’agence européenne des gardes-cotes et gardes-frontières. Les crimes pour lesquels ils sont inculpés – participation à une organisation criminelle, violation de secrets d’État et recel – sont passibles de la réclusion à perpétuité.

Parmi les membres de l’ONG grecque arrêtés se trouve Yusra et Sarah Mardini, deux sœurs nageuses et réfugiées syrienne qui avaient sauvé 18 personnes de la noyade lors de leur traversée de la mer Égée en août 2015. Depuis Yusra a participé aux Jeux Olympiques de Rio, est devenue ambassadrice de l’ONU et a écrit un livre, Butterfly. Sarah avait quant à elle décidé d’aider à son tour les réfugiés qui traversaient dangereusement la mer Égée sur des bateaux de fortune et s’était engagée comme bénévole dans l’ONG ERCI durant l’été 2016.

Sarah a été arrêtée le 21 août à l’aéroport de Lesbos alors qu’elle devait rejoindre Berlin où elle vit avec sa famille. Le 3 septembre, elle devait commencer son année universitaire au collège Bard en sciences sociales. La jeune Syrienne de 23 ans a été transférée à la prison de Korydallos, à Athènes, dans l’attente de son procès. Son avocat a demandé mercredi sa remise en liberté.

Ce n’est pas la première fois que des ONG basées à Lesbos ont des soucis avec la justice grecque. Des membres de l’ONG espagnole Proem-Aid avaient aussi été accusés d’avoir participé à l’entrée illégale de réfugiés sur l’île. Ils ont été relaxés en mai dernier. D’après le ministère de la Marine, 114 ONG ont été enregistrées sur l’île, dont les activités souvent difficilement contrôlables inquiètent le gouvernement grec et ses partenaires européens.

►https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/Une-ONG-accusee-d-aide-a-l-entree-irreguliere-de-migrants

#grèce #asile #migrations #réfugiés #solidarité #délit_de_solidarité

▻http://www.unhcr.org/news/videos/2016/6/575150247/teamrefugees-yusra-mardini.html

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Arrest of Syrian ’hero swimmer’ puts Lesbos refugees back in spotlight

Sara Mardini’s case adds to fears that rescue work is being criminalised and raises questions about NGO.

Greece’s high-security #Korydallos prison acknowledges that #Sara_Mardini is one of its rarer inmates. For a week, the Syrian refugee, a hero among human rights defenders, has been detained in its women’s wing on charges so serious they have elicited baffled dismay.

The 23-year-old, who saved 18 refugees in 2015 by swimming their waterlogged dingy to the shores of Lesbos with her Olympian sister, is accused of people smuggling, espionage and membership of a criminal organisation – crimes allegedly committed since returning to work with an NGO on the island. Under Greek law, Mardini can be held in custody pending trial for up to 18 months.

“She is in a state of disbelief,” said her lawyer, Haris Petsalnikos, who has petitioned for her release. “The accusations are more about criminalising humanitarian action. Sara wasn’t even here when these alleged crimes took place but as charges they are serious, perhaps the most serious any aid worker has ever faced.”

Mardini’s arrival to Europe might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the extraordinary courage she and younger sister, Yusra, exhibited guiding their boat to safety after the engine failed during the treacherous crossing from Turkey. Both were elite swimmers, with Yusra going on to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

The sisters, whose story is the basis of a forthcoming film by the British director Stephen Daldry, were credited with saving the lives of their fellow passengers. In Germany, their adopted homeland, the pair has since been accorded star status.

It was because of her inspiring story that Mardini was approached by Emergency Response Centre International, ERCI, on Lesbos. “After risking her own life to save 18 people … not only has she come back to ground zero, but she is here to ensure that no more lives get lost on this perilous journey,” it said after Mardini agreed to join its ranks in 2016.

After her first stint with ERCI, she again returned to Lesbos last December to volunteer with the aid group. And until 21 August there was nothing to suggest her second spell had not gone well. But as Mardini waited at Mytilini airport to head back to Germany, and a scholarship at Bard College in Berlin, she was arrested. Soon after that, police also arrested ERCI’s field director, Nassos Karakitsos, a former Greek naval force officer, and Sean Binder, a German volunteer who lives in Ireland. All three have protested their innocence.

The arrests come as signs of a global clampdown on solidarity networks mount. From Russia to Spain, European human rights workers have been targeted in what campaigners call an increasingly sinister attempt to silence civil society in the name of security.

“There is the concern that this is another example of civil society being closed down by the state,” said Jonathan Cooper, an international human rights lawyer in London. “What we are really seeing is Greek authorities using Sara to send a very worrying message that if you volunteer for refugee work you do so at your peril.”

But amid concerns about heavy-handed tactics humanitarians face, Greek police say there are others who see a murky side to the story, one ofpeople trafficking and young volunteers being duped into participating in a criminal network unwittingly. In that scenario,the Mardini sisters would make prime targets.

