#route_des_balkans

  • Comment les #passeurs profitent des politiques migratoires restrictives dans les #Balkans

    Les #réseaux_criminels étendent leur mainmise sur la route migratoire des Balkans. De plus en plus de passeurs parviennent à exploiter les politiques frontalières de l’Union européenne.

    Dans les zones frontalières de la #Serbie, de la #Bosnie et de la #Hongrie, la dynamique migratoire est en constante évolution. Alors que les camps de détention aux frontières ont été fermés et que les politiques frontalières de l’Union européenne (UE) deviennent de plus en plus restrictives, les migrants empruntent des itinéraires toujours plus dangereux, contrôlés par des réseaux de trafic toujours plus sophistiqués.

    C’est le constat fait par de nombreuses ONG qui travaillent avec les migrants le long de ces itinéraires.

    Milica Svabic, de l’organisation KlikAktiv, une ONG serbe qui développe des politiques sociales, explique que « malheureusement, de plus en plus de migrants ont fait état d’#enlèvements, d’#extorsions et d’autres formes d’#abus de la part de passeurs et de groupes criminels ces derniers mois. »

    Selon elle, des groupes de passeurs afghans opèrent actuellement aux frontières de la Serbie avec la Bosnie et la Hongrie. #KlikAktiv a ainsi recueilli des témoignages d’abus commis aux deux frontières.

    Le paysage changeant des réseaux de passeurs

    En Serbie, ces changements sont frappants. Les camps de fortune ont disparu des zones frontalières. Désormais, les personnes migrantes se retrouvent cachées dans des #appartements_privés dans les centres urbains et ne se déplacent plus que la nuit.

    Les bandes criminelles afghanes et des réseaux locaux ont pris le contrôle à travers une #logistique complexe, clandestine et dangereuse.

    Milica Svabic a expliqué à InfoMigrants que son organisation a également documenté « des cas de migrants enlevés et retenus dans des lieux isolés (généralement des logements privés) jusqu’à ce que leur famille paie une #rançon pour leur libération ». Elle précise que cette rançon s’élève souvent à plusieurs milliers d’euros.

    La plateforme d’investigation Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, le #BIRN, a récemment documenté comment des membres du #BWK, un gang afghan notoire opérant en Bosnie, ont retenu des demandeurs d’asile en otage dans des camps en pleine #forêt, en exigeant des rançons de leurs proches, tout en les soumettant à d’horribles #sévices, y compris des #viols et de la #torture. Ces #agressions sont parfois filmées et envoyées aux familles comme preuve de vie et moyen de pression.

    Rados Djurovic, directeur de l’ONG serbe #Asylum_Protection_Center, confirme que les passeurs ont recours à des #appartements et d’autres lieux tenus secrets dans les grandes #villes pour y cacher des migrants, les maltraiter et organiser le passage des frontières.

    « Ces opérations sont devenues de plus en plus violentes, les passeurs ayant recours à la force pour imposer leur contrôle et obtenir des #pots-de-vin. Ils enlèvent des personnes, les retiennent dans ces appartements et extorquent de l’argent à leurs familles à l’étranger », ajoute-t-il.

    D’autres groupes de défense des droits humains et des experts en migration rapportent des cas similaires.

    Un rapport du #Mixed_Migration_Center (MMC) relate des témoignages de #vol, de #violence_physique et d’extorsion. Roberto Forin, du MMC, souligne toutefois que « le rapport n’identifie pas spécifiquement les groupes armés d’origine afghane comme étant les auteurs de ces actes ».

    L’impact des politiques frontalières et des #refoulements

    Le renforcement des mesures de sécurité le long des frontières expliquerait en partie cette évolution.

    Un porte-parole du Border Violence Monitoring Network (BVMN) explique que « l’apparition de ces groupes est simplement la conséquence de la sécurisation croissante des régions frontalières dans toute l’Europe. Alors que les politiques frontalières européennes déploient des méthodes de plus en plus violentes pour empêcher la migration, les migrants n’ont d’autre choix que de recourir à des méthodes informelles pour franchir les frontières ».

    Ce point de vue est partage par le Mixed Migration Center.

    Le réseau BVMN ajoute qu’en fin de compte, « ce sont les personnes en déplacement qui sont les plus touchées par la violence que ce soit de la part des autorités publiques ou des groupes qui prétendent les aider dans leur périple ».

    Roberto Forin du MMC prévient que « la violence et les restrictions aux frontières exacerbent la #vulnérabilité des migrants à l’#exploitation et aux abus ».

    Rados Djurovic du Asylum Protection Center souligne également le « lien direct entre les pratiques de refoulement à la frontière hongroise et l’augmentation du trafic de migrants, tant en termes d’ampleur que de violence ».

    « Par peur des refoulements et de la violence, les migrants évitent les institutions et les autorités de l’État et font confiance aux passeurs, qui exploitent souvent cette confiance », ajoute Milica Svabic, de KlikAktiv.

    Les Etats concernés dans une forme de #déni

    Le rapport du BIRN montre que des membres du #gang afghan BWK possèdent des documents d’identité délivrés par l’UE sur la base du statut de protection qui leur aurait été accordé par l’Italie.

    Selon le BIRN, certains membres du gang pourraient avoir utilisé ces documents pour franchir sans encombres les frontières dans les Balkans et échapper aux autorités. Contacté par InfoMigrants, les autorités italiennes ont refusé de commenter ces allégations.

    Plus largement, les Etats concernés par des accusations de refoulement ou de négligence le long de leurs frontières nient avec véhémence toute #responsabilité. Cette posture pourrait encourager un sentiment d’#impunité chez les passeurs.

    Les migrants se retrouvent ainsi dans un cercle vicieux. Des demandeurs d’asile déclarent avoir été battus par des forces de l’ordre. Ils se retrouvent ensuite aux mains de #bandes_criminelles qui les soumettent à d’autres #traitements_inhumains.

    Lawrence Jabs, chercheur à l’université de Bologne, affirme dans l’enquête du BIRN qu’il existe « un lien certain entre les refoulements et les prises d’otages ».

    Les conclusions du BIRN mettent en lumière un problème plus général dans les Balkans : le #crime_organisé prospère dans les régions où l’application de la loi est violente et où l’obligation de rendre des comptes semble absente. Dans certains cas, des membres du BWK se seraient infiltrés dans des #camps_de_réfugiés gérés par l’État via l’intermédiaire d’informateurs locaux, qui auraient informé le gang des passages de frontière à venir.

    En octobre 2024, plusieurs membres présumés du BWK ont été arrêtés pour avoir enlevé des migrants turcs et filmé leur torture.

    La police bosniaque décrit les opérations du BWK comme « bien établies et très rentables », certains individus associés au réseau détenant des comptes bancaires avec plus de 70 000 euros de dépôts.

