organization:iom

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

In our neighbouring country Bosnia and Herzegovina, the local authorities consider volunteers to disturb public order and peace by helping migrants. As a result, the work of some of them has been banned - you can read more about it in this article: ▻https://www.telegram.hr/politika-kriminal/vlasti-bih-smatraju-da-volonteri-remete-javni-red-i-mir-tako-sto-pomazu-mig. This is the last example of the criminalization of solidarity work, yet it’s not the only one: nowadays Europe is becoming more and more a place of repression towards those who are willing to oppose hate speech and intolerance, promoting and everyday practicing solidarity. You can read more about it in this article: ▻http://novilist.hr/Komentari/Kolumne/Pronadena-zemlja-Borisa-Pavelica/BORIS-PAVELIC-Brigade-bespomocnih?meta_refresh=true.

Reçu via la mailing-list Inicijativa Dobrodošli, le 31.05.2019

Migrants dying in Bosnia: Red Cross

Thousands of migrants and refugees are stranded in Bosnia on their way to Western Europe. They are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. The international Red Cross says some have died while trying to find shelter.

About 6,000 people have entered Bosnia and Herzegovina since the start of the year, according to the country’s security agencies. But all the transit centers, which can accommodate around 3,500 people, are full, forcing thousands to sleep rough.

“People are sleeping in parks, in carparks, on the footpath, and in dangerous buildings,” said Indira Kulenovic, operations manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in Bosnia.

“A few weeks ago, three migrants sheltering in an abandoned building burned to death when a candle they were using caused a fire. Soon after, another fell from the top floor of a building he was sheltering in. Psychological stress among migrants is high – just last week one man set himself on fire in desperation,” Kulenovic said.

https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/690dd2557f57f53a0eff91db3f1ac97f65d4a95e.jpeg

‘Humanitarian crisis’

Bosnia is on the route of thousands of people from Asia and North Africa who try to enter Europe via neighboring Croatia, an EU member state. Last year, about 25,000 people entered Bosnia from Serbia and Montenegro.

Mobile teams from the Bosnian Red Cross society have been handing out food, water, clothes, blankets and first aid to the migrants, as well as trying to provide psychological support.

Red Cross workers are also distributing information about active landmine fields to warn people of the dangers of unexploded bombs. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the most landmine-contaminated countries in Europe.

https://scd.infomigrants.net/media/resize/my_image_big/680831613e7287fc9138d287d58ef938d7a668ce.jpeg

The Red Cross is working in five migrant centers across the country providing meals for 3,000 people a day, as well as clothing, bedding, tents and first aid. Meanwhile, the UN migration agency, IOM, is providing food supplies.

Despite their efforts, the head of the Bosnian Red Cross, Rajko Lazic, says living conditions for many people remain inadequate in the centers and worse for those outside. “The situation has reached a critical point. This is a humanitarian crisis,” Lazic said.

Disease outbreaks

In migrant reception centers, overcrowding has led to an increase in infectious diseases. The Bosnian health minister, Nermina Cemalovic, said on 15 May there were 800 cases of scabies in transit centers in Bihac, one of the western towns where migrants are concentrated.

Health workers have also been trying to prevent an outbreak of measles after aid workers were hospitalized with the disease.

“We are extremely concerned for people on the move in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the IFRC’s Kulenovic said. “They are arriving in poor condition, and many, including children, have walked for weeks. They are hungry, exhausted, sick and cold and traumatized by their journeys. The recent wet weather has just made their journeys worse.”

Kulenovic added that the local population was also suffering from the pressure that extra numbers had put on services, land and property. The IFRC and the Red Cross Society of Bosnia aim to provide food, first aid and other assistance to 7,600 of the most vulnerable migrants as well as cash grants for 1,500 host families during 2019.

▻https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/17218/migrants-dying-in-bosnia-red-cross?ref=tw
#mourir_en_Bosnie #morts #décès #Kljuc #OIM #IOM #Croix-Route

#Rapport : Migration and Remittances

This Migration and Development Brief reports global trends in migration and remittance flows. It highlights developments connected to migration-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators for which the World Bank is a custodian: increasing the volume of remittances as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) (SDG indicator 17.3.2), reducing remittance costs (SDG indicator 10.c.1), and reducing recruitment costs for migrant workers (SDG indicator 10.7.1). This Brief also presents recent developments on the Global Compact on Migration (GCM) and proposes an implementation and review mechanism.

https://i.imgur.com/eYyt81L.png https://i.imgur.com/8TmjzYw.png https://i.imgur.com/Fk0qkEd.png

Pour télécharger le rapport :
▻https://www.knomad.org/sites/default/files/2018-12/Migration%20and%20Development%20Brief%2030%20advance%20copy.pdf

International Remittances Headline ACP-EU-IOM Discussions in #Ghana

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the flow of remittances is on the rise, but the cost to transfer these funds is far higher than the global average, making the region the most expensive place in the world to send money.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) and partners focused on improving the use of migrant remittances, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa at a three-day regional thematic meeting starting today (19/02) in Accra, Ghana.

International remittances have been taking on increasing weight in the global policy agenda in recent years according to Jeffrey Labovitz, IOM Regional Director for East and Horn of Africa, who is speaking at the event.

“This in part reflects the growing understanding that improving and harnessing the flow of remittances can have a substantial impact on development,” he said.

Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa grew from USD 34 billion in 2016 to USD 38 billion in 2017, an increase of over 11 per cent. Despite this increase – a trend which is expected to continue through 2019 – Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most expensive place in the world to send money with an average cost of 9.4 per cent of the transfer amount, a figure that was 29 per cent above the world average in 2017. This is far short of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 10.C.3 to reduce the transaction costs of migrant remittances to less than 3 per cent by 2030.

“Almost 75 per cent of remittances are spent on consumption which greatly benefit the receiving households and communities,” said Claudia Natali, Regional Specialist on Labour Mobility and Development at the IOM Regional Office for West and Central Africa.

“But more could be done to maximize the remaining 25 per cent. Fostering financial inclusion and promoting initiatives that help people manage the funds can go a long way to harness development impacts of remittances,” she added.

The meeting, which runs through Thursday (21/02), is providing a platform for communication, exchange and learning for 80 participants involved in IOM’s “ACP-EU Migration Action", including migration experts and representatives from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) governments, regional organizations, the European Union (EU), UN agencies and NGOs working in remittances and diaspora mobilization.

Given that remittances are at the heart of the joint ACP Group of States and European Union Dialogue’s recommendations on migration, discussions also aim to generate thematic recommendations for the Sub-Saharan region and establish links between the outcomes of the ACP-EU Migration Action programme, and processes relevant to the ACP-EU Dialogue on Migration and Development at the regional and global levels.

The meeting is organized by IOM’s country office for Ghana and the IOM Regional Office in Brussels in partnership with the African Institute for Remittances (AIR) and Making Finance Work for Africa Partnership (MFW4A).

IOM’s ACP-EU Migration Action, launched in June 2014, provides tailored technical support on migration to ACP countries and regional organizations. To date it has received 74 technical assistance requests from 67 ACP governments and 7 regional organizations, a third of which directly concern remittances.

The programme is financed by the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) and supported by the ACP Secretariat and the EU. For more information on the ACP-EU Migration Action, go to: www.acpeumigrationaction.iom.int.

▻https://www.iom.int/news/international-remittances-headline-acp-eu-iom-discussions-ghana

The cost of cross-border payments needs to drop

FOR MOST of human history, sending money across borders has cost the earth. Thankfully for globetrotters and e-shoppers in the rich world, that has changed in the past decade. A shift from cash and travellers’ cheques towards digital payments has cut the cost of moving funds around. And a new generation of fintech firms has broken the stranglehold that big banks used to have on money transfers (see article). As a result, fees have fallen. The cost of a transfer between consumers or small firms who are both in G7 countries can now cost 2% or less. This year some $10trn will pass across borders. As prices fall further, the sums will grow.

https://i.imgur.com/mXevk8S.png

Central America Encourages Migrants to Leave—And Then Rakes in U.S. Dollars

https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/iDbVMLttgPWQ/v1/800x-1.png

#cartoexperiment

Migration: new map of Europe reveals real frontiers for refugees

Since the EU declared a “refugee crisis” in 2015 that was followed by an unprecedented number of deaths in the Mediterranean, maps explaining the routes of migrants to and within Europe have been used widely in newspapers and social media.

Some of these maps came out of refugee projects, while others are produced by global organisations, NGOs and agencies such as Frontex, the European Border and Coastguard Agency, and the International Organisation for Migration’s project, Missing Migrants. The Balkan route, for example, shows the trail along which hundred of thousands of Syrian refugees trekked after their towns and cities were reduced to rubble in the civil war.