Greek authorities spent six months investigating the affair. Agents were flown into Lesbos from Athens and Thessaloniki. In an unusually long and detailed statement, last week, Mytilini police said that while posing as a non-profit organisation, ERCI had acted with the sole purpose of profiteering by bringing people illegally into Greece via the north-eastern Aegean islands.

Members had intercepted Greek and European coastguard radio transmissions to gain advance notification of the location of smugglers’ boats, police said, and that 30, mostly foreign nationals, were lined up to be questioned in connection with the alleged activities. Other “similar organisations” had also collaborated in what was described as “an informal plan to confront emergency situations”, they added.

Suspicions were first raised, police said, when Mardini and Binder were stopped in February driving a former military 4X4 with false number plates. ERCI remained unnamed until the release of the charge sheets for the pair and that of Karakitsos.

Lesbos has long been on the frontline of the refugee crisis, attracting idealists and charity workers. Until a dramatic decline in migration numbers via the eastern Mediterranean in March 2016, when a landmark deal was signed between the EU and Turkey, the island was the main entry point to Europe.

An estimated 114 NGOs and 7,356 volunteers are based on Lesbos, according to Greek authorities. Local officials talk of “an industry”, and with more than 10,000 refugees there and the mood at boiling point, accusations of NGOs acting as a “pull factor” are rife.

“Sara’s motive for going back this year was purely humanitarian,” said Oceanne Fry, a fellow student who in June worked alongside her at a day clinic in the refugee reception centre.

“At no point was there any indication of illegal activity by the group … but I can attest to the fact that, other than our intake meeting, none of the volunteers ever met, or interacted, with its leadership.”

The mayor of Lesbos, Spyros Galinos, said he has seen “good and bad” in the humanitarian movement since the start of the refugee crisis.

“Everything is possible,. There is no doubt that some NGOs have exploited the situation. The police announcement was uncommonly harsh. For a long time I have been saying that we just don’t need all these NGOs. When the crisis erupted, yes, the state was woefully unprepared but now that isn’t the case.”

Attempts to contact ERCI were unsuccessful. Neither a telephone number nor an office address – in a scruffy downtown building listed by the aid group on social media – appeared to have any relation to it.

In a statement released more than a week after Mardini’s arrest, ERCI denied the allegations, saying it had fallen victim to “unfounded claims, accusations and charges”. But it failed to make any mention of Mardini.

“It makes no sense at all,” said Amed Khan, a New York financier turned philanthropist who has donated boats for ERCI’s search and rescue operations. To accuse any of them of human trafficking is crazy.

“In today’s fortress Europe you have to wonder whether Brussels isn’t behind it, whether this isn’t a concerted effort to put a chill on civil society volunteers who are just trying to help. After all, we’re talking about grassroots organisations with global values that stepped up into the space left by authorities failing to do their bit.”

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dfda97afb0be8069e54daa62e04af602207ce7fa/0_22_5450_3271/master/5450.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=a40a6f7b27a13e3db90966ebc0b4f4ef#.jpg https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/02bbfb68eeac0b7263a24ed2b1671bfe29593e30/0_0_3543_2126/master/3543.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=dc6f681ac5d87bcac57d7463fb0d07d4#.jpg

#Sarah_Mardini

The volunteers facing jail for rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean

The risk of refugees and migrants drowning in the Mediterranean has increased dramatically over the past few years.

As the European Union pursued a policy of externalisation, voluntary groups stepped in to save the thousands of people making the dangerous crossing. One by one, they are now criminalised.

The arrest of Sarah Mardini, one of two Syrian sisters who saved a number of refugees in 2015 by pulling their sinking dinghy to Greece, has brought the issue to international attention.

The Trial

There aren’t chairs enough for the people gathered in Mytilíni Court. Salam Aldeen sits front row to the right. He has a nervous smile on his face, mouth half open, the tongue playing over his lips.

Noise emanates from the queue forming in the hallway as spectators struggle for a peak through the door’s windows. The morning heat is already thick and moist – not helped by the two unplugged fans hovering motionless in dead air.

Police officers with uneasy looks, 15 of them, lean up against the cooling walls of the court. From over the judge, a golden Jesus icon looks down on the assembly. For the sunny holiday town on Lesbos, Greece, this is not a normal court proceeding.

Outside the court, international media has unpacked their cameras and unloaded their equipment. They’ve come from the New York Times, Deutsche Welle, Danish, Greek and Spanish media along with two separate documentary teams.

There is no way of knowing when the trial will end. Maybe in a couple of days, some of the journalists say, others point to the unpredictability of the Greek judicial system. If the authorities decide to make a principle out of the case, this could take months.

Salam Aldeen, in a dark blue jacket, white shirt and tie, knows this. He is charged with human smuggling and faces life in jail.