    L’enquête du BIRN décrit comment un gang dirigé par des migrants afghans bénéficie d’une certaine protection en Italie. De nombreux experts en matière de migration soulignent également que la nature de ces gangs est par définition transnationale.

    Selon Rados Djurovic du Asylum Protection Center, « ces réseaux ne sont pas uniquement constitués de ressortissants étrangers. Ils sont souvent liés à des groupes criminels locaux. Il arrive même que des migrants fassent passer de la #drogue pour d’autres, toujours avec le soutien de la population locale ».

    Les bandes criminelles s’appuient aussi sur des chauffeurs et des fixeurs locaux pour faciliter le passage des frontières.

    Rados Djurovic explique à InfoMigrants que ces groupes « impliquent à la fois des populations locales et des réfugiés. Chaque personne a son rôle ». Aussi, son organisation a « documenté des cas de personnes réfugiées voyageant légalement au sein de l’UE pour rejoindre ces groupes en vue d’un gain matériel. »

    Réponse de la police

    Le 14 avril, deux corps de migrants ont été retrouvés près d’un cimetière à Obrenovac, dans la banlieue de Belgrade, la capitale serbe.

    La forêt qui entoure le cimetière est devenue un campement informel exploité par des #passeurs_afghans. Les victimes seraient des ressortissants afghans poignardés à mort. Deux autres migrants ont été blessés, l’un au cou et l’autre au nez.

    Milica Svabic précise que « des incidents similaires se sont produits par le passé, généralement entre des groupes de passeurs rivaux qui se disputent le territoire et les clients ».

    Selon Rados Djurovic, bien qu’il y ait une volonté politique de lutter contre les réseaux criminels et la migration irrégulière, le souci de préserver une bonne image empêche un véritable engagement pour s’attaquer aux causes profondes.

    Il explique que la nature lucrative de l’activité et l’implication de la population locale rendent « presque impossible le démantèlement de ces réseaux ».

    La #dissuasion plutôt que la #protection

    Malgré les efforts des ONG, le soutien institutionnel reste inadapté. « Au lieu de se concentrer uniquement sur la lutte contre la migration irrégulière et le trafic de migrants, les institutions devraient développer des mécanismes pour soutenir ceux qui ont besoin de protection », estime Rados Djurovic.

    Il rappelle que « les routes migratoires ont changé. Elles ne sont plus visibles pour les médias, le public, les institutions et dans les camps. Mais cela ne signifie pas que les gens ne continuent pas à traverser (les frontières) ».

    Cette évolution coïncide avec la fermeture de camps d’accueil de migrants situés le long des principales routes de transit. « Sur 17 camps, seuls cinq fonctionnent encore, et aucun n’est situé sur les principaux axes de transit. Il n’existe plus de camp opérationnel dans toute la région de Voïvodine, dans le nord de la Serbie, à la frontière de l’UE ».

    Or, sans accès à un logement et confrontés à des expulsions régulières, les migrants n’ont que peu d’options. « Cela renforce les passeurs. Ces derniers comblent alors le vide en proposant des logements comme un service payant », observe Rados Djurovic.

    Et les ONG ne peuvent combler l’absence de structures étatiques. Roberto Forin, du Mixed Migration Center, constate que « si certaines ONG fournissent un soutien juridique et psychosocial, la couverture n’est pas permanente et de nombreux migrants ne sont pas au courant des services disponibles ». De plus, les travailleurs humanitaires s’exposent aux dangers des bandes criminelles, limitant ainsi leur champ d’action.

    Enfin, la Serbie a pour objectif de rejoindre l’UE et cherche à s’aligner sur les politiques migratoires européennes. En ce sens, montrer que la frontière serbe est forte est devenu une priorité.

    Selon Rados Djurovic, le Serbie veut « marquer des points sur la question de la migration ». Ainsi « ils peuvent prétendre que le recours à la violence, à la police des frontières et aux opérations conjointes stoppe la migration, même si ce n’est pas vrai. Tout le monde y gagne : les personnes qualifiées d’ »étrangères" sont ciblées et la lutte contre l’immigration devient à la fois politiquement et financièrement lucrative".

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/64299/comment-les-passeurs-profitent-des-politiques-migratoires-restrictives
    #route_des_Balkans #politiques_migratoires #responsabilité #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #fermeture_des_frontières #criminalité

    ping @karine4

  • Slovénie : forte baisse des entrées irrégulières au premier trimestre 2025

    Entre janvier et mars 2025, 3 876 franchissements irréguliers de la frontière ont été comptabilisés par la police slovène, une baisse de 60% par rapport à la même période l’année précédente. Une tendance commune à l’ensemble de l’Union européenne. Selon l’agence européenne Frontex, le nombre de franchissements irréguliers des frontières de l’UE « a diminué de 31% au premier trimestre 2025 ».

    Selon les chiffres de la police slovène, le nombre de franchissements irréguliers de la frontière a drastiquement chuté. Entre janvier et mars 2025, 3 876 personnes ont rejoint la Slovénie illégalement. C’est 60% de moins par rapport à l’année précédente à la même période.

    Près de 3 300 migrants ont exprimé leur intention de demander une protection internationale, soit près de trois fois moins qu’au cours des trois premiers mois de 2024. Et parmi eux, seulement 833 ont finalement déposé une demande, soit une baisse de près de moitié par rapport à la même période l’année dernière. La plupart ont quitté le pays avant la fin de la procédure, la Slovénie étant le plus souvent un pays de transit pour les migrants qui désirent poursuivre leur route en l’ouest ou le nord de l’Europe.

    En 2024, la migration irrégulière avait déjà baissé d’un quart après une année 2023 très intense. Au moins 46 192 migrants avaient rejoint la Slovénie, contre 60 587 en 2023.

    Une tendance commune à l’ensemble de l’Union européenne (EU). Selon son agence de surveillance, Frontex, le nombre de franchissements irréguliers des frontières de l’UE « a diminué de 31% au premier trimestre 2025 » pour s’établir à près de 33 600. Une baisse observée sur toutes les grandes routes migratoires vers l’UE, « avec des baisses allant de 64% le long de la route des Balkans occidentaux à 8% le long de la frontière terrestre orientale ».

    Cette chute pourrait coïncider avec la chute du régime de Bachar al-Assad en Syrie car les ressortissants syriens, qui ont fui par milliers la dictature et la guerre, représentaient la majeure partie des migrants l’année dernière. Et en ce début d’année, leur nombre a chuté de plus de 90%, passant de 3 806 au premier trimestre 2024 à seulement 234, en 2025.

    Le nombre d’Afghans et de Marocains a également baissé de moitié, ils étaient nombreux ces dernières années à traverser la Slovénie pour tenter de rejoindre l’Italie ou les pays d’Europe du nord sans passer par la Méditerranée, une voie « couteuse » et « dangereuse ». Respectivement, ils étaient 524 et 375 à avoir traversé la frontière ces trois derniers mois.