However, migration maps tend to produce an image of Europe being “invaded” and overwhelmed by desperate women, men and children in search of asylum. At the same time, migrants’ journeys are represented as fundamentally linear, going from a point A to a point B. But what about the places where migrants have remained stranded for a long time, due to the closure of national borders and the suspension of the Schengen Agreement, which establishes people’s free internal movement in Europe? What memories and impressions remain in the memory of the European citizens of migrants’ passage and presence in their cities? And how is this most recent history of migration in Europe being recorded?

Time and memory

Our collective project, a map archive of Europe’s migrant spaces, engages with with these questions by representing border zones in Europe – places that have functioned as frontiers for fleeing migrants. Some of these border zones, such as Calais, have a long history, while other places have become effective borders for migrants in transit more recently, such as Como in Italy and Menton in France. The result of a collaborative work by researchers in the UK, Greece, Germany, Italy and the US, the project records memories of places in Europe where migrants remained in limbo for a long time, were confronted with violence, or found humanitarian aid, as well as marking sites of organised migrant protest.

All the cities and places represented in this map archive have over time become frontiers and hostile environments for migrants in transit. Take for instance the Italian city of Ventimiglia on the French-Italian border. This became a frontier for migrants heading to France in 2011, when the French government suspended Schengen to deter the passage of migrants who had landed in Lampedusa in Italy in the aftermath of the Tunisian revolution in 2011.

Four years later in 2015, after border controls were loosened, Ventimiglia again became a difficult border to cross, when France suspended Schengen for the second time. But far from being just a place where migrants were stranded and forced to go back, our map archive shows that Ventimiglia also became an important place of collective migrant protest.

Images of migrants on the cliffs holding banners saying “We are not going back” circulated widely in 2015 and became a powerful slogan for other migrant groups across Europe. The most innovative aspect of our map-archive consists in bringing the context of time, showing the transformations of spaces over time into a map about migration that explains the history of border zones over the last decade and how they proliferated across Europe. Every place represented – Paris, Calais, Rome, Lesbos, Kos, and Athens, for example – has been transformed over the years by migrants’ presence.
Which Europe?

This archive project visualises these European sites in a way that differs from the conventional geopolitical map: instead of highlighting national frontiers and cities, it foregrounds places that have been actual borders for migrants in transit and which became sites of protest and struggle. In this way the map archive produces another image of Europe, as a space that has been shaped by the presence migrants – the border violence, confinement and their struggle to advance.

The geopolitical map of Europe is transformed into Europe’s migrant spaces – that is, Europe as it is experienced by migrants and shaped by their presence. So another picture of Europe emerges: a space where migrants’ struggle to stay has contributed to the political history of the continent. In this Europe migrants are subjected to legal restrictions and human rights violations, but at the same time they open up spaces for living, creating community and as a backdrop for their collective struggles.

It is also where they find solidarity with European citizens who have sympathy with their plight. These border zones highlighted by our map have been characterised by alliances between citizens and migrants in transit, where voluntary groups have set up to provide food, shelter and services such as medical and legal support.

So how does this map engage with debate on the “migrant crisis” and the “refugee crisis” in Europe? By imposing a time structure and retracing the history of these ephemeral border zone spaces of struggle, it upends the image of migrants’ presence as something exceptional, as a crisis. The map gives an account of how European cities and border zones have been transformed over time by migrants’ presence.

By providing the history of border zones and recording memories of citizens’ solidarity with migrants in these places, this map dissipates the hardline view of migrants as invaders, intruders and parasites – in other words, as a threat. This way, migrants appear as part of Europe’s unfolding history. Their struggle to stay is now becoming part of Europe’s history.

But the increasing criminalisation of migrant solidarity in Europe is telling of how such collaboration disturbs state policies on containing migrants. This map-archive helps to erode the image of migrants as faceless masses and unruly mobs, bringing to the fore the spaces they create to live and commune in, embraced by ordinary European citizens who defy the politics of control and the violent borders enacted by their states.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/239869/original/file-20181009-72124-1t0ecs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip#.jpg

Un bon article de #Matteo_Villa qui résume ces questions, paru en septembre 2018 :

Outsourcing European Border Control : Recent Trends in Departures, Deaths and Search and Rescue Activities in the Central Mediterranean

In our previous blog post ‘Border Deaths in the Mediterranean: what we can learn from the latest data?’ on Border Criminologies (March 2017) we discussed the existing data sources on Mediterranean Sea migration and provided an analysis of key patterns and trends. We found that Search and Rescue (SAR) has little or no effect on the number of arrivals, and it is rather the absence of SAR that leads to more deaths. These results, which are in line with other research, were covered by various European media outlets and also resulted in a peer reviewed publication in Sociology (also available as a free preprint).

These findings covered the period until December 2016. Since then, however, the context of European border policy has changed considerably:

Through a mix of political pressure, financial incentives and military assistance, the EU has tried to induce transit countries in the Sahel to close their borders to Europe-bound migrants. According to European parliament president Tajani, this resulted in a 95% drop in crossings through Niger, a key transition point for migrants on the way to Libya, although it cannot be excluded that migrants are taking different, more dangerous routes in order to reach Northern African countries (either via Niger or through Algeria).
From the beginning of 2017 onwards, the Italian government backed by the EU has increasingly cooperated with Libyan authorities to block depatures in exchange for financial and logistical support. The UN-backed government in Libya in turn, has allegedly forged deals with a number of militias.
Increased European support for the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG), resulting in an increase in interceptions and the declaration of a Libyan SAR zone.
Increasing legal and political attacks on NGOs engaged in SAR have culminated in Italy’s decision to declare its ports to be “closed” to NGO vessels and (temporarily) to EU rescue ships in June 2018.

Each of these developments can be seen as part of a broader strategy to close the European borders by externalizing border control to third countries, a practice that was tried earlier with Turkey, and to relax commitments enshrined in international law, such as search and rescue at sea and non refoulement.

In view of these recent developments, we document estimated trends in arrivals, deaths, mortality rates and rescue activities covering the most recent period, between January 2016 and July 2018. In doing so, we strongly rely on detailed statistical analyses conducted by the Italian research institute ISPI. Our analyses are based on publicly available data from the IOM and the UNHCR for arrivals and interceptions, and IOM’s Missing Migrants Project for deaths. It is important to note that recorded deaths are a lower bound estimate of the actual death toll, because some deaths are likely to remain unreported. We provide an extensive discussion of data sources, data quality and challenges for their interpretation in our academic article on the issue. Since most of the above developments relate to the situation in Libya, we focus on migrants departing from that country. Libya is also the only Northern African country where interceptions at sea by the Coast Guard are independently monitored by both IOM and UNHCR personnel at disembarkation points.

Although each of these individual developments have been reported elsewhere, together they paint a picture of Europe’s resolve to close its external borders and deter irregular migration, regardless of the (human) cost.

Trend #1: A sharp drop in departures

Figure 1 plots trends in the number of migrants departing irregularly from Libya by sea since January 2016. Until mid-2017, migrant departures show a remarkably regular seasonal pattern, with around 20,000 departures during the summer months. As of July 2017, however, the number of arrivals dropped dramatically, and it has stayed at comparatively low levels up to the present. The decrease in arrivals occurred after alleged ’deals’ between Libyan authorities and the militias in Western Libya that control the smuggling networks, and a few months after the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Italy and Libya. Convergent diplomatic action induced some militias to switch from smuggling to preventing departures. Other factors, such as the activity of the LCG, private and public SAR providers, or dynamics in the rate of dead and missing along the route, are relevant per se but appear to play no significant role in the decrease in arrivals to Europe. Europe’s efforts to block migrants passing though transit countries may have played a role as well, but evidence is still too sparse to be reliably assessed.

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

Trend #2: An increased risk of interception by the Libyan Coast Guard

The Libyan Coast Guard plays a pivotal role in Europe’s strategy of externalizing migration control to third countries. A report by Human Rights Watch suggests that in recent months “the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center (IMRCC) has routinized a practice, tested since at least May 2017, of transferring responsibility to Libyan coast guard forces in international waters even when there are other, better-equipped vessels, including its own patrol boats or Italian navy vessels, closer to the scene.” This practice has been termed ’refoulement by proxy’ because the LCG is financed, equipped and instructed by the Italian and European authorities, as described in this recent investigative report. Migrants who are forcibly returned to Libya are imprisoned in detention centres for indefinite periods, and they face systematic violence—including torture and rape—as has been documented in numerous reports.