More than 16,000 people have drowned in less than five years trying to cross the Mediterranean. That’s an average of ten people dying every day outside Europe’s southern border – more than the Russia-Ukraine conflict over the same period.

In 2015, when more than one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean, the official death toll was around 3,700. A year later, the number of migrants dropped by two thirds – but the death toll increased to more than 5,000. With still fewer migrants crossing during 2017 and the first half of 2018, one would expect the rate of surviving to pick up.

The numbers, however, tell a different story. For a refugee setting out to cross the Mediterranean today, the risk of drowning has significantly increased.

The deaths of thousands of people don’t happen in a vacuum. And it would be impossible to explain the increased risks of crossing without considering recent changes in EU-policies towards migration in the Mediterranean.

The criminalisation of a Danish NGO-worker on the tiny Greek island of Lesbos might help us understand the deeper layers of EU immigration policy.

The deterrence effect

On 27 March 2011, 72 migrants flee Tripoli and squeeze into a 12m long rubber dinghy with a max capacity of 25 people. They start the outboard engine and set out in the Mediterranean night, bound for the Italian island of Lampedusa. In the morning, they are registered by a French aircraft flying over. The migrants stay on course. But 18 hours into their voyage, they send out a distress-call from a satellite phone. The signal is picked up by the rescue centre in Rome who alerts other vessels in the area.

Two hours later, a military helicopter flies over the boat. At this point, the migrants accidentally drop their satellite phone in the sea. In the hours to follow, the migrants encounter several fishing boats – but their call of distress is ignored. As day turns into night, a second helicopter appears and drops rations of water and biscuits before leaving.

And then, the following morning on 28 March – the migrants run out of fuel. Left at the mercy of wind and oceanic currents, the migrants embark on a hopeless journey. They drift south; exactly where they came from.

They don’t see any ships the following day. Nor the next; a whole week goes by without contact to the outside world. But then, somewhere between 3 and 5 April, a military vessel appears on the horizon. It moves in on the migrants and circle their boat.

The migrants, exhausted and on the brink of despair, wave and signal distress. But as suddenly as it arrived, the military vessel turns around and disappears. And all hope with it.

On April 10, almost a week later, the migrant vessel lands on a beach south of Tripoli. Of the 72 passengers who left 2 weeks ago, only 11 make it back alive. Two die shortly hereafter.

Lorenzo Pezzani, lecturer at Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths University of London, was stunned when he read about the case. In 2011, he was still a PhD student developing new spatial and aesthetic visual tools to document human rights violations. Concerned with the rising number of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean, Lorenzo Pezzani and his colleague Charles Heller founded Forensic Oceanography, an affiliated group to Forensic Architecture. Their first project was to uncover the events and policies leading to a vessel left adrift in full knowledge by international rescue operations.

It was the public outrage fuelled by the 2013 Lampedusa shipwreck which eventually led to the deployment of Operation Mare Nostrum. At this point, the largest migration of people since the Second World War, the Syrian exodus, could no longer be contained within Syria’s neighbouring countries. At the same time, a relative stability in Libya after the fall of Gaddafi in 2011 descended into civil war; waves of migrants started to cross the Mediterranean.

From October 2013, Mare Nostrum broke with the reigning EU-policy of non-interference and deployed Italian naval vessels, planes and helicopters at a monthly cost of €9.5 million. The scale was unprecedented; saving lives became the political priority over policing and border control. In terms of lives saved, the operation was an undisputed success. Its own life, however, would be short.

A critical narrative formed on the political right and was amplified by sections of the media: Mare Nostrum was accused of emboldening Libyan smugglers who – knowing rescue ships were waiting – would send out more migrants. In this understanding, Mare Nostrum constituted a so-called “pull factor” on migrants from North African countries. A year after its inception, Mare Nostrum was terminated.

In late 2014, Mare Nostrum was replaced by Operation Triton led by Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, with an initial budget of €2.4 million per month. Triton refocused on border control instead of sea rescues in an area much closer to Italian shores. This was a return to the pre-Mare Nostrum policy of non-assistance to deter migrants from crossing. But not only did the change of policy fail to act as a deterrence against the thousands of migrants still crossing the Mediterranean, it also left a huge gap between the amount of boats in distress and operational rescue vessels. A gap increasingly filled by merchant vessels.

Merchant vessels, however, do not have the equipment or training to handle rescues of this volume. On 31 March 2015, the shipping community made a call to EU-politicians warning of a “terrible risk of further catastrophic loss of life as ever-more desperate people attempt this deadly sea crossing”. Between 1 January and 20 May 2015, merchant ships rescued 12.000 people – 30 per cent of the total number rescued in the Mediterranean.

As the shipping community had already foreseen, the new policy of non-assistance as deterrence led to several horrific incidents. These culminated in two catastrophic shipwrecks on 12 and 18 April 2015 and the death of 1,200 people. In both cases, merchant vessels were right next to the overcrowded migrant boats when chaotic rescue attempts caused the migrant boats to take in water and eventually sink. The crew of the merchant vessels could only watch as hundreds of people disappeared in the ocean.