    En revanche, le nombre de migrants en provenance du Bangladesh et d’Égypte a, lui, augmenté.

    Face à ce flux migratoire qui se tarit, Slovénie, Italie et Croatie se sont mis d’accord en janvier 2025 pour mettre en place des patrouilles à la frontière slovèno-croate en remplacement des contrôles aux frontières. Rétablis en octobre 2023 pour six mois, ces contrôles avaient depuis été prolongés de multiples fois par les trois pays.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/64180/slovenie--forte-baisse-des-entrees-irregulieres-au-premier-trimestre-2

    #asile #migrations #2025 #chiffres #statistiques #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_Balkans

  • Tourists or exiles: the two colours of the Bosnian spring (1/6)
    https://www.visionscarto.net/tourists-or-exiles

    BALKAN ROUTES : BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS The European Migration and Asylum Pact adopted this spring could lead to an increase in police tracking of people exiled in the Balkans. For some twenty years now, the EU and Frontex have been developing surveillance systems with lethal effects. By going up the rivers which separate several countries in the region, this portfolio goes back to the sources of this cycle of violence. In the spring of 2024, Morgane Dujmovic has carried out a (…) #Extérieur

    / #Route_des_Balkans

  • Balkan route: The Survivors of the Border (2/6)
    https://www.visionscarto.net/balkan-route-the-survivors

    BALKAN ROUTES : BACK TO THE TABLE OF CONTENTS In the spring of 2024, Morgane Dujmovic collected some thirty stories from people placed in the Borići and Lipa camps, in the northwestern region of Bosnia-Herzegovina that borders Croatia (Una-Sana). Each of these stories sheds a harsh light on migratory projects that break down, on violated bodies, on lives that are caught at this Bosnian-Croatian border, today the outer limit of the EU and the Schengen area. Who are these people trying to (…) #Extérieur

    / #Route_des_Balkans

  • #Border_memory

    This website was created to remember, document, and research the people on the move who got missing or died along the migratory routes through the Balkans.

    We do not intend to merely collect statistics, but to transform personal grief into collective action for truth and justice for our missing loved ones and for the end of the European border regime.

    This is not meant to be simply a site, but a common and open space to build solidarity alliances across and against borders, to unite sorrow and resistance, to struggle together.

    https://www.bordermemory.org
    #cartographie #visualisation #mémoire #mourir_aux_frontières #morts_aux_frontières #frontières #migrations #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #mémorial #mémorial_virtuel #cartographie_narrative

    ping @reka

  • Srpska policija već koristila zvučno oružje i to na migrantima
    –> La police serbe a déjà utilisé des #armes_sonores sur des migrants

    Organizacija koja se bavi pravima izbeglica utvrdila da je srpska policija još u novembru 2023. koristila „uređaj sličan oružju za proizvodnju zvuka“ prilikom prisilnog iseljavanja izbeglica iz objekta u kome su boravili u predgrađu Sombora, otkriva BIRN

    Dana 7. novembra 2023. godine, oko 13 časova, oko 35 izbeglica – mahom muškaraca, uz nekoliko žena i dece – panično je pokušalo da pobegne kroz polja nadomak napuštene kuće u predgrađu Sombora. Policija je upravo ušla u njihovo prebivalište, a iz pravca polja iza naselja odjednom je odjeknuo glasan, prodoran zvuk.

    „Redovno policijski vozilo Srbije je ušlo u naselje, što je uticalo da ljudi pobegnu u polja iza naselja. Delovalo je kao da je policija bila postavljena u polju iza naselja kako bi presrela ljude koji su pobegli“, navodi se u belešci jedne od organizacija koja je bila na licu mesta, a u koju je BIRN imao uvid.

    Ipak, iz nečeg što je izgledalo kao standardna policijska akcija izdvojila se specifična stvar.

    „Tokom pometnje, glasan probadajući zvuk – višeg tonaliteta od pucnja – emitovan je iz uređaja koji je ličio na oružje, a koji je koristio jedan od policajaca u polju iza mesta prebivališta [izbeglica]. Pretpostavlja se da je ovo korišćeno da se ubrza proces hvatanja ljudi koji su pobegli“, navodi se u belešci.

    Ovo saznanje BIRN-a da je neka vrsta zvučnog oružja upotrebljena protiv izbeglica, poklapa se sa onim što je kratko navedeno u izveštaju „Grupe za praćenje nasilja na granicama“ (Border Violence Monitoring Group) koju čini više organizacija koje se bave pravima izbeglica i migranata, objavljenom u novembru 2024. godine.

    U njemu se navodi da je srpska policija koristila „uređaj sličan oružju za proizvodnju zvuka“ prilikom prisilnog iseljavanja izbeglica iz objekta u kome su boravili.

    „Poslednje, ali ne manje važno, osoblje Collective Aid-a izvestilo je da su videli upotrebu uređaja sličnog oružju koji koristi zvučne talase kako bi proizvodio buku i plašio ljude tokom iseljenja“, navodi se u izveštaju.

    U izveštaju koji se bavi nadzornom tehnologijom koja se koristi nad izbeglicama i migrantima, ističe se i da se sumnja da je u pitanju LRAD uređaj.

    LRAD je engleska skraćenica od Long range acustic device, odnosno zvučnog uređaja dugog dometa.

    U novembru 2023, srpska policija je već neko vreme sprovodila najopsežniju akciju protiv naoružanih krijumčarskih bandi poreklom iz Avganistana, Maroka i Sirije. Tokom tih akcija stručnjaci za prava ljudi u pokretu su ukazivali i na kršenje prava običnih izbeglica, koje nemaju veze sa kriminalnim aktivnostima.

    U opsežnoj policijskoj akciji, koja je trajala više meseci, angažovani su i pripadnici redovne policije, interventnih snaga jedinica policije, žandarmerije, ali i Specijalne antiterorističke jedinice, SAJ.
    Koje zvučno oružje je korišćeno 15. marta u Beogradu?

    Ovaj događaj posebno je značajan u svetlu velikog protesta u Beogradu 15. marta, kada se pojavila sumnja da je zvučno oružje korišćeno protiv građana tokom petnaestominutne tišine, što su demantovali MUP, BIA i Vojska Srbije.

    Ne samo da su demantovali korišćenje oružja na protestu, već i inače. Ministar unutrašnjih poslova Ivica Dačić za dnevni list Danas je potvrdio da policija poseduje sonično oružje ili kolokvijalno nazvano „zvučni top“, tj. da su ti sistemi, koji su kupljeni 2021. godine, u vlasništvu MUP-a.