The new Italian government intensified and formalized the policy of transferring responsibility to the LCG. Since June, it has instructed ships undertaking rescues in the Libyan SAR zone to refer all emergency calls to the Libyan authorities, who will then arrange their interception and pull-back to Libya. The declarations that Italian ports are “closed” to NGO ships are also part of this strategy, as their operations are considered to interfere with LCG interceptions. In late July, this practice resulted in the first instance of a non-Libyan vessel, the Asso Ventotto, being instructed to coordinate with the Tripoli Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre (JRCC). The ship ultimately disembarked the rescued persons on Libyan territory and thus effectively engaged in refoulement and collective expulsion of migrants.

The practice of outsourcing European border control to the Libyan Coast Guard has brought about a sharp increase in its activity: by the end of July 2018, the LCG had intercepted 12,490 migrants at sea compared to 8,851 during the same period in the previous year, which amounts to a 41% increase. In combination with the drop in departures, this policy has resulted in a rapid increase in the risk of interception. To illustrate this fact, in July 2017 just 6% of migrants leaving Libya by sea ended up being caught and brought back, while almost 94% made it to Europe. In July 2018, instead, 71% of migrants leaving Libya’s shores were intercepted and brought back, while just 24% arrived safely in a European country (see Figure 2).

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

Trend #3: An increase in the absolute and relative mortality rate between mid-June and July 2018

In this section, we look at trends in absolute mortality (the number of dead and missing people at sea) and relative mortality (the risk of crossing) of migrants departing from Libya. In particular, we analyse the widely reported spike in deaths that occurred in late June 2018, after virtually all SAR NGOs had been prevented from operating as a result of policies introduced by the new Italian Minister of Interior Salvini from the far-right Lega and the continued denial by the Maltese authorities to offer Valetta as a port of entry. On June 10, Italy unilaterally decided to declare its ports to be “closed” to NGO rescue ships, as well as (temporarily) to commercial and EU vessels carrying rescued migrants. Also Malta tightened its position on rescue activities and cracked down on two SAR NGOs in early July. Since then, rescue operations close to the Libyan coast have been almost entirely delegated to the LCG.

First, we look at trends in the absolute mortality rate. Figure 3 shows a reduction in the monthly number of deaths since July 2017, commensurate with the reduction in the number of departures described above. For example, 20 deaths were recorded in April 2018, and 11 in May (Figure 3). In June, however, an estimated 451 migrants died on their way from Libya to Europe—of which 370 between 16 and 30 June. It is important to note that these deaths occurred during a time when departures were comparatively low. As a result, the risk of crossing has increased from 2.8% in the previous months to a staggering 7% since mid-June 2018 (Figure 4). These findings are also robust to using different time frames for the pre-NGO absence period, including the entire period since the drop of arrivals in July 2017 until the NGO ban. Whereas relative mortality has fluctuated in recent years, 7% constitute an extraordinary spike.

https://i.imgur.com/EOV2ysu.png https://i.imgur.com/sJrXODU.png

Figure 5 maps shipwreck events occurring between 16 June and 31 July 2018 with at least estimated 15 dead or missing persons, using geocoded data provided by IOM’s Missing Migrants Project. While the precise location of each shipwreck is only an estimate, as “precise locations are not often known” (as explained in the “Methodology” section of the Missing Migrants Project), such estimates do provide an indication of where such shipwrecks have taken place. In particular, IOM data shows that shipwrecks between 16 June and 31 July took place well within 50 nautical miles from Libya’s shores, an area which used to be patrolled by either the LCG or NGO vessels. Yet, during the time when deaths spiked, only two NGO vessels had been operating, and only discontinuously.

https://i.imgur.com/5LLUMdY.png

These observations are reminiscent of what happened in 2015, when the withdrawal of competent SAR providers (the Italian mission Mare Nostrum) similarly created the conditions for avoidable loss of life. Although these findings are based on a relatively short time period, they are suggestive of the risk of leaving the Libyan SAR zone to the operations of the LCG alone. Continuous monitoring of the situation remains of utmost importance.

Conclusion

In combination, the three trends described above highlight the harsh realities of recent European migration policies, which seek to limit irregular migration regardless of the moral, legal and humanitarian consequences. The current European obsession with reducing migration at all costs is even less comprehensible when considering that arrivals decreased drastically prior to the most recent escalation of rhetoric and externalization of migration control. Arrivals to Italy in the first half of 2018 were down by 79% compared to the same time frame in 2017. Although increasingly inhumane policies are often cloaked in a rhetoric about reducing deaths at sea, it is important to remember that those who are prevented from crossing or forcibly returned are generally not safe but remain subject to precarious and often lethal conditions in countries of transit. Rather than providing a sustainable response to the complex challenges involved in irregular migration, Europe has outsourced the management of its migration ’problem’ to countries like Libya and Niger, where violence and death often remains hidden from the public view.

▻https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2018/09/outsourcing

Arrivées en Europe via la Méditerranée :
2018 :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/705781
Arrivées en Europe toute frontière confondue :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/739902
–-> attention, c’est les « crossings »... rappelez-vous de la question des doubles/triples contages des passages :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/705957

Pour #2016 #2017 et #2018, chiffres de Matteo Villa :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/768142
database : ►https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ncHxOHIx4ptt4YFXgGi9TIbwd53HaR3oFbrfBm67ak4/edit#gid=0
#base_de_données #database

En #Italie :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/748940
(y compris #2017 et #2016)
#MNA #nationalité #ports

2017 :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/667569

Les #raisons de la baisse des arrivées en Europe, en lien avec la politique d’externalisation en Libye :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/676632

Départs de Libye (ou non-départs car refoulements et interceptions par les gardes-côtes libyens) :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/719759
–-> à mettre en lien avec les politiques d’#externalisation en Libye :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/705401

Et le tout à mettre en lien avec les statistiques sur les #morts et #naufrages en Méditerranée .

2019 :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/768142#message780348

2018 :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/705934
#mourir_en_mer #décès #mortalité

#2014 #2015 #2016 #2017 (et estimations 2018) :
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/732058

Arrivées par la #Méditerranée en #2019 :
Europe : plus de 21.000 migrants et réfugiés arrivés par la Méditerranée depuis janvier

Selon l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les migrations (OIM ), les arrivées de migrants en Méditerranée ont dépassé le seuil des 21.000, ce qui constitue une baisse d’environ un tiers par rapport aux 32.070 arrivés au cours de la même période l’an dernier.

Ce sont exactement 21.301 migrants et réfugiés qui sont entrés en Europe par voie maritime à la date du 29 mai. Les arrivées en Espagne et en Grèce représentent 85% du total des arrivées, le reste des migrants et réfugiés de cette année ont pris la direction de l’Italie, de Malte et de Chypre.

La Grèce a désormais surpassé l’Espagne au titre de première destination des migrants et des réfugiés rejoignant l’Europe via la Méditerranée. Selon l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM), le nombre total d’arrivées par mer cette année est de 10.200 dont 2.483 arrivées signalées entre le 1er et le 29 mai dernier.

Le Bureau de l’OIM en Grèce a indiqué mercredi dernier que les garde-côtes helléniques ont confirmé que pendant plus de 48 heures entre le 28 et le 29 mai, il y eu sept incidents nécessitant des opérations de recherche et sauvetage au large des îles de Lesbos, Leros, Samos, Symi Kos et le port d’Alexandroupolis. Ils ont ainsi sauvé 191 migrants qui ont été transférés par la suite dans les ports respectifs grecs.

De plus, à la date du 30 avril, ce sont 3.497 migrants qui ont réussi à atteindre la Grèce via sa frontière terrestre avec la Turquie.
519 décès de migrants, dont plus de la moitié sur la route de la Méditerranée centrale

L’Espagne reste la deuxième porte d’entrée des réfugiés en Méditerranée, avec 7.876 arrivées dont 1.160 hommes, femmes et enfants pour le seul mois de mai. Sur la même période l’an dernier, Madrid a comptabilisé 8.150 migrants et réfugiés ayant réussi à franchir la route de la Méditerranée occidentale. En outre, plus de 2.100 ont atteint l’Espagne via sa frontière terrestre avec le Maroc.

Par ailleurs, l’OIM rappelle que les arrivées ont considérablement baissé en Italie où seuls 1.561 migrants ont réussi à franchir les côtes siciliennes.

Mais la route de la Méditerranée centrale (Italie et Malte) reste tout de même la plus meurtrière avec 321 décès, soit plus de la moitié du total de migrants et réfugiés ayant péri en tentant d’atteindre l’Europe. Les décès enregistrés sur les trois principales routes de la mer Méditerranée pendant près de cinq mois en 2019 s’élèvent à 519 personnes, soit un quart de moins que les 662 décès confirmés au cours de la même période en 2018.

A cet égard, l’OIM rappelle que dans l’ouest de la Méditerranée, l’organisation non gouvernementale Alarme Phone a signalé qu’un jeune Camerounais avait disparu le 21 mai dernier. Selon les témoignages des huit survivants qui l’accompagnaient, il serait tombé en mer avant que leur navire ne soit intercepté par la marine marocaine. Son corps n’a pas été retrouvé.