Back in 1990, the Dublin Convention declared that the first EU-country an asylum seeker enters is responsible for accepting or rejecting the claim. No one in 1990 had expected the Syrian exodus of 2015 – nor the gigantic pressure it would put on just a handful of member states. No other EU-member felt the ineptitudes and total unpreparedness of the immigration system than a country already knee-deep in a harrowing economic crisis. That country was Greece.

In September 2015, when the world saw the picture of a three-year old Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, washed up on a beach in Turkey, Europe was already months into what was readily called a “refugee crisis”. Greece was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the Syrian war. During the following month alone, a staggering 200.000 migrants crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to reach Europe. With a minimum of institutional support, it was volunteers like Salam Aldeen who helped reduce the overall number of casualties.

The peak of migrants entered Greece that autumn but huge numbers kept arriving throughout the winter – in worsening sea conditions. Salam Aldeen recalls one December morning on Lesbos.

The EU-Turkey deal

And then, from one day to the next, the EU-Turkey deal changed everything. There was a virtual stop of people crossing from Turkey to Greece. From a perspective of deterrence, the agreement was an instant success. In all its simplicity, Turkey had agreed to contain and prevent refugees from reaching the EU – by land or by sea. For this, Turkey would be given a monetary compensation.

But opponents of the deal included major human rights organisations. Simply paying Turkey a formidable sum of money (€6 billion to this date) to prevent migrants from reaching EU-borders was feared to be a symptom of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ attitude pervasive among EU decision makers. Moreover, just like Libya in 2015 threatened to flood Europe with migrants, the Turkish President Erdogan would suddenly have a powerful geopolitical card on his hands. A concern that would later be confirmed by EU’s vague response to Erdogan’s crackdown on Turkish opposition.

As immigration dwindled in Greece, the flow of migrants and refugees continued and increased in the Central Mediterranean during the summer of 2016. At the same time, disorganised Libyan militias were now running the smuggling business and exploited people more ruthlessly than ever before. Migrant boats without satellite phones or enough provision or fuel became increasingly common. Due to safety concerns, merchant vessels were more reluctant to assist in rescue operations. The death toll increased.
A Conspiracy?

Frustrated with the perceived apathy of EU states, Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) responded to the situation. At its peak, 12 search and rescue NGO vessels were operating in the Mediterranean and while the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) paused many of its operations during the fall and winter of 2016, the remaining NGO vessels did the bulk of the work. Under increasingly dangerous weather conditions, 47 per cent of all November rescues were carried out by NGOs.

Around this time, the first accusations were launched against rescue NGOs from ‘alt-right’ groups. Accusations, it should be noted, conspicuously like the ones sounded against Mare Nostrum. Just like in 2014, Frontex and EU-politicians followed up and accused NGOs of posing a “pull factor”. The now Italian vice-prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, went even further and denounced NGOs as “taxis for migrants”. Just like in 2014, no consideration was given to the conditions in Libya.

Moreover, NGOs were falsely accused of collusion with Libyan smugglers. Meanwhile Italian agents had infiltrated the crew of a Save the Children rescue vessel to uncover alleged secret evidence of collusion. The German Jugendrettet NGO-vessel, Iuventa, was impounded and – echoing Salam Aldeen’s case in Greece – the captain accused of collusion with smugglers by Italian authorities.

The attacks to delegitimise NGOs’ rescue efforts have had a clear effect: many of the NGOs have now effectively stopped their operations in the Mediterranean. Lorenzo Pezzani and Charles Heller, in their report, Mare Clausum, argued that the wave of delegitimisation of humanitarian work was just one part of a two-legged strategy – designed by the EU – to regain control over the Mediterranean.
Migrants’ rights aren’t human rights

Libya long ago descended into a precarious state of lawlessness. In the maelstrom of poverty, war and despair, migrants and refugees have become an exploitable resource for rivalling militias in a country where two separate governments compete for power.

In November 2017, a CNN investigation exposed an entire industry involving slave auctions, rape and people being worked to death.

Chief spokesman of the UN Migration Agency, Leonard Doyle, describes Libya as a “torture archipelago” where migrants transiting have no idea that they are turned into commodities to be bought, sold and discarded when they have no more value.

Migrants intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) are routinely brought back to the hellish detention centres for indefinite captivity. Despite EU-leaders’ moral outcry following the exposure of the conditions in Libya, the EU continues to be instrumental in the capacity building of the LCG.

Libya hadn’t had a functioning coast guard since the fall of Gaddafi in 2011. But starting in late 2016, the LCG received increasing funding from Italy and the EU in the form of patrol boats, training and financial support.