    Dačić je izjavio da „ti sistemi stoje „u magacinima u kutijama“ i da nisu u upotrebi, jer ne postoji zakon kojim bi njihovo korišćenje bilo dozvoljeno“.

    https://birn.rs/srpska-policija-zvucno-oruzje-migranti-sombor

    #Long_Range_Acoustic_Device (#LRAD) #frontières #migrations #armes_sonores #technologie #son #armes_soniques
    #Serbie #Balkans #route_des_Balkans

    –-

    En 2021, en Grèce :
    La Grèce allonge son mur et le fortifie avec un #mur_acoustique...
    https://seenthis.net/messages/920711

  • At the Heart of Fortress Europe II: The Politics of Fear. Austria’s Role in Border Externalisation Policies in the Balkans

    This study provides a broad mapping of Austrian-based actors, organisations, and multilateral cooperation involved in the #push-backs of people on the move. For their part, the Austrian-based actors are heavily involved in the border externalisation policies of the whole European Union.

    Austria has been active in border regime externalisations and policing in the Balkans for decades. Its actions are often implemented through different platforms, networks, and modes of cooperation that include other EU countries on bi- and multilateral levels.

    Austria’s preferred method in strengthening externalisation structures is to build strong connections with politicians in the region, in exchange for presumed assistance in the uncertain and slow-moving European integration processes, accompanied by the strengthening of the economic ties and investments in the region.

    Part II of the study shows that on the ground, police agencies are more involved in “managing” migrations than are legal experts or humanitarian organisations. This approach has led to shifting the main focus away from establishing structures that meet the needs of people on the move and basic human rights – including the right to asylum or simply the right to freedom of movement – to combating smugglers, presented as the biggest challenge for the states, borders, and migrants. In this regard, the Austrian approach mirrors the EU one.

    https://transform-network.net/publication/at-the-heart-of-fortress-europe-ii-the-politics-of-fear
    #rapport #Autriche #externalisation #migrations #réfugiés #asile #frontières #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #refoulements

  • #Frontex : l’UE va signer un accord de coopération avec la #Bosnie-Herzégovine

    Le Conseil a adopté ce jour une décision autorisant l’UE à signer un accord avec la Bosnie-Herzégovine concernant les activités opérationnelles menées par l’Agence européenne de garde-frontières et de garde-côtes (Frontex).

    Cet accord permettra à l’UE et à la Bosnie-Herzégovine d’organiser des opérations conjointes associant des garde-frontières de Frontex et de Bosnie-Herzégovine. Il prévoit également que les équipes de Frontex affectées à la gestion des frontières peuvent être déployées en Bosnie-Herzégovine et il permettra à Frontex d’aider la Bosnie-Herzégovine à gérer les flux migratoires, à lutter contre l’immigration illégale et à combattre la criminalité transfrontière.

    Contexte

    Afin d’accomplir ses tâches, Frontex peut mener des actions relatives à la #gestion_des_frontières de l’UE sur le territoire d’un pays tiers, sous réserve de l’accord de ce pays.

    Depuis l’adoption, en 2019, d’un nouveau règlement relatif à l’Agence européenne de garde-frontières et de garde-côtes, le personnel de Frontex peut exercer des pouvoirs d’exécution dans un pays tiers, tels que les vérifications aux frontières et l’enregistrement des personnes.

    En 2022, le Conseil a autorisé l’ouverture de #négociations avec quatre partenaires des Balkans occidentaux sur la coopération avec Frontex. Depuis lors, l’UE a signé des accords de coopération en matière de gestion des frontières avec la Serbie, la Macédoine du Nord et le Monténégro.

    https://www.consilium.europa.eu/fr/press/press-releases/2025/01/27/frontex-eu-to-sign-cooperation-agreement-with-bosnia-and-herzegovin

    #migrations #frontières #externalisation #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #réfugiés

  • Route des Balkans : Les rescapé·es de la frontière (2/6)

    Le deuxième épisode de la série écrite par Morgane Dujmovic

    https://www.visionscarto.net/route-des-balkans-les-rescape-es

    « Au printemps 2024, Morgane Dujmovic a recueilli une trentaine de récits auprès de personnes placées dans les camps de Borići et Lipa, dans la région nord-ouest de la Bosnie-Herzégovine qui borde la Croatie (Canton d’Una-Sana). Chacun de ces récits jette une lumière crue sur des projets migratoires qui se brisent, sur des corps violentés, sur des vies qui sont prises à cette frontière bosno-croate, aujourd’hui limite extérieure de l’Union européenne et de l’espace Schengen [1]. Qui sont les personnes qui essaient de rejoindre l’Europe, au risque de tout perdre dans la traversée des frontières ? Que signifie, pour elles et eux, cette violence frontalière ? »

    #frontières #migrations #exil #Bosnie-Herzégovine #route_des_Balkans #Croatie #réfugiés #refoulement #violence

  • #Route_des_Balkans : Les rescapé·es de la frontière (2/6)
    https://www.visionscarto.net/route-des-balkans-les-rescape-es

    Au printemps 2024, Morgane Dujmovic a recueilli une trentaine de récits auprès de personnes placées dans les camps de Borići et Lipa, dans la région nord-ouest de la Bosnie-Herzégovine qui borde la Croatie (Canton d’Una-Sana). Chacun de ces récits jette une lumière crue sur des projets migratoires qui se brisent, sur des corps violentés, sur des vies qui sont prises à cette frontière bosno-croate, aujourd’hui limite extérieure de l’Union européenne et de l’espace Schengen [1]. Qui sont les (…) #Extérieur

    / Route des Balkans

  • Border imperialism in the Balkans

    Our guest is #Manja_Petrovska, a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam and the Université libre de Bruxelles.

    We start our conversation today in the Balkans. Before her PhD, Manja spent five years supporting people travelling through the Balkans to Europe’s more affluent northwest, including at the Macedonian-Greek border and in Bosnia.

    Witnessing the intense violence that Croatian, Greek, Macedonian, and other police forces inflicted on people on the move, she increasingly started questioning who governs and funds this violence. This led her to focus on the International Organization for Migration, or the IOM.

    From this five-year engagement, Manja co-authored a report from this five-year engagement, titled Repackaging Imperialism: The EU-IOM Border Regime in the Balkans, published by the Transnational Institute. Although the report’s other authors are not featured in this episode, everything we discuss related to the report is based on their work as well, so special thanks to Nidžara Ahmetašević, Sophie-Anne Bisiaux, and Lorenz Naegeli, as well as Niamh Ni Bhriain, who was the report’s main editor.

    As the report lays out, while the IOM portrays itself as a neutral broker and knowledge center on migration, it is, in fact, an active implementer of particular states’ border policies, bolstering police, border guards, and private contractors known to commit atrocities. Most IOM funding comes from affluent states that can directly commission projects, which the IOM then implements in regions far from its primary funders.