En Méditerranée centrale, des migrants interceptés et renvoyés en Libye le 23 mai ont également indiqué aux équipes de l’OIM que cinq hommes s’étaient noyés au cours de leur voyage. « Aucun autre détail concernant l’identité, le pays d’origine ou d’autres informations personnelles concernant les disparus n’est disponible », a souligné l’OIM dans une note à la presse.

▻https://news.un.org/fr/story/2019/05/1044671

Pour la première fois depuis 2009, un navire italien ramène des migrants en Libye

Une embarcation de migrants secourue par un navire de ravitaillement italien a été renvoyée en Libye lundi 30 juillet. Le HCR a annoncé mardi l’ouverture d’une enquête et s’inquiète d’une violation du droit international.

Lundi 30 juillet, un navire battant pavillon italien, l’Asso Ventotto, a ramené des migrants en Libye après les avoir secourus dans les eaux internationales – en 2012 déjà l’Italie a été condamnée par la Cour européenne des droits de l’Homme pour avoir reconduit en Libye des migrants secourus en pleine mer en 2009.

L’information a été donnée lundi soir sur Twitter par Oscar Camps, le fondateur de l’ONG espagnole Proactiva Open Arms, avant d’être reprise par Nicola Fratoianni, un député de la gauche italienne qui est actuellement à bord du bateau humanitaire espagnol qui sillonne en ce moment les côtes libyennes.

Selon le quotidien italien La Repubblica, 108 migrants à bord d’une embarcation de fortune ont été pris en charge en mer Méditerranée par l’Asso Ventotto lundi 30 juillet. L’équipage du navire de ravitaillement italien a alors contacté le MRCC à Rome - centre de coordination des secours maritimes – qui les a orienté vers le centre de commandement maritime libyen. La Libye leur a ensuite donné l’instruction de ramener les migrants au port de Tripoli.

En effet depuis le 28 juin, sur décision européenne, la gestion des secours des migrants en mer Méditerranée dépend des autorités libyennes et non plus de l’Italie. Concrètement, cela signifie que les opérations de sauvetage menées dans la « SAR zone » - zone de recherche et de sauvetage au large de la Libye - sont désormais coordonnées par les Libyens, depuis Tripoli. Mais le porte-parole du Conseil de l’Europe a réaffirmé ces dernières semaines qu’"aucun navire européen ne peut ramener des migrants en Libye car cela serait contraire à nos principes".

Violation du droit international

La Libye ne peut être considérée comme un « port sûr » pour le débarquement des migrants. « C’est une violation du droit international qui stipule que les personnes sauvées en mer doivent être amenées dans un ‘port sûr’. Malgré ce que dit le gouvernement italien, les ports libyens ne peuvent être considérés comme tels », a déclaré sur Twitter le député Nicola Fratoianni. « Les migrants se sont vus refuser la possibilité de demander l’asile, ce qui constitue une violation des accords de Genève sur les sauvetages en mer », dit-il encore dans le quotidien italien La Stampa.

Sur Facebook, le ministre italien de l’Intérieur, Matteo Salvini, nie toutes entraves au droit international. « La garde-côtière italienne n’a ni coordonné, ni participé à cette opération, comme l’a faussement déclarée une ONG et un député de gauche mal informé ».

Le Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (HCR) a de son côté annoncé mardi 31 juillet l’ouverture d’une enquête. « Nous recueillons toutes les informations nécessaires sur le cas du remorqueur italien Asso Ventotto qui aurait ramené en Libye 108 personnes sauvées en Méditerranée. La Libye n’est pas un ‘port sûr’ et cet acte pourrait constituer une violation du droit international », dit l’agence onusienne sur Twitter.

▻http://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/10995/pour-la-premiere-fois-depuis-2009-un-navire-italien-ramene-des-migrant

Nave italiana soccorre e riporta in Libia 108 migranti. Salvini: «Nostra Guardia costiera non coinvolta»

L’atto in violazione della legislazione internazionale che garantisce il diritto d’asilo e che non riconosce la Libia come un porto sicuro. Il vicepremier: «Nostre navi non sono intervenute nelle operazioni». Fratoianni (LeU): «Ci sono le prove della violazione»

▻http://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2018/07/31/news/migranti_nave_italiana_libia-203026448/?ref=RHPPLF-BH-I0-C8-P1-S1.8-T1
#vos_thalassa #asso_28

Commentaire de Sara Prestianni, via la mailing-list de Migreurop:

Le navire commerciale qui opere autour des plateformes de pétrole, battant pavillon italien - ASSO 28 - a ramené 108 migrants vers le port de Tripoli suite à une opération de sauvetage- Les premiers reconstructions faites par Open Arms et le parlementaire Fratoianni qui se trouve à bord de Open Arms parlent d’une interception en eaux internationales à la quelle a suivi le refoulement. Le journal La Repubblica dit que les Gardes Cotes Italiennes auraient invité Asso28 à se coordonner avec les Gardes Cotes Libyennes (comme font habituellement dans les derniers mois. Invitation déclinés justement par les ong qui opèrent en mer afin de éviter de proceder à un refoulement interdit par loi). Le Ministre de l’Interieur nie une implication des Gardes Cotes Italiens et cyniquement twitte “Le Garde cotes libyenne dans les derniers heures ont sauvé et ramené à terre 611 migrants. Les Ong protestent les passeurs font des affaires ? C’est bien. Nous continuons ainsi”

Départs de migrants depuis la Libye :

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

Libya : outcomes of the sea journey

https://i.imgur.com/dY7LumQ.png

Migrants intercepted /rescued by the Libyan coast guard

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

Lieux de désembarquement :

https://i.imgur.com/Pjceq0y.png

–-> Graphiques de #Matteo_Villa, posté sur twitter :
source : ►https://twitter.com/emmevilla/status/1036892919964286976

#statistiques #chiffres #2016 #2017 #2018

cc @simplicissimus

Libyan Coast Guard Takes 611 Migrants Back to Africa

Between Monday and Tuesday, the Libyan Coast Guard reportedly rescued 611 migrants aboard several dinghies off the coast and took them back to the African mainland.

Along with the Libyan search and rescue operation, an Italian vessel, following indications from the Libyan Coast Guard, rescued 108 migrants aboard a rubber dinghy and delivered them back to the port of Tripoli. The vessel, called La Asso 28, was a support boat for an oil platform.

Italian mainstream media have echoed complaints of NGOs claiming that in taking migrants back to Libya the Italian vessel would have violated international law that guarantees the right to asylum and does not recognize Libya as a safe haven.

In recent weeks, a spokesman for the Council of Europe had stated that “no European ship can bring migrants back to Libya because it is contrary to our principles.”

Twenty days ago, another ship supporting an oil rig, the Vos Thalassa, after rescuing a group of migrants, was preparing to deliver them to a Libyan patrol boat when an attempt to revolt among the migrants convinced the commander to reverse the route and ask the help of the Italian Coast Guard. The migrants were loaded aboard the ship Diciotti and taken to Trapani, Sicily, after the intervention of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella.

On the contrary, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has declared Tuesday’s operation to be a victory for efforts to curb illegal immigration. The decision to take migrants back to Africa rather than transporting them to Europe reflects an accord between Italy and Libya that has greatly reduced the numbers of African migrants reaching Italian shores.

Commenting on the news, Mr. Salvini tweeted: “The Libyan Coast Guard has rescued and taken back to land 611 immigrants in recent hours. The NGOs protest and the traffickers lose their business? Great, this is how we make progress,” followed by hashtags announcing “closed ports” and “open hearts.”

Parliamentarian Nicola Fratoianni of the left-wing Liberi and Uguali (Free and Equal) party and secretary of the Italian Left, presently aboard the Spanish NGO ship Open Arms, denounced the move.

“We do not yet know whether this operation was carried out on the instructions of the Italian Coast Guard, but if so it would be a very serious precedent, a real collective rejection for which Italy and the ship’s captain will answer before a court,” he said.

“International law requires that people rescued at sea must be taken to a safe haven and the Libyan ports, despite the mystification of reality by the Italian government, cannot be considered as such,” he added.

The United Nations immigration office (UNHCR) has threatened Italy for the incident involving the 108 migrants taken to Tripoli, insisting that Libya is not a safe port and that the episode could represent a breach of international law.

“We are collecting all the necessary information,” UNHCR tweeted.