Seeing the effect of the EU-Turkey deal in deterring refugees crossing the Aegean Sea, Italy and the EU have done all in their power to create a similar approach in Libya.
The EU Summit

Forty-two thousand undocumented migrants have so far arrived at Europe’s shores this year. That’s a fraction of the more than one million who arrived in 2015. But when EU leaders met at an “emergency summit” in Brussels in late June, the issue of migration was described by Chancellor Merkel as a “make or break” for the Union. How does this align with the dwindling numbers of refugees and migrants?

Data released in June 2018 showed that Europeans are more concerned about immigration than any other social challenge. More than half want a ban on migration from Muslim countries. Europe, it seems, lives in two different, incompatible realities as summit after summit tries to untie the Gordian knot of the migration issue.

Inside the courthouse in Mytilini, Salam Aldeen is questioned by the district prosecutor. The tropical temperature induces an echoing silence from the crowded spectators. The district prosecutor looks at him, open mouth, chin resting on her fist.

She seems impatient with the translator and the process of going from Greek to English and back. Her eyes search the room. She questions him in detail about the night of arrest. He answers patiently. She wants Salam Aldeen and the four crew members to be found guilty of human smuggling.

Salam Aldeen’s lawyer, Mr Fragkiskos Ragkousis, an elderly white-haired man, rises before the court for his final statement. An ancient statuette with his glasses in one hand. Salam’s parents sit with scared faces, they haven’t slept for two days; the father’s comforting arm covers the mother’s shoulder. Then, like a once dormant volcano, the lawyer erupts in a torrent of pathos and logos.

“Political interests changed the truth and created this wicked situation, playing with the defendant’s freedom and honour.”

He talks to the judge as well as the public. A tragedy, a drama unfolds. The prosecutor looks remorseful, like a small child in her large chair, almost apologetic. Defeated. He’s singing now, Ragkousis. Index finger hits the air much like thunder breaks the night sounding the roar of something eternal. He then sits and the room quiets.

It was “without a doubt” that the judge acquitted Salam Aldeen and his four colleagues on all charges. The prosecutor both had to determine the defendants’ intention to commit the crime – and that the criminal action had been initialised. She failed at both. The case, as the Italian case against the Iuventa, was baseless.

But EU’s policy of externalisation continues. On 17 March 2018, the ProActiva rescue vessel, Open Arms, was seized by Italian authorities after it had brought back 217 people to safety.

Then again in June, the decline by Malta and Italy’s new right-wing government to let the Aquarious rescue-vessel dock with 629 rescued people on board sparked a fierce debate in international media.

In July, Sea Watch’s Moonbird, a small aircraft used to search for migrant boats, was prevented from flying any more operations by Maltese authorities; the vessel Sea Watch III was blocked from leaving harbour and the captain of a vessel from the NGO Mission Lifeline was taken to court over “registration irregularities“.

Regardless of Europe’s future political currents, geopolitical developments are only likely to continue to produce refugees worldwide. Will the EU alter its course as the crisis mutates and persists? Or are the deaths of thousands the only possible outcome?

▻https://theferret.scot/volunteers-facing-jail-rescuing-migrants-mediterranean

v. aussi :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/778722

Avec un très long texte paru dans Open Democraty, qui vient éclairer utilement la vidéo :

Time to end the EU’s left-to-die policy | openDemocracy
▻http://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/charles-heller-lorenzo-pezzani/time-to-end-eu%E2%80%99s-lefttodie-policy

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Time to end the EU’s left-to-die policy
Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani 25 June 2014

Researchers participating in the reconstruction of the 2011 “Left-to-die boat” case in which 63 migrants lost their life under NATO’s eyes, summarize three years of inconclusive demands for disclosure and justice. As the European Council addresses the EU’s long-term migration policy, they say deaths of migrants at sea will continue short of ending the EU’s policy of closure towards non-European migrants.

Two years ago, we published a report on what came to be known as the “left-to-die” boat case.

Two years ago, we published a report on what came to be known as the “left-to-die” boat case. Co-authored with the architectural office SITU Studio, the report used imaging, mapping, and modelling technologies in order to produce a visual and spatial picture of how, in March 2011, sixty-three migrants lost their lives in the Central Mediterranean while attempting to reach the small Italian island of Lampedusa from the coast of Libya.

Fatal Journeys Volume 3 Part 1: Improving Data on Missing Migrants

Since 2014, more than 22,500 migrant deaths and disappearances have been recorded by the International Organization for Migration globally. The real figure could be much higher, but many deaths are never recorded. Fatal Journeys Volume 3 – Part 1 provides a global review of existing data sources, and illustrates the need for improvements in the ways that data on missing migrants are collected, analysed and communicated.