    What emerges from the conversation is a European Union border regime that extends its influence into the Balkans through the IOM, funding violence that northwestern European states can then distance themselves from by mobilizing racist depictions of brutality as always something occurring in various elsewheres. From the perspective of people living in the region, this is not a new phenomenon but rather one that echoes the efforts of past empires that sought to shape what we now call the Balkans. Hence the report’s title: Repackaging Imperialism.

    In addition to affecting the lives of people on the move, this regime is also leading to a remilitarization of borders in a region still recovering from war and genocide.

    We then move to discussing Manja’s current PhD project. As part of this project, she has recently attended a number of border technology fairs, which are marketplaces where security companies showcase their ideas for border security, with government officials as their clients. Manja takes us into a world where cowboy hats, raffles, and rampant alcohol consumption are used to aid in the selling of heartbeat monitors, document scanners, and weapons—illustrating how absurdly and soul-crushingly removed the worlds of weapons sales are from the people whose lives these weapons affect.

    Finally, Manja recounts her own encounter with border enforcement. After leaving one of the last security fairs she attended, she was administratively detained and taken to immigration detention in Belgium. There, she met and tried to support many others who were in a much worse situation than she was, mainly people from other Balkan states and Palestinians.

    We end the conversation by reflecting once again on the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the need to resist the brutal slaughter, starvation, displacement, and land theft of Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli state. We feel pain at this destruction of life. Weapons companies, Manja explains, profit, not only from causing mass death but also from surveilling, governing, and dividing people when displaced, once again showing us that our struggles are deeply interconnected.

    https://pca.st/1fo2d7kg

    #frontières #impérialisme #violence #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #IOM #OIM #militarisation_des_frontières
    #audio #podcast

    ping @karine4 @_kg_

  • La Serbie va recevoir 14 millions d’euros de l’UE pour renforcer ses frontières

    L’Union européenne a promis une enveloppe de 14 millions d’euros à la Serbie pour renforcer les contrôles aux frontières. Les arrivées en Serbie ont déjà fortement diminué depuis 2023, avec une route migratoire qui se décale du côté de la Macédoine du Nord et de la Bosnie-Herzégovine.

    La Serbie s’apprête à recevoir une enveloppe de quatorze millions euros de la part de l’#Union_européenne pour lutter contre les migrations irrégulières et renforcer ses frontières.

    « Il s’agira d’#équipements spéciaux destinés aux couloirs verts et bleus, c’est-à-dire les frontières et les rivières », a précisé #Emanuele_Giaufret, le chef de la Délégation de l’Union européenne à Belgrade, rapporte l’AFP.

    Entre 2021 et 2024, l’UE a augmenté de 60 % ses financements en faveur des pays des Balkans occidentaux, pour atteindre plus de 350 millions d’euros. Des aides destinées à la fois à la gestion des frontières mais aussi aux systèmes d’asile et d’accueil.

    Une route « pratiquement fermée » selon l’Intérieur serbe

    En réaction à cette nouvelle enveloppe de 14 millions d’euros, le ministre serbe de l’Intérieur, Ivica Dačić, a mis en avant le fait que la route migratoire de la Serbie vers la Hongrie était « pratiquement fermée », mais que de #nouvelles_routes migratoires apparaissaient sans cesse. Il a également précisé qu’en 2023, le nombre de passages migratoires aux frontières serbes avait été réduit de près de 70% par rapport à 2022.

    Une nette diminution corroborée par les chiffres de l’Organisation internationale pour les migrations (OIM) : entre janvier et octobre 2024, 15 200 migrants sont arrivés en Serbie, contre 106 000 en 2023 et 120 000 en 2022.

    De manière plus globale, au cours des cinq premiers mois de 2024, le nombre total de franchissements des frontières de l’UE par la route des Balkans a chuté de 71 % par rapport à l’an passé, pour atteindre un peu plus de 8 900 franchissements, selon les chiffres de Frontex, l’agence européenne des gardes-frontières.

    #Frontex bientôt déployée en #Macédoine_du_Nord et #Bosnie-Herzégovine

    Frontex est déjà déployée en Serbie, au niveau des frontières avec la Bulgarie et la Hongrie, depuis un accord de coopération signé fin juin. Cet accord encadre les opérations conjointes avec les gardes serbes pour surveiller les frontières albanaises, macédoniennes et celles du Monténégro.

    Cette coopération sera bientôt étendue à la Macédoine du Nord et à la Bosnie-Herzégovine, a fait savoir l’UE. Pour rappel, ces deux pays ne font pas partie de l’UE - malgré des demandes d’adhésion introduites en 2005 pour l’un et en 2016 pour l’autre - et constituent une voie d’entrée dans l’UE.

    Le but est de s’adapter aux changements de route : dès 2023, Frontex notait que la route migratoire principale se décalait de la frontière serbe pour se rapprocher plutôt de cette frontière de l’UE avec la Bosnie-Herzégovine. Frontex y enregistrait 80 % de passages frontaliers irréguliers supplémentaires en 2023, par rapport à 2022.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/61577/la-serbie-va-recevoir-14-millions-deuros-de-lue-pour-renforcer-ses-fro

    #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #Serbie #externalisation #externalisation_des_frontières #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers #asile #migrations #réfugiés #aide_financière #militarisation_des_frontières #gestion_des_frontières #Frontex

  • Lutte contre l’immigration irrégulière : le #Royaume-Uni signe des accords avec trois pays des #Balkans

    Londres va signer des accords avec la #Serbie, la #Macédoine_du_Nord et le #Kosovo destinés à « accroître le partage de #renseignements et à intercepter les gangs criminels de #passeurs ». L’an dernier, « près de 100 000 migrants ont transité » par les Balkans occidentaux, ce qui en fait une « route importante utilisée par ceux qui se retrouvent illégalement dans l’UE ou au Royaume-Uni », selon le gouvernement britannique.

    Le Royaume-Uni multiplie les partenariats pour tenter de freiner l’immigration irrégulière. Le gouvernement britannique a annoncé mercredi 6 novembre qu’il allait signer des accords avec la Serbie, la Macédoine du Nord et le Kosovo, trois pays de transit des migrants en route vers l’Europe de l’ouest.

    La coopération entre le Royaume-Uni et ces trois États vise à « accroître le partage de renseignements et à intercepter les gangs criminels de passeurs », précise Downing Street dans un communiqué.

    L’an dernier, « près de 100 000 migrants ont transité » par les Balkans occidentaux, ce qui en fait une « route importante utilisée par ceux qui se retrouvent illégalement dans l’UE ou au Royaume-Uni », selon Londres.