►https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/santiago-anti-abortion-women-stabbed-chile-protest-a8469786.html
#refoulements #push-back

UNHCR Position on Returns to Libya - Update II

▻http://www.refworld.org/docid/5b8d02314.html

Libya rescued 10,000 migrants this year, says Germany

Libyan coast guards have saved some 10,000 migrants at sea since the start of this year, according to German authorities. The figure was provided by the foreign ministry during a debate in parliament over what the Left party said were “inhumane conditions” of returns of migrants to Libya. Libyan coast guards are trained by the EU to stop migrants crossing to Europe.

▻https://euobserver.com/tickers/142821

UNHCR Flash Update Libya (9 - 15 November 2018) [EN/AR]

As of 14 November, the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG) has rescued/intercepted 14,595 refugees and migrants (10,184 men, 2,147 women and 1,408 children) at sea. On 10 November, a commercial vessel reached the port of Misrata (187 km east of Tripoli) carrying 95 refugees and migrants who refused to disembark the boat. The individuals on board comprise of Ethiopian, Eritrean, South Sudanese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Somali nationals. UNHCR is closely following-up on the situation of the 14 individuals who have already disembarked and ensuring the necessary assistance is provided and screening is conducted for solutions. Since the onset, UNHCR has advocated for a peaceful resolution of the situation and provided food, water and core relief items (CRIs) to alleviate the suffering of individuals onboard the vessel.

►https://reliefweb.int/report/libya/unhcr-flash-update-libya-9-15-november-2018-enar
#statistiques #2018 #chiffres

Rescued at sea, locked up, then sold to smugglers

In Libya, refugees returned by EU-funded ships are thrust back into a world of exploitation.

The Souq al Khamis detention centre in Khoms, Libya, is so close to the sea that migrants and refugees can hear waves crashing on the shore. Its detainees – hundreds of men, women and children – were among 15,000 people caught trying to cross the Mediterranean in flimsy boats in 2018, after attempting to reach Italy and the safety of Europe.

They’re now locked in rooms covered in graffiti, including warnings that refugees may be sold to smugglers by the guards that watch them.

https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3758900!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg

This detention centre is run by the UN-backed Libyan government’s department for combatting illegal migration (DCIM). Events here over the last few weeks show how a hardening of European migration policy is leaving desperate refugees with little room to escape from networks ready to exploit them.

Since 2014, the EU has allocated more than €300 million to Libya with the aim of stopping migration. Funnelled through the Trust Fund for Africa, this includes roughly €40 million for the Libyan coast guard, which intercepts boats in the Mediterranean. Ireland’s contribution to the trust fund will be €15 million between 2016 and 2020.

Scabies

One of the last 2018 sea interceptions happened on December 29th, when, the UN says, 286 people were returned to Khoms. According to two current detainees, who message using hidden phones, the returned migrants arrived at Souq al Khamis with scabies and other health problems, and were desperate for medical attention.

https://www.irishtimes.com/polopoly_fs/1.3759177!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_620/image.jpg

On New Year’s Eve, a detainee messaged to say the guards in the centre had tried to force an Eritrean man to return to smugglers, but others managed to break down the door and save him.

On Sunday, January 5th, detainees said, the Libyan guards were pressurising the still-unregistered arrivals to leave by beating them with guns. “The leaders are trying to push them [to] get out every day,” one said.

▻https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/rescued-at-sea-locked-up-then-sold-to-smugglers-1.3759181

Migranti, 100 persone trasferite su cargo e riportate in Libia. Alarm Phone: “Sono sotto choc, credevano di andare in Italia”

Dopo l’allarme delle scorse ore e la chiamata del premier Conte a Tripoli, le persone (tra cui venti donne e dodici bambini, uno dei quali potrebbe essere morto di stenti) sono state trasferite sull’imbarcazione che batte bandiera della Sierra Leone in direzione Misurata. Ma stando alle ultime informazioni, le tensioni a bordo rendono difficoltoso lo sbarco. Intanto l’ong Sea Watch ha salvato 47 persone e chiede un porto dove attraccare

►https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2019/01/21/migranti-100-persone-trasferite-su-cargo-e-riportate-in-libia-alarm-phone-sono-sotto-choc-credevano-di-andare-in-italia/4911794

Migrants calling us in distress from the Mediterranean returned to Libya by deadly ‘refoulement’ industry

When they called us from the sea, the 106 precarious travellers referred to their boat as a white balloon. This balloon, or rubber dinghy, was meant to carry them all the way to safety in Europe. The people on board – many men, about 20 women, and 12 children from central, west and north Africa – had left Khoms in Libya a day earlier, on the evening of January 19.

Though they survived the night at sea, many of passengers on the boat were unwell, seasick and freezing. They decided to call for help and used their satellite phone at approximately 11am the next day. They reached out to the Alarm Phone, a hotline operated by international activists situated in Europe and Africa, that can be called by migrants in distress at sea. Alongside my work as a researcher on migration and borders, I am also a member of this activist network, and on that day I supported our shift team who received and documented the direct calls from the people on the boat in distress.

The boat had been trying to get as far away as possible from the Libyan coast. Only then would the passengers stand a chance of escaping Libya’s coastguard. The European Union and Italy struck a deal in 2017 to train the Libyan coastguard in return for them stopping migrants reaching European shores. But a 2017 report by Amnesty International highlighted how the Libyan authorities operate in collusion with smuggling networks. Time and again, media reports suggest they have drastically violated the human rights of escaping migrants as well as the laws of the sea.

The migrant travellers knew that if they were detected and caught, they would be abducted back to Libya, or illegally “refouled”. But Libya is a dangerous place for migrants in transit – as well as for Libyan nationals – given the ongoing civil conflict between several warring factions. In all likelihood, being sent back to Libya would mean being sent to detention centres described as “concentration-camp like” by German diplomats.

The odds of reaching Europe were stacked against the people on the boat. Over the past year, the European-Libyan collaboration in containing migrants in North Africa, a research focus of mine, has resulted in a decrease of sea arrivals in Italy – from about 119,000 in 2017 to 23,000 in 2018. Precisely how many people were intercepted by the Libyan coastguards last year is unclear but the Libyan authorities have put the figure at around 15,000. The fact that this refoulement industry has led to a decrease in the number of migrant crossings in the central Mediterranean means that fewer people have been able to escape grave human rights violations and reach a place of safety.
Shifting responsibility

In repeated conversations, the 106 people on the boat made clear to the Alarm Phone activists that they would rather move on and endanger their lives by continuing to Europe than be returned by the Libyan coastguards. The activists stayed in touch with them, and for transparency reasons, the distress situation was made public via Twitter.

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

Around noon, the situation on board deteriorated markedly and anxiety spread. With weather conditions worsening and after a boy had fallen unconscious, the people on the boat expressed for the first time their immediate fear of dying at sea and demanded Alarm Phone to alert all available authorities.

The activists swiftly notified the Italian coastguards. But both the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, and in turn the Maltese authorities, suggested it was the Libyan coastguard’s responsibility to handle the distress call. And yet, eight different phone numbers of the Libyan coastguards could not be reached by the activists.

In the afternoon, the situation had come across the radar of the Italian media. When the Alarm Phone activists informed the people on board that the public had also been made aware of the situation by the media one person succinctly responded: “I don’t need to be on the news, I need to be rescued.”

And yet media attention catapulted the story into the highest political spheres in Italy. According to a report in the Italian national newspaper Corriere della Sera, the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, took charge of the situation, stating that the fate of the migrant boat could not be left to Alarm Phone activists. Conte instructed the Italian foreign intelligence service to launch rapid negotiations with the Libyan coastguards. It took some time to persuade them, but eventually, the Libyans were convinced to take action.

In the meantime, the precarious passengers on the boat reported of water leaking into their boat, of the freezing cold, and their fear of drowning. The last time the Alarm Phone reached them, around 8pm, they could see a plane in the distance but were unable to forward their GPS coordinates to the Alarm Phone due to the failing battery of their satellite phone.
Sent back to Libya

About three hours later, the Italian coastguards issued a press release: the Libyans had assumed responsibility and co-ordinated the rescue of several boats. According to the press release, a merchant vessel had rescued the boat and the 106 people would be returned to Libya.

According to the survivors and Médecins Sans Frontières who treated them on arrival, at least six people appeared to have drowned during the voyage – presumably after the Alarm Phone lost contact with them. Another boy died after disembarkation.

A day later, on January 21, members of a second group of 144 people called the Alarm Phone from another merchant vessel. Just like the first group, they had been refouled to Libya, but they were still on board. Some still believed that they would be brought to Europe.

Speaking on the phone with the activists, they could see land but it was not European but Libyan land. Recognising they’d been returned to their place of torment, they panicked, cried and threatened collective suicide. The women were separated from the men – Alarm Phone activists could hear them shout in the background. In the evening, contact with this second group of migrants was lost.