The report highlights three key ways in which to improve the collection, sharing and reporting of data on missing migrants. First, a growing number of innovative sources of data on missing migrants, such as “big data”, could be used to improve data on migrant fatalities. Second, much more could be done to gather data to increase identification rates, such as developing intraregional mechanisms to share data more effectively. Third, improving data on missing migrants also requires more thought and improved practice in the use and communication of such data. Improving information and reporting on who these missing migrants are, where they come from, and above all, when they are most at risk, is crucial to building a holistic response to reduce the number of migrant deaths.

https://publications.iom.int/sites/default/files/books/fatal_journeys_volume_3_part_1_0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hRzxP6m.png https://i.imgur.com/meKzIfo.png

►https://publications.iom.int/books/fatal-journeys-volume-3-part-1-improving-data-missing-migrants
#données #rapport #médias #journalisme #presse #couverture_médiatique #identification #corps #ceux_qui_restent #fatal_journeys #celleux_qui_restent

Nouveau rapport de l’OIM « Fatal journeys » (publié en 2017)
Fatal Journeys Volume 3 PART 2

https://i.imgur.com/1ezg6Bn.png https://i.imgur.com/ku5UbaM.png https://i.imgur.com/c8QDzex.png https://i.imgur.com/TZTilQi.png https://i.imgur.com/IljLuAu.png https://i.imgur.com/l9nedVQ.png https://i.imgur.com/ZPTp6vz.png https://i.imgur.com/l3Uqck7.png https://i.imgur.com/fbSvE7H.png https://i.imgur.com/nX35Qtz.png

▻https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/fatal_journeys_3_part2.pdf
#cartographie #visualisation

#cartographie #visualisation #Forteresse_Europe

Italy rescues more than 2,000 migrants off Libyan coast

Rome (AFP) - The Italian coastguard launched a massive operation Sunday to rescue more than 2,000 migrants in difficulty between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the Libyan coast, local media said.

▻http://news.yahoo.com/italian-coastguard-rescue-operation-over-1-000-migrants-190703572.html;_

Italians rescue more than 2,000 Mediterranean migrants

The Italian coastguard has rescued more than 2,000 migrants in a major operation off the Libyan coast, officials say.

▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31481792

Strage di Lampedusa, ora si muove l’Ue

«È stata l’Apocalisse. Onde alte otto-nove metri, mare forza sette, con 36 nodi di vento. Gente che tentava in ogni modo di entrare nel vano macchine per ripararsi dal vento e dal gelo. E poi tutti quei migranti che morivano per il freddo, uno dopo l’altro». Ha ancora il terrore negli occhi uno degli uomini a bordo della motovedetta della Guardia costiera che, dopo oltre 26 ore di navigazione, ha raggiunto ieri sera Lampedusa, con 29 cadaveri a bordo. Gli uomini della Capitaneria di porto sono esausti, stanchi. E tristi, perché avrebbero voluto portare i profughi a Lampedusa sani e salvi. Un infermiere dell’Ordine di Malta, Salvatore Caputo, che era a bordo, ha iniziato a mandare sms ai suoi familiari perché temeva di non riuscire a tornare sulla terraferma. Un altro testimone racconta di una lite tra un gruppo di profughi che tentavano di rompere il lucchetto del vano macchine. Momenti di panico. «Mai vista nulla del genere - dicono all’unisono - Con un mare così forte è stato quasi un miracolo essere riusciti a tornare a sani e salvi a Lampedusa». Emozionati anche il sindaco di Lampedusa Giusi Nicolini, il Prefetto Nicola Diomede, il questore di Agrigento Mario Finocchiaro, il comandante provinciale dei carabinieri Mario Mettifogo e quello della guardia di finanza Massimo Sobrà, che hanno voluto ringraziare gli uomini della Guardia costiera «per l’impegno dimostrato in questi difficilissimi momenti».

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Lampedusa, la dottoressa a bordo della motovedetta: «Ho pregato per tutto il viaggio»

Anche i soccorritori hanno temuto per la propria vita e perfino i più esperti sono stati male durante il tragitto, durato al ritorno ben 17 ore. La drammatica testimonianza di Gabriella Lattuca del Corpo italiano di soccorso dell’Ordine di Malta: «le coperte non bastavano, il vento le portava via. Alcuni per scaldarsi si erano infilati nel vano del gasolio e ci siamo dovuti fermare»

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Quanti morti servono ancora per spingerci a reagire?

I ventinove cadaveri portati a Lampedusa dalle motovedette della guardia costiera devono interrogare le nostre coscienze. Perché non sono morti affogati, ma di freddo. E non sono morti in attesa dei soccorsi, ma dopo, sui mezzi che li trasportavano a terra.

▻http://www.internazionale.it/opinione/stefano-liberti/2015/02/10/lampedusa-migranti-quanti-morti-servono-ancora-per-spingerci-a-reagir

Selon ce qui a été posté par Stefano Liberti sur twitter :

Survivors confirm: more than 200 #migrants died off #Lampedusa

Nine immigrants saved, but 200 die in new tragedy off Lampedusa

An Italian ship has saved nine immigrants off Lampedusa but another 200 are believed to have died, Italian media report today.