    « Il existe un empire criminel qui opère sur notre continent, à l’origine d’un terrible bilan humain et qui porte atteinte à notre sécurité nationale », a déclaré le Premier ministre Keir Starmer dans le communiqué. « Le Royaume-Uni sera au cœur des efforts visant à mettre fin au fléau de la criminalité organisée liée à l’immigration, mais nous ne pouvons pas le faire de manière isolée », a-t-il ajouté.
    Accord similaire avec l’Albanie

    Ces accords sont largement inspirés de celui conclu avec l’Albanie fin 2022. Le Premier ministre de l’époque, le conservateur Rishi Sunak, avait détaillé un éventail de mesures destinées, déjà, à lutter contre l’immigration illégale. Parmi elles, l’envoi d’agents de la police aux frontières britanniques à l’aéroport de Tirana, « des contrôles renforcés [...] à tous les points de passage frontaliers à travers le pays, des contrôles accrus sur les citoyens albanais qui se trouvent illégalement sur le territoire du Royaume-Uni et des échanges d’officiers de police de haut niveau dans les deux États », indiquait un communiqué du Home Office, l’équivalent du ministère de l’Intérieur.

    En juin 2023, une campagne sur les réseaux sociaux avait été lancée par ce même gouvernement. Des publications avaient été diffusées sur Facebook et Instagram pour prévenir les exilés qu’ils « risquent d’être détenus et expulsés » s’ils arrivent illégalement au Royaume-Uni.

    À cette époque, les Albanais représentaient un tiers des personnes qui embarquaient sur des canots via la Manche.
    Plus de coopération avec les pays de l’UE

    Dès son élection en juillet dernier, le travailliste Keir Starmer a abandonné le projet controversé des précédents gouvernements conservateurs visant à expulser vers le Rwanda les demandeurs d’asile arrivés de façon irrégulière. Le Premier ministre met l’accent sur la lutte contre les réseaux de passeurs et veut accroître la collaboration avec les pays européens pour faire baisser les arrivées.

    En début de semaine, Keir Starmer a annoncé la création d’un fonds de 90 millions d’euros consacré à la lutte contre les trafiquants opérant dans la Manche. L’argent servira notamment à financer des équipements de surveillance de haute technologie et 100 enquêteurs spécialisés contre les réseaux de passeurs.

    Le travailliste a également appelé à davantage de coopération avec la France, l’Allemagne et l’Italie pour contrer les passeurs, une « menace comparable au terrorisme » selon lui.

    Le Royaume-Uni, en sortant de l’Union européenne, a perdu l’accès à des bases de données, comme Eurodac, qui contient les empreintes digitales des demandeurs d’asile et migrants arrivant dans l’UE, et le Système d’information Schengen (SIS) portant sur des personnes recherchées, disparues ou en situation irrégulière dans cet espace de libre circulation.
    Plus de 31 000 arrivées au Royaume-Uni

    Malgré les plans successifs en matière de lutte contre l’immigration illégale, les arrivées de migrants sur les côtes britanniques ne faiblissent pas. Depuis janvier, plus de 31 500 exilés ont débarqué au Royaume-Uni en traversant la Manche. Un chiffre en hausse par rapport à l’an dernier où près de 30 000 migrants étaient arrivés en Angleterre par « small boats ». Mais on est encore loin du record enregistré en 2022 avec l’arrivée de 45 000 personnes.

    Certaines personnes en revanche n’atteignent jamais les côtes anglaises. Ces dernières semaines, les drames se succèdent dans la Manche. On compte, pour le seul mois d’octobre, neuf décès dans cette zone maritime. Et depuis janvier, plus de 60 exilés au total ont trouvé la mort lors de cette périlleuse traversée. Ce qui fait de 2024 l’année la plus meutrière dans la Manche, depuis l’apparition du phénomène des « small boats » en 2018.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/61064/lutte-contre-limmigration-irreguliere--le-royaumeuni-signe-des-accords
    #Angleterre #GB #route_des_Balkans #accord #coopération #sécurité_nationale #Albanie #migrations #réfugiés

  • Croatian police accused of burning asylum seekers’ phones and passports

    Exclusive: photos of burnt belongings – including documents needed to apply for asylum – are the latest alleged evidence of brutality on EU borders

    Croatia’s border police force appear to be burning clothing, mobile phones and passports seized from asylum seekers attempting to cross into the European Union before pushing them back to Bosnia.

    A report with photographs of burnt belongings, along with testimonies of sexual assault and beatings meted out by the police, shared with the Guardian by the humanitarian organisation No Name Kitchen (NNK), are the latest alleged evidence of brutality against people migrating at EU borders.

    Every day, thousands of people from south Asia, the Middle East and north Africa, and, increasingly, China, attempt to cross the Balkans heading for the EU. There are few facilities, with people forced to spend most of the difficult journey in makeshift camps or train stations.

    Many are stopped by Croatian border police and searched, with some reportedly robbed and violently pushed back into Bosnia, where thousands of asylum seekers can be stranded in often freezing temperatures.

    Such pushbacks are an apparent violation of international law, which states that asylum seekers must have the opportunity to file their request for asylum once they are within a country’s borders.

    NNK has detailed the locations of eight large “burn piles” where Croatian police officers allegedly incinerated people’s personal belongings and documents they need to apply for asylum once they reach the EU.

    Burnt smartphones could also contain evidence of abuses carried out by the Croatian police in the form of videos and photos taken by asylum seekers, said NNK.

    NNK travelled to the Bosnia-Croatia border at the end of 2023 and in early 2024 to find evidence of burn piles mentioned in the testimonies of people pushed back from the border, but which it had not previously verified.

    The organisation identified the sites in areas known for pushbacks and documented ID cards, half-burnt bags, hundreds of phones, shoes, glasses, official government documents, power banks, money and other everyday objects that corroborate the testimonies.

    It also collected testimonies of alleged violence by the border police.

    In December 2023, a 23-year-old pregnant Moroccan woman said that she was sexually assaulted by Croatian officers before the guards burned her belongings, along with items of other members of her group.

    The woman, who was travelling with her husband, another woman and three minors, said that a border guards subjected her to an invasive strip-search, including inside her genitalia, and threatened to rape her.

    The search “was the worst thing to happen to me”, the woman said. “I prefer he beat me than to search me in that way.”

    After the group was released by the guards and ran back into Bosnia, she said she saw the officers burning the items that had been confiscated from them.

    According to another testimony, from November 2023, a group of four Moroccan men were allegedly beaten by police officers who then burned their belongings.

    The police allegedly forced the men to walk barefoot over the hot ashes, threatening them with batons. According to NNK, the Moroccan man who provided the testimony sustained burns on the soles of his feet.

    Despite testimonies from aid workers and journalists, Croatia has consistently denied it has pushed back asylum seekers to Bosnia or used violence against them. NNK recently made a submission to the UN’s special rapporteur on torture with its evidence.

    A spokesperson for Croatia’s interior ministry said it had a “a zero-tolerance policy for any potential illegal activities committed by its personnel”, and that it had an independent mechanism for supervising police conduct.

    Regarding the testimonies from the pregnant woman and the group of four Moroccan men, the spokesperson said: “It is totally inconceivable that such an incident would occur without being reported to the police right away.”