During the evening of January 23, several of the women of the group reached out to the activists. They said that during the night, Libyan security forces boarded the merchant vessel and transported small groups into the harbour of Misrata, where they were taken to a detention centre. They said they’d been beaten when refusing to disembark. One of them, bleeding, feared that she had already lost her unborn child.

On the next day, the situation worsened further. The women told the activists that Libyan forces entered their cell in the morning, pointing guns at them, after some of the imprisoned had tried to escape. Reportedly, every man was beaten. The pictures they sent to the Alarm Phone made it into Italian news, showing unhygienic conditions, overcrowded cells, and bodies with torture marks.

https://images.theconversation.com/files/257508/original/file-20190206-174873-zfk2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1#.jpg

Just like the 106 travellers on the “white balloon”, this second group of 144 people had risked their lives but were now back in their hell.
Profiteering

It’s more than likely that for some of these migrant travellers, this was not their first attempt to escape Libya. The tens of thousands captured at sea and returned over the past years have found themselves entangled in the European-Libyan refoulement “industry”. Due to European promises of financial support or border technologies, regimes with often questionable human rights records have wilfully taken on the role as Europe’s frontier guards. In the Mediterranean, the Libyan coastguards are left to do the dirty work while European agencies – such as Frontex, Eunavfor Med as well as the Italian and Maltese coastguards – have withdrawn from the most contentious and deadly areas of the sea.

It’s sadly not surprising that flagrant human rights violations have become the norm rather than the exception. Quite cynically, several factions of the Libyan coastguards have profited not merely from Europe’s financial support but also from playing a “double game” in which they continue to be involved in human smuggling while, disguised as coastguards, clampdown on the trade of rival smuggling networks. This means that the Libyan coastguards profit often from both letting migrant boats leave and from subsequently recapturing them.

The detention camps in Libya, where torture and rape are everyday phenomena, are not merely containment zones of captured migrants – they form crucial extortion zones in this refoulement industry. Migrants are turned into “cash cows” and are repeatedly subjected to violent forms of extortion, often forced to call relatives at home and beg for their ransom.

Despite this systematic abuse, migrant voices cannot be completely drowned out. They continue to appear, rebelliously, from detention and even from the middle of the sea, reminding us all about Europe’s complicity in the production of their suffering.

▻https://theconversation.com/migrants-calling-us-in-distress-from-the-mediterranean-returned-to-

Libya coast guard detains 113 migrants during lull in fighting

The Libyan coast guard has stopped 113 migrants trying to reach Italy over the past two days, the United Nations said on Wednesday, as boat departures resume following a lull in fighting between rival forces in Libya.

The western Libyan coast is a major departure point for mainly African migrants fleeing conflict and poverty and trying to reach Italy across the Mediterranean Sea with the help of human traffickers.

Smuggling activity had slowed when forces loyal to military commander Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive to take the capital Tripoli, home to Libya’s internationally recognized government.

But clashes eased on Tuesday after a push by Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) back by artillery failed to make inroads toward the center.

Shelling audible in central Tripoli was less intense on Wednesday than on previous days. Three weeks of clashes had killed 376 as of Tuesday, the World Health Organization said.

The Libyan coast guard stopped two boats on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, carrying 113 migrants in all, and returned them to two western towns away from the Tripoli frontline, where they were put into detention centers, U.N. migration agency IOM said.

A coast guard spokesman said the migrants were from Arab and sub-Saharan African countries as well as Bangladesh.

Human rights groups have accused armed groups and members of the coast guard of being involved in human trafficking.

Officials have been accused in the past of mistreating detainees, who are being held in their thousands as part of European-backed efforts to curb smuggling. A U.N. report in December referred to a “terrible litany” of violations including unlawful killings, torture, gang rape and slavery.

Rights groups have also accused the European Union of complicity in the abuse as Italy and France have provided boats for the coast guard to step up patrols. That move has helped to reduce migrant departures.

▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security/libya-coast-guard-detains-113-migrants-during-lull-in-fighting-idUSKCN1S73R

Judgement in Italy recognizes that people rescued by #Vos_Thalassa acted lawfully when opposed disembarkation in #Libya. Two men spent months in prison, as Italian government had wished, till a judge established that they had acted in legitimate defence.
Also interesting that judge argues that Italy-Libya Bilateral agreement on migration control must be considered illegitimate as in breach of international, EU and domestic law.

▻https://dirittopenaleuomo.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/GIP-Trapani.pdf

Reçu via FB par @isskein :
▻https://www.facebook.com/isabelle.saintsaens/posts/10218154173470834?comment_id=10218154180551011&notif_id=1560196520660275&n
#justice

The Commission and Italy tie themselves up in knots over Libya

►http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-344-Commission-and-Italy-tie-themselves-up-in-knots-over-libya.pdf

–-> analyse de #Yasha_Maccanico sur la polémique entre Salvini et la Commission quand il a déclaré en mars que la Commission était tout a fait d’accord avec son approche (le retour des migrants aux champs logiques), la Commission l’a démenti et puis a sorti la lettre de Mme. Michou (JAI Commission) de laquelle provenaient les justifications utilisées par le ministre, qui disait à Leggeri que la collaboration avec la garde côtière libyenne des avions européennes était legale. Dans la lettre, elle admit que les italiens et la mission de Frontex font des activités qui devrait être capable de faire la Libye, si sa zone SAR fuisse authentique et pas une manière pour l’UE de se débarrasser de ses obligations légales et humanitaires. C’est un acte de auto-inculpation pour l’UE et pour l’Italie.

Returned to War and Torture: Malta and Frontex coordinate push-back to Libya

https://alarmphone.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2020/03/2020.3.15-1.png

On Saturday, 14 March 2020, RCC Malta coordinated a push-back operation from the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone to Libya in cooperation with the EU border agency Frontex and the so-called Libyan coastguards.[1] Similar to the events we documented on 18 October 2019, the Maltese authorities instructed the so-called Libyan coastguards to enter a European SAR zone in order to abduct about 49 people and force them back to Libya.[2] Instead of complying with refugee and human rights conventions, the Maltese authorities coordinated a grave violation of international law and of the principle of non-refoulment, as the rescued must be disembarked in a safe harbour.[3] Clearly, Libya is not a safe harbour but a place of war and systemic human rights abuses. Every week, the Alarm Phone receives testimonies of torture, rape and other forms of violence against migrants detained in Libyan camps and prisons.

On the same day, we alerted the Armed Forces of Malta to a second boat in distress in the Maltese SAR zone with 112 people on board.[4] Before their eventual rescue, the people spent about 48 hours at sea. Malta delayed the rescue for more than 18 hours, putting 112 lives at severe risk. Non-assistance, delays, and pushbacks are becoming the norm in the Central Mediterranean, causing trauma in survivors, disappearances and deaths, both at sea and in Libya.

Europe continues to delegate border enforcement to the Libyan authorities to evade their responsibility to rescue the distressed to Europe. We hold Europe accountable for the abuses and suffering inflicted on migrants at sea and in Libya. We condemn the role of European institutions and member states, including Malta and Italy, in these human rights violations through bilateral agreements as well as the financing, equipping, and training of the so-called Libyan coastguards.

Summary of the push-back by proxy case:

On Saturday 14 March 2020, at 15:33h CET, the Alarm Phone received a distress call from 49 people, including one pregnant woman and three children, who were trying to escape from the war in Libya. They had left Tripoli the evening before on a white fiberglass boat. They shared their GPS position with us, which clearly showed them within the Maltese SAR zone (34° 26′ 39 ” N, 14° 07′ 86″ E, at 15:33h). The people on board told us that they had lost their engine and that water was entering the boat. We immediately informed RCC Malta and the Italian coastguard via email. We received updated GPS positions from the people in distress at 16:22h (34° 26 81′ N, 014° 08′ 56″ E) and at 17:07h (N 34° 27′ 12″, E 014° 09′ 37″), both confirming once more that they were drifting within the Maltese SAR zone.

At 17:42h, RCC Malta confirmed via phone that they had sent two patrol boats for the two SAR events in the Maltese SAR zone to which we had alerted them: one for the boat of 49 people and another one for the rubber boat with 112 people on board. Soon after, at 17:45h, we talked to the 49 people on the boat who told us that they could see a boat heading in their direction. Unfortunately, the conversation broke off and we were not able to clarify further details. This was our last contact to the people in distress after which we could not reach them any longer. Since then, we have tried to obtain further details from RCC Malta, but they claim to not have any information.

However, confidential sources have informed us that a Frontex aerial asset had spotted the migrant boat already at 6:00h when it was still in the contested Libyan SAR zone. At 18.04h, the Libyan coastguard vessel Ras Al Jadar intercepted the boat in the Maltese SAR zone at the position N34° 26’, E 14° 07’. This means that the European border agency Frontex, MRCC Rome as well as RCC Malta were all aware of this boat in distress and colluded with the Libyan authorities to enter Maltese SAR and intercept the migrant boat.