The merchant vessel is reported to have taken the nine survivors to Lampedusa today, two days after rescuing them 100 miles off the island.

The survivors told Italian authorities that more than 200 immigrants were on two dinghies which could not withstand the heavy seas and sank.

▻http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-02-11/local-news/Nine-immigrants-saved-but-200-die-in-new-tragedy-off-Lampedusa-67361

300 feared drowned trying to reach Italy

UPDATED: Up to 300 people are feared to have drowned trying to reach Italy, a spokesman for the UN’s refugee agency told The Local on Wednesday.

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Après un nouveau drame en Méditerranée, l’opération #Triton critiquée

L’opération Triton, mise en place depuis le 1er novembre 2014 sous l’égide de l’agence européenne Frontex pour surveiller les routes migratoires vers l’Italie en provenance de Libye et d’Egypte, a connu lundi 9 février son premier et grave dysfonctionnement. Vingt-neuf migrants originaires de l’Afrique subsaharienne sont morts de froid. Leurs corps ont été entreposés dans un hangar de l’aéroport de la petite île de Lampedusa en attendant une hypothétique identification. Ils avaient entre 18 et 25 ans.

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Cronaca nera. Oltre 200 migranti morti, altri 100 alla deriva nel Mediterraneo

Articolo pubblicato dopo la tragedia della Norman Atlantic ma il cui senso e contenuto può essere rivolto alle notizie delle ultime ore e giorni. Dopo i 29 migranti morti assiderati nei giorni scorsi è notizia di queste ultimissime ore: oltre 200 migranti morti, un quarto gommone con oltre 100 persone potrebbe essere ancora alla deriva.

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Naufrage de Lampedusa : « Frontex a fourni des moyens supplémentaires à l’opération de secours »

Alors qu’un nouveau drame a coûté la vie à plusieurs centaines de migrants venus d’Afrique, l’agence #Frontex, chargée depuis Varsovie de surveiller les frontières de l’Europe, est accusée d’inefficacité et d’inadaptation face à la situation. En Méditerranée, son programme, baptisé Triton, assure la surveillance des côtes depuis novembre 2014. Il a remplacé la mission Mare Nostrum, financée par l’Italie et destinée au secours en mer. Entretien avec le directeur exécutif de Frontex, le Français Fabrice Leggeri, en poste depuis le 16 janvier.

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Le communiqué de Frontex sur le naufrage :

Migrants forced to board inflatable rafts at gunpoint

Today the African migrants who survived the traumatic events off the coast of Libya told Frontex debriefing officers that smugglers who organised the operation forced them at gunpoint onto the inflatable rafts.

The interviewed migrants were among the more than 400 people who boarded four dinghies on a beach near Tripoli on Saturday night and headed for Italy. The survivors told officials that the smugglers threatened to shoot on the spot anyone who refused to get into the four inflatable rafts.

The Italian Coast Guard assisted by vessels participating in the Operation Triton rescued 105 people on one of the vessels on Monday, although 29 of them died on hypothermia.

The Coast Guard later redirected two merchant vessels to rescue nine more survivors from the other rafts. The rest of the migrants likely perished in the treacherous winter sea.

“These stories point to an awful crime. The criminals threatened the migrants with violence to board these flimsy rubber boats, knowing very well that the chances of their survival in such difficult weather conditions were slim,” said Frontex Executive Director Fabrice Leggeri. “In this terrifying tragedy one can only wonder whether for these criminal this was a terrible accident, or part of a deliberate strategy”- he concluded.

The Triton operation deploys two offshore patrol vessels and seven patrol boats that monitor Italy’s territorial waters and nearby search and rescue waters, along with one helicopter and two aircraft in the Mediterranean. The two airplanes remain involved in the ongoing search operations for the missing African migrants led by the Italian Coast Guard.

Frontex coordinates border surveillance operations at the external borders of the European Union. Its role is not to replace border control of national authorities, but to provide those EU countries that face an increased migratory pressure with additional technical assistance and border guards. When called upon by the relevant authorities, they take active part in search and rescue operations, as required by maritime law.

▻http://frontex.europa.eu/news/migrants-forced-to-board-inflatable-rafts-at-gunpoint-bvmRKT

More than 300 people on four rubber vessels die in the Central Mediterranean Sea

Four inflatable rubber vessels that together carried over 400 people left a beach close to Tripoli/Libya in order to reach Italy in the night from Saturday 7th to Sunday 8th of February 2015. During their journey the migrants were without food and water and encountered situa-tions of distress due to the very difficult weather conditions. In total, and as far as known, there were merely 86 survivors and more than 324 fatalities.