    The spokesperson said that it was often people smugglers who were responsible for violence and theft at the border, and that the police had documented “many instances of fabricated claims”.

    “Regarding claims that Croatian police are burning items that they have confiscated from migrants, we would like to let you know that, in order to avoid being returned to Croatia as applicants for international protection, migrants sometimes destroy items they carry with them and discard personal belongings when attempting to cross the border illegally,” the spokesperson said.

    In 2019, after months of official denials, in an interview with Swiss television, the then Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović appeared to admit to the pushbacks. She admitted that police used force, but denied the pushbacks were illegal.

    In 2021, the European court of human rights ruled that Croatian police were responsible for the death of a six-year-old Afghan girl, Madina Hussiny, who together with her family was forced to return to Serbia by crossing train tracks. She was struck and killed by a train.

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/oct/10/photos-croatia-police-phones-passports-asylum-seekers
    #violence #destruction #passeports #téléphones #smartphones #violences_policières #police #migrations #réfugiés #Croatie #route_des_Balkans

  • Abusi al confine greco-albanese e le omissioni di #Frontex

    La denuncia in un’inchiesta di Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

    Continuano le denunce riguardo alle costanti violazioni dei diritti umani attuate nei confronti delle persone migranti lungo la cosiddetta rotta balcanica. Questa volta al centro dell’attenzione torna il confine fra Grecia e Albania dove non cessano i respingimenti e, fatto ancor più grave, sembrerebbe che alcuni agenti di Frontex – l’Agenzia europea che supporta gli Stati membri dell’UE e dell’area Schengen nel controllo delle frontiere – abbiano ricevuto l’ordine di non segnalare le violazioni dei diritti umani commesse sul confine a danno delle persone in transito.

    A renderlo noto è il Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) che in un’inchiesta, pubblicata lo scorso giugno 2, riporta il contenuto di alcune e-mail risalenti al 2023 (quindi dopo le dimissioni dell’ex capo Fabrice Leggeri, avvenute nell’aprile 2022) in cui si riconferma che il personale di Frontex è a conoscenza dei pushback illegali che sistematicamente avvengono sul confine greco-albanese.

    Respingimenti che gettano le persone in quella che gli agenti stessi definiscono «un’interminabile partita di ping-pong».

    Inoltre, sembrerebbe che qualcuno all’interno di Frontex, non è chiaro chi, avrebbe fornito «istruzioni implicite di non emettere SIR», vale a dire di non redigere rapporti sulle segnalazioni di incidenti gravi che quindi comportano violazioni dei diritti fondamentali ai sensi delle norme UE ed internazionali.

    Frontex, presente in Albania dal 2018 e più volte criticata per il suo operato in vari Paesi poiché accusata di aver svolto attività di respingimento illegali, dispone infatti di un ufficio denominato Fundamental Rights Office (FRO) 3 a cui spetta il compito di gestire le segnalazioni SIR (Serious Incident Report) e di monitorare il rispetto dei diritti nell’ambito delle attività dell’Agenzia. In più, nel 2019, è stata istituita una procedura che consente a chiunque ritiene che i propri diritti siano stati violati di presentare un reclamo all’ufficio preposto.

    A destare preoccupazione sul confine sono soprattutto le modalità con le quali le autorità gestiscono queste operazioni. Nelle e-mail si legge che la polizia greca conduce le persone migranti al confine e la polizia albanese sistematicamente le respinge, in alcuni casi – rileva il FRO – maltrattandole e, segnala la Commissione europea, senza fornire garanzie agli aspiranti richiedenti asilo, di cui non verrebbero raccolte nemmeno le informazioni base.

    Le autorità albanesi negano di aver partecipato ai respingimenti collettivi, in ogni caso, di certo c’è, prosegue l’inchiesta, che le mancate segnalazioni portano, secondo Jonas Grimhede, capo del FRO, a sottovalutare le infrazioni.

    Queste gravi violazioni, confermano fonti di Melting Pot, colpiscono anche persone con disabilità, donne e minori.

    Eppure, l’agenzia continua a rafforzare la propria presenza nella regione: risale infatti a giugno 2024 il nuovo accordo ratificato con la Serbia, il quinto dopo quelli con Moldavia, Macedonia del Nord, Montenegro e Albania, mentre sono in corso negoziati con la Bosnia-Erzegovina.

    Tali accordi si conformano al regolamento adottato da Frontex nel 2019 che estende il proprio operato in qualsiasi Paese terzo, indipendentemente dal confine con l’Unione Europea, dove può dispiegare agenti ai quali spetta più potere esecutivo nel controllo delle persone in transito (tra il resto, la conferma dell’identità all’ingresso, il controllo documenti, l’accettazione o il respingimento dei visti, l’arresto delle persone prive di autorizzazione e la registrazione delle impronte).
    Frontex non può non sapere

    Alla luce di quanto riportato su BIRN ci si può interrogare sull’effettiva capacità di Frontex nel garantire il rispetto dei diritti umani nei Paesi e nelle operazioni di cui fa parte, dal momento che omettendo le segnalazioni si rende complice degli abusi commessi lungo i confini.

    Soltanto un mese fa un’inchiesta della BBC 4 informava che la Guardia costiera greca, anch’essa tristemente nota per i crimini internazionali commessi negli anni, sarebbe responsabile, nell’arco di tre anni, della morte in mare di oltre quaranta persone, lasciate volutamente in acqua o riportate nel Mediterraneo dopo aver raggiunto le isole greche.

    In merito Statewatch 5 riporta alcuni passi dei fascicoli relativi ai SIR contenuti nei report presentati al consiglio di amministrazione di Frontex, in cui si testimonia la responsabilità delle autorità greche: «L’ufficio (il Fundamental Rights Office appunto) considera credibile e plausibile che 7 persone furono respinte da Samos alle acque territoriali turche nell’agosto 2022 e abbandonate in mare dalla Guardia costiera ellenica, il che ha provocato l’annegamento di uno di loro», e ancora «Un migrante arrivò con la sua famiglia come parte di un gruppo di 22 persone a nord di Lesbo, 17 di loro furono presi da quattro uomini armati mascherati, caricati su un furgone e portati su una spiaggia a sud di Lesbo. Da qui furono respinti in Turchia su una barca e lasciati alla deriva su una zattera di salvataggio, in quella che l’Ufficio valuta come un’operazione coordinata che coinvolge ufficiali greci e individui sconosciuti che hanno agito in accordo».

    Via terra non va affatto meglio. È del 3 luglio la rivelazione, da parte di EUobserver 6, di alcuni documenti interni a Frontex in cui si dice che la Bulgaria avrebbe fatto pressione sui funzionari dell’Agenzia affinché ignorassero le violazioni dei diritti umani al confine con la Turchia in cambio del pieno accesso al confine.