On Sunday 15 March 2020, at 7:00h, we were called by relatives of the people on board who told us that the people in distress had just informed them that they had been abducted by a Libyan vessel from within the Maltese SAR zone and returned to Libya, where, according to their testimonies, they were imprisoned and battered. In the afternoon, we were called by the people who were on the boat, and they testified that before the push-back occurred they saw a helicopter circling above them. About 30 minutes later, according to their testimonies, a vessel of the so-called Libyan coastguard arrived on scene. The people stated that the Libyan officers behaved brutally toward them, beating them repeatedly. They also stated that they were prevented from filming and documenting these abuses as their phones were confiscated. Moreover, the people reported that they had travelled together with another boat, a white rubber boat with around 60 people on board (including 7 women and 1 woman with a nine-month-old infant). Also this second boat[5] was intercepted and returned to Libya and its passengers experienced similar forms of violence and abuse.

▻https://alarmphone.org/en/2020/03/15/returned-to-war-and-torture/?post_type_release_type=post

#mots #sémantiques à rajouter au dossier « mots » pour visioncarto ... :)

du coup, j’ajoute #terminologie #vocabulaire
 :-)
–-> tu ajoutes au dossier, reka ?

#états-unis

Border Patrol failed to count hundreds of migrant deaths on US soil

For 20 years, as part of its mission, the Border Patrol has been tasked with tracking and trying to prevent border-crossing deaths. But an investigation by CNN has found that the agency has been, at best, haphazard about tracking and recording deaths. Despite telling Congress and the General Accounting Office it would provide comprehensive accounting of migrant deaths, it has failed to do so. It has excluded fatalities reported by other law-enforcement agencies, while claiming to include them, and neglected even to count some deaths directly witnessed by Border Patrol agents.
Over the 16 fiscal years ended last September, CNN has identified at least 564 deaths of people crossing illegally in the border region, above and beyond the Border Patrol’s tally of 5,984.
Those uncounted deaths were identified through a review of federal, state and local records and databases, and interviews with medical examiners, pathologists, sheriffs and justices of the peace along the border. It is by no means a complete count, and there are strong indications that the actual toll could be thousands higher.
More than half of the uncounted deaths identified by CNN happened in the past four years. Those figures mirror a recent investigation by the Arizona Republic, one of a set of pieces on border conditions that won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. That story documented a significant undercounting of migrant deaths from 2012 to 2016.

https://i.imgur.com/6FdfFf9.png https://ix.cnn.io/dailygraphics/graphics/20180420-border-deaths-by-state/img/ai2html-graphic-desktop.jpg https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180424154456-12-undercounted-border-deaths-super-169.jpg

#manipulation #gardes-frontière #Border_Patrol

Libia, ritorno all’inferno

A fronte dei 173 mila migranti sbarcati nei primi undici mesi del 2016 nel nostro paese, quest’anno ne sono arrivati 117 mila. 55 mila in meno. «La luce in fondo al tunnel», dice Minniti. Ma dove sono e cosa sono costretti a subire quei 55 mila migranti che non sono arrivati in Italia?

▻https://rep.repubblica.it/pwa/anteprima/2017/12/22/news/libia_ritorno_all_inferno-184903632
#pull-back

L’ONU estime que le trafic d’êtres humains est en hausse en Libye

Le trafic d’êtres humains est en augmentation en Libye, selon un rapport d’experts de l’ONU, qui estime que les forces libyennes aident des groupes rebelles dans leur contrôle des routes migratoires.

▻https://www.voaafrique.com/a/traffic-d-etres-humains-en-hausse-en-libye-selon-l-onu/4240784.html

Dopo la Libia, l’inferno è in Italia: le donne nigeriane di #Castel_Volturno

A Castel Volturno le donne nigeriane arrivano dopo essere passate dalla Libia. Qui le aspetta la paura del «juju», la prostituzione nelle case chiuse, lo sfruttamento. Finché non finiscono di pagare il debito che hanno contratto per arrivare in Italia. Sara Manisera e Federica Mameli sono state a parlare con loro nelle «connection house» di Castel Volturno.

http://openmigration.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC8293-800x400.jpg

▻http://openmigration.org/analisi/dopo-la-libia-linferno-e-in-italia-le-donne-nigeriane-di-castel-voltu

UNHCR expresses concern over lack of rescue capability in Mediterranean, but condones Libyan coast guard pull back operations

While UNHCR rightly calls for a change in EU practices, it fails to acknowledge or address the serious problems with the Libyan coast guard’s pull back practices in Libyan territorial waters – practices enabled and funded by the EU. UNHCR’s latest statement on this subject condones EU-funded Libyan coast guard pull back practices.

From Jeff Crisp (@JFCrisp): “A simple question for UNHCR and IOM: Should asylum seekers who leave Libya by boat have an opportunity to submit an application for refugee status elsewhere, rather than being summarily intercepted and forcibly returned to and detained in the country of departure? Because UNHCR’s global policy says: ‘persons rescued or intercepted at sea cannot be summarily turned back or otherwise returned to the country of departure, including in particular where to do so would deny them a fair opportunity to seek asylum.’”

UNHCR’s statement: “UNHCR continues to be very concerned about the legal and logistical restrictions that have been placed on a number of NGOs wishing to conduct search and rescue (SAR) operations, including the Aquarius. These have had the cumulative effect of the Central Mediterranean currently having no NGO vessels conducting SAR. Should NGO rescue operations on the Mediterranean cease entirely we risk returning to the same dangerous context we saw after Italy’s Mare Nostrum naval operation ended in 2015 and hundreds of people died in an incident on the central Mediterranean Sea. UNHCR welcomes the rescue efforts of the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG), as without them more lives would have been lost. Nonetheless, with the LCG now having assumed primary responsibility for search and rescue coordination in an area that extends to around 100 miles, the LCG needs further support. Any vessel with the capability to assist search and rescue operations should be allowed to come to the aid of those in need. UNHCR reiterates that people rescued in international waters (i.e. beyond the 12 nautical miles of the territorial waters of Libya) should not be brought back to Libya where conditions are not safe. The largest proportion of deaths have been reported in crossings to Italy, which account for more than half of all deaths reported this year so far, despite Spain having become the primary destination of those newly arrived. More than 48, 000 people have arrived there by sea, compared to around 22,000 in Italy and 27,000 in Greece. There is an urgent need to break away from the current impasses and ad-hoc boat-by-boat approaches on where to dock rescued passengers. UNHCR reiterates that in recent months, together with IOM, we have offered a regional solution that would provide clarity and predictability on search and rescue operations.”

▻https://migrantsatsea.org/2018/11/12/week-in-review-11-november-2018

#asile #migrations #deal #accord #réfugiés #retour #renvoi #expulsion #accord_de_réadmission #réfugiés_afghans #Afghanistan

EU-Afghanistan returns plan: Another “dodgy” deal

- Deal to be signed next week to start immediate refugee “return” flights
– Is Afghanistan a “safe country”?
– Quick return of 80,000 refugees planned
– “effectively implement readmission commitments” - by-passing parliamentary scrutiny

▻http://www.statewatch.org/news/2016/sep/eu-afghanistan-dodgy-deal.htm

L’Union européenne s’apprête à développer les retours vers l’Afghanistan

L’association britannique Statewatch révèle que l’Union européenne s’apprête à signer, à l’occasion de la conférence des 4 et 5 octobre sur l’Afghanistan, un accord avec ce pays pour amplifier les retours volontaires et forcés et l’organisation de vols charters. L’accord prendra effet dès le jour de sa signature, et les expulsions pourront être facilitées par l’émission de laissez-passer européens.

►https://passeursdhospitalites.wordpress.com/2016/10/01/lunion-europeenne-sapprete-a-developper-les-retours

Plans to repatriate 3 million Afghan refugees are dangerous and misguided

Europe and Pakistan’s proposals to send millions of people back to Afghanistan will cause mayhem in an already fragile country

▻https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/30/afghanistan-refugee-crisis-europe-pakistan?CMP=share_btn_tw

Greece: Afghan refugees in #Elliniko face camp closure

As EU prepares for Brussels Afghanistan conference, Afghan refugees weigh returning to homeland consumed by violence.

http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/10/3/e29b7b60901f4833869f63e0570a1d7c_18.jpg

EU signs deal to deport unlimited numbers of Afghan asylum seekers

Plans for dedicated reception terminal in Kabul, but experts warn that violence and instability in Afghanistan make deportations unsafe

▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/oct/03/eu-european-union-signs-deal-deport-unlimited-numbers-afghan-asylum-see

Comment l’Union européenne espère faciliter les renvois vers l’Afghanistan

Demain la Conférence de Bruxelles sur l’Afghanistan se réunira avec la participation des représentants de 70 pays et 20 organisations et agences internationales. Elle sera l’occasion pour le gouvernement afghan d’exposer sa vision et son bilan en matière de réformes. Pour la communauté internationale, la conférence sera l’occasion d’affirmer sa volonté de fournir un soutien politique et financier durable en faveur de la paix, de la consolidation de l’État et du développement en Afghanistan.