▻http://watchthemed.net/reports/view/95

#Cucula, da migranti a designer di successo

Nella loro officina berlinese la fuga attraverso il Mediterraneo e la memoria di Lampedusa acquistano un valore differente: la sedia di Cucula, in edizione limitata perché costruita con il legno dei relitti delle barche di Lampedusa, diventa simbolo della campagna di raccolta fondi sul sito di crowdfunding Startnext (50 sedie a 500 euro l’una). (segue)

▻http://www.repubblica.it/rubriche/startup-stories/2015/03/10/foto/cucula_da_migranti_a_designer_di_successo-109205552/1/?ref=HRERO-1#4

http://www.cucula.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CUCULA_Tavolo-Rettangolare-X.jpg http://www.cucula.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CUCULA_Libreira.jpg http://www.cucula.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/CUCULA_Sedia-Due.jpg

Le site de l’entreprise Cucula ("refugee company for crafts and design):
▻http://www.cucula.org/en

Interview avec Gabriele Del Grande :

Brussels, 9 January 2015. Civil disobedience, solidarity and wittiness. The mix has prompted over 70,000 people to watch ‘On the Bride’s Side’ screened in 117 Italian cities, and now starting its international journey to Amsterdam, Brussels, Dubai, Amman and beyond.

Who would stop a bride and her wedding party to check their documents? That is the starting point of this upbeat road movie – the true story of a fake wedding that got five Syrian and Palestinian undocumented refugees and their Italian friends from Milan to Stockholm.

Ana Fontal and Letizia Polizzi of the ECRE Weekly Bulletin have spoken with Gabriele Del Grande, one of the directors of the film. In October 2013, Gabriele and his friends Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry and Tareq Al Jabr met Abdallah Sallam at Porta Garibaldi Station in Milan. Abdallah, one of the survivors of the Lampedusa shipwreck, was trying to get a train to Sweden and would become the groom on the Bride’s Side.

▻http://ecre.org/component/content/article/62-interviews/926

Quand des réfugiés parviennent à traverser l’Europe grâce à un faux cortège nuptial

Khaled, un poète palestinien et Gabriele, un journaliste italien, ont rencontré 5 réfugiés syriens et palestiniens. Pour les aider à rejoindre la Suède, ils ont décidé d’organiser un faux mariage, et ils ont filmé leur périple de 4 jours de Milan à Stockholm.

▻http://www.lesinrocks.com/2015/10/24/actualite/quand-des-refugies-parviennent-a-traverser-leurope-grace-a-un-faux-corte

#réfugiés
–-> la mort de 366 « clandestins »... NON, la majorité des personnes qui arrivent (ou pas, dans ce cas) se sont des REFUGIES de Syrie, Erythrée et Somalie... des personnes, donc, ayant le droit de demander l’asile et d’etre reconnus comme réfugiés. On ne peut donc pas parler de « clandestins »

#AAARRRGHHH #wrong_word #clandestin #terminologie #vocabulaire

L’opération ’Frontex Plus’ diversement appréciée par des organisations
▻http://www.ipsinternational.org/fr/_note.asp?idnews=8007

Les organisations humanitaires en Italie n’ont pas tardé à critiquer ’#Frontex Plus’, affirmant que sa description est encore vague et que son objectif principal n’est pas le sauvetage des #migrants et des #réfugiés, mais l’amélioration de la #surveillance des #frontières et la #dissuasion.

Silvia Canciani, chargée des relations avec la presse de l’Association pour les études juridiques sur l’immigration (ASGI), a déclaré à IPS que son association est « extrêmement préoccupée » parce que la seule certitude au sujet de la nouvelle opération « est que les navires patrouilleront uniquement dans les eaux européennes, à environ deux kilomètres de la côte », ce qui signifie qu’ils ne s’aventureront plus dans les eaux internationales, comme ’Mare Nostrum’, qui opérait à plus de 270 km de la côte italienne.

Elle a ajouté qu’on ne sait pas encore si les autorités italiennes envisagent de reporter, de modifier ou de continuer avec ’Mare Nostrum’ comme elle est, mais un retrait de l’opération pourrait avoir une conséquence directe sur les vies qui sont perdues dans la Méditerranée.

D’autres voix critiques soulignent la façon dont les conservateurs de l’UE voient une opportunité dans les négociations qui vont suivre concernant la nouvelle opération pour capitaliser sur la question du retour des nouveaux migrants vers des pays tiers sûrs ou vers leur pays d’embarquement.

Dans un blog commentant l’annonce de ’Frontex Plus’, le professeur de droit italien, Fulvio Vassalo Paleologo, un chroniqueur bien connu en matière de questions d’immigration dans la région, a fait observer que dans leur annonce conjointe « le mot ’sauvetage’ a disparu du vocabulaire d’Alfano et de Malmström ». Il a également noté qu’aucun d’entre eux n’avaient fait une seule remarque sur les conditions auxquelles les migrants sont confrontés dans les pays de transit.

Les deux personnalités pourraient être des indications que la Commission européenne envisage sérieusement de faire pression pour un contrôle des arrivées de populations en dehors des frontières européennes.