►http://blogs.letemps.ch/jasmine-caye/2016/10/04/comment-lunion-europeenne-espere-faciliter-les-renvois-vers-lafghanist

Europe Makes Deal to Send Afghans Home, Where War Awaits Them

BRUSSELS — The European Union and Afghanistan announced a deal on Wednesday that would send tens of thousands of Afghan migrants who had reached Europe back home to an increasingly hazardous war zone.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/10/06/world/06afghanistan-web1/06afghanistan-web1-master768.jpg

L’Afghanistan bientôt fixé sur le niveau de réengagement de ses donateurs

L’Afghanistan, ravagé par la guerre et porté à bout de bras depuis quinze ans par la communauté internationale, saura mercredi dans quelle mesure ses principaux donateurs se réengagent à ses côtés pour les quatre prochaines années, à l’occasion d’une conférence à Bruxelles.

▻http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/136-milliards-deuros-promis-lafghanistan.afp.com.20161005.doc
#aide_au_développement

Afghan Refugees Forced to Return to a Home Many Have Never Known

Umer Ali travels to the Pakistani border city of Peshawar for the first in our ‘Return to Afghanistan’ series, finding that the forced return of thousands of Afghan refugees is breaking up marriages and dividing families.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/04/afghan-refugees-forced-to-return-to-a-home-many-have-never-known

Broken on the Border

It’s the world’s untold migration crisis. Every day, up to 1,000 dazed and confused Afghan migrants, some carrying serious injuries, arrive on buses from Iran at the remote Islam Qala border crossing. Over 250,000 have crossed since the start of 2016. They tell stories of theft, beatings, exploitation and abuse. Some labour migrants have been paid in heroin and are now addicted, cast off by their employers. Some are mere kids: teenagers turned breadwinners. There are single women, elderly people, and Afghans born as refugees in Iran. IOM and the Afghan Government help them to get back to their home towns, but most are going back to abject poverty, joblessness and the horrors of war.

▻http://features.iom.int/stories/broken-on-the-border

Vu sur twitter avec ce commentaire (07.10.2016) :

Così l’Ue aiuta l’Afghanistan:voli charter e un nuovo terminal per i rimpatri forzati degli afghani in Europa

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuEqZApXEAAuVpo.jpg

Afghan Refugees: Conversations Along the Migration Trail

In the first part of our op-ed series “Afghans on the Migration Trail,” which coincides with the Brussels Conference on Afghanistan, migration specialist Nassim Majidi discusses her research, illustrating the diverse tapestry of Afghans seeking asylum.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/10/06/afghan-refugees-conversations-along-the-migration-trail

EU–Afghanistan deportation–aid deal: Classic strategy or classic mistake?

At a conference in Brussels this week, world powers including the EU, US and Japan pledged $15 billion towards development aid and peace building in Afghanistan over the next four years. The day before the start of the conference, the EU signed an agreement with the Afghan government allowing its member states to deport an unlimited number of the country’s asylum seekers, which the Afghan government are obliged to receive.

▻https://www.imi.ox.ac.uk/blog/eu2013afghanistan-deportation2013aid-deal-classic-strategy-or-classic-mist

EU strong-arms Afghanistan to accept back people in exchange for aid

In the run-up to the Brussels Donor Conference on Afghanistan on 4 and 5 October, leaked documents illustrated how the EU is pressuring Afghanistan to take back Afghan nationals who were refused international protection in Europe and failed to return voluntarily in exchange for aid. Over 85,000 Afghans applied for asylum in the EU in the first half of 2016, and 200,000 Afghans lodged a protection claim in 2015, making them the second-largest group of asylum seekers in Europe.

▻http://www.ecre.org/eu-strong-arms-afghanistan-to-accept-back-people-in-exchange-for-aid

Viewpoint: Why Afghan refugees are facing a humanitarian catastrophe

Hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees in Europe, Pakistan and Iran are being forced to return home to Afghanistan by the European Union, UN agencies and governments in the region.

▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37607785

Why are Afghan refugees being forced back to a worsening war?

The UN planned to provide assistance to about 250,000 displaced people in Afghanistan this year. Now it’s looking at a million — far more than the government and aid agencies are able to handle.

▻https://www.irinnews.org/fr/node/259116

Life in Greece’s Elliniko refugee camp

Wet clothes were draped from the chain-link fence spanning the perimeter of the dilapidated airport hangar now being used to house hundreds of refugees and migrants, mostly Afghans, on an April afternoon.

▻http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2017/04/life-greece-elliniko-refugee-camp-170427092441621.html

Greek-Macedonian border crossing (Idomeni)

Posted by movebus on November 19, 2015 in EU, Greece, Macedonia

After being closed today, the border from Greece to Macedonia/FYROM was opened again. But still according to our observations, only persons of (supposed) Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi nationality are allowed to enter Macedonia. It is not clear yet, what is going to happen to those who are rejected at the border.

▻http://live.w2eu.info/macedonia/11/19/greek-macedonian-border-crossing-idomeni

Les pays des Balkans imposent « une ségrégation nationale » à leurs frontières

OXFORD, 19 novembre 2015 (IRIN) - Au moins trois pays de la route des Balkans - la principale voie empruntée par les migrants et les réfugiés qui tentent de rejoindre le nord de l’Europe depuis la Grèce - ont pris la décision soudaine d’introduire des contrôles frontaliers, autorisant uniquement l’entrée de ressortissants de certaines nationalités sur leur territoire.

▻http://www.irinnews.org/fr/reportfrench.aspx?ReportID=102230

"Rotta balcanica" chiusa ai «migranti economici»

Bloccata la «rotta balcanica» per i rifugiati che non fuggono da Siria, Afghanistan e Iraq. Per Slovenia, Croazia, Serbia e Macedonia i cittadini di altri paesi sono “migranti economici” e verranno respinti. Francesco Martino (OBC) per il GR di Radio Capodistria [20 novembre 2015]

La prima a muoversi è stata la Serbia, che nel pomeriggio di mercoledì scorso ha annunciato che nel paese possono ora entrare soltanto rifugiati e richiedenti asilo che provengono da Siria, Afghanistan e Iraq. Poi si è mossa la Macedonia, che ha annunciato misure equivalenti e ha fatto i primi passi per alzare una barriera al confine con la Grecia.

A seguire, sono arrivati gli annunci di Croazia e Slovenia: i cittadini di paesi come il Marocco, il Bangladesh, lo Sri Lanka, l’Algeria, il Congo o il Pakistan da oggi verranno considerati “migranti economici” e come tali verranno respinti alle frontiere.

La decisione a catena, come un effetto domino, sottolinea le forti preoccupazioni di tutti i paesi lungo la cosiddetta “rotta balcanica”, percorsa quest’anno da centinaia di migliaia di profughi e migranti per cercare rifugio nei paesi dell’Europa centrale, Germania in testa.

Con l’inverno alle porte, il timore è quello di non riuscire a gestire la presenza sul medio e lungo periodo di un alto numero di migranti, che fino ad oggi, grazie alla relativa permeabilità delle frontiere, hanno avuto la possibilità di raggiungere la propria destinazione finale.

Reazioni fortemente negative sono arrivate dall’Alto commissariato ONU per i rifugiati. Per l’UNHCR, la discriminazione alle frontiere sulla base esclusiva della nazionalità è assolutamente inaccettabile. “Ad ogni rifugiato deve essere garantito il diritto, che è personale, di poter presentare la propria domanda di protezione umanitaria”, ha ricordato Melita Sunijć, portavoce dell’organizzazione.

▻http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/Media/Multimedia/Rotta-balcanica-chiusa-ai-migranti-economici

Balkan countries close borders to ’economic migrants’

Four countries along the migratory route in the western Balkans have in one day closed their borders to all migrants except those from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, in a move that each justified because of restrictions imposed by the next country in the chain.

▻https://euobserver.com/migration/131192

Migrants Protest After Macedonia Shuts Them Out

Hundreds of migrants have been protesting for several days at Macedonia’s southern border with Greece against Skopje’s decision only to allow them to transit the country if they come from war-torn states.

▻http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/migrants-protest-after-macedonia-shuts-them-out-11-22-2015-1

ping @_kg_ —> ça date de 2015, attention !