    Nel marzo di quest’anno, invece, è stato reso pubblico un documento interno risalente al 2022 che descrive nel dettaglio le pratiche violente e disumane, deliberatamente ignorate sia da Frontex che dall’UE, subite dai richiedenti asilo nel momento in cui vengono respinti con forza verso la Turchia.

    Operando sul campo fra le varie frontiere risulta impossibile che l’Agenzia non sia al corrente di ciò che avviene e dei metodi utilizzati dalle forze dell’ordine per allontanare le persone migranti, tuttavia decide di non agire.

    Anzi, quando non è l’Agenzia stessa, con o senza forza, a praticare i respingimenti, comunque coadiuva gli abusi, come dimostra nuovamente una recente inchiesta dalla quale è emerso che tra il 2021 e il 2023 Frontex ha condiviso con soggetti libici 2.200 e-mail che comunicavano i dati esatti di geolocalizzazione delle imbarcazioni di rifugiati nel Mediterraneo, permettendone l’intercettazione illegale e il ritorno forzato in Libia.

    L’Agenzia, conclude l’inchiesta del BIRN, ha comunque riconosciuto il problema relativo alle omissioni e ne ha discusso, al di là dell’attività in Albania.

    Al momento la realtà resta preoccupante e continuamente da monitorare. Nemmeno l’uscita dell’ex direttore esecutivo di Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, dimessosi per le evidenze di violazioni “di natura grave” dei diritti umani (e appena candidato alle elezioni europee con Rassemblement National), ha portato ad un vero cambio nelle sue politiche, perchè non c’è possibilità di riformarla.

    Frontex va abolita, per liberare tuttə.

    https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/07/abusi-al-confine-greco-albanese-e-le-omissioni-di-frontex

    #abus #Grèce #Albanie #frontières #migrations #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #push-backs #refoulements #SIR #refoulements_collectifs #violence

    • Frontex Officers Failing to Report Migrant Abuses on Albania-Greece Border

      EU border agents are failing to report rights violations committed against migrants and refugees on the Albanian-Greek border, according to an investigation by #BIRN.

      In February last year, Aija Kalnaja, then the acting head of the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, received a strongly-worded email from the person in charge of making sure the agency adheres to EU law and fundamental human rights in policing the bloc’s boundaries.

      To anyone unfamiliar with the bureaucratic language of Brussels, the subject line might look cryptic: “Albania, ping-pong pushbacks, and avoiding SIRs”.

      But the content was clear: a Frontex officer had just returned from deployment to the border between Albania and EU member Greece with a “very troublesome account” of what was happening there, Jonas Grimheden, head of Frontex’s Fundamental Rights Office, FRO, wrote in the email, obtained by BIRN.

      “Apart from stories of Greek police bringing migrants to the border, and Albanian police returning them in an endless ping-pong game,” Grimheden wrote, the officer said he and his colleagues had “implicit instructions not to issue SIRs”.

      A SIR is a Serious Incident Report, which Frontex officers are ‘obliged’ to file as soon as they became aware of a possible violation of the fundamental rights afforded migrants and refugees under international law, whether committed by border guards of countries that Frontex collaborates with or officers deployed directly by the agency.

      It was unclear who issued the ‘instructions’ the officer referred to.

      According to the officer, whose account was also obtained by BIRN in redacted form, so-called ‘pushbacks’ – in which police send would-be asylum seekers back over the border without due process, in violation of international human rights standards – are “a known thing within Frontex” and all the officer’s colleagues were “told not to write a serious incident report because it just went that way there”. Pushbacks, he was saying, were regularly occurring on the Albanian-Greek border.

      Frontex has faced years of criticism for failing to address rights violations committed by member-states in policing the bloc’s borders.

      Now, this BIRN analysis of internal Frontex documents and reporting from the field has unearthed serious indications of systematic pushbacks at the Albanian-Greek border as well as fresh evidence that such unlawful practices are often evading Frontex’s own rights monitoring mechanism.

      Asked whether rights violations were being underreported, a Frontex spokesman told BIRN that such claims were “completely and demonstrably false”.

      At Frontex, every officer is required to report any “suspected violations,” said Chris Borowski.

      Yet Grimheden, the FRO head, said underreporting remains a “highly problematic” issue within the agency. It “undermines the very system we are dependent on,” he told BIRN.
      ‘Sent back badly beaten’

      Three kilometres from Ieropigi, the last Greek village before the border with Albania, stands a Greek army building, disused for decades.

      On the grassy floor are signs of humans having passed through: packets of ready-made food; the ashes of a campfire; words carved in Arabic on the walls.

      Until autumn last year, dozens of migrants and refugees stopped here every day en route to Albania, hoping to then enter Kosovo or Montenegro, then Serbia and eventually Croatia or Hungary, both part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone. They would have originally reached Greece from Turkey, either by land or sea, but few see Greece as a final destination.

      When BIRN visited, the weather was wet and fog obscured the hill on the other side of the border, in Albania.

      “I used to meet beaten migrants and ask them if this happened in Albania and they used to reply: ‘They beat us and send us back, they take our money, mobile phones, expensive shoes. Everything they had that was expensive was taken and they were push-backed,” said Spyros Trassias, a local shepherd. “Sometimes they might shout ‘Policia’ and signalled that they were being beaten. Other times smugglers would beat them, take their money and send them back.”

      According to local residents, the number of refugees and migrants trying to cross the border near Ieropigi dropped dramatically after a network of smugglers was dismantled in September last year.

      BIRN did not come across any Greek border patrols, but the head of the Union of Border Guards of Kastoria, Kyriakos Papoutsidis, told BIRN the border is guarded 24-hours a day. Many of those they intercept, he said, have already applied for asylum on the Greek islands or in the capital, Athens. “Any migrant who comes to the area is advised to return to the city where they applied for asylum and must remain there,” Papoutsidis said.
      Warning of ‘collective expulsion’

      Frontex officers have been present on both sides of the border, under a 2019 agreement that launched the agency’s first ever joint operation outside the bloc.

      Just months after deploying, Frontex faced accusations of pushbacks being carried out by Albanian authorities.

      According to documents seen by BIRN, little has changed over the last five years. The FRO has repeatedly raised concerns about Albania’s non-compliance with lawful border management procedures, warning in multiple SIRs that “unlawful collective returns characterised by a lack of safeguards could amount to collective expulsion”.

      In one FRO report from November 2022, in reference to pushbacks, they went as far as to say that the “sum of alleged facts could indicate the existence of a pattern occurring at the border between Albania and Greece”.

      The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, voiced similar concerns in its 2023 report on Albania’s progress towards EU accession, when it referred to “shortcomings identified in its return mechanism for irregular migrants” and cited continued reports of migrants “being returned to Greece without adequate pre-screening”.

      In July 2023, in a ‘due diligence’ assessment of plans for enhanced collaboration between Frontex and Albania, the FRO noted “cases of ill-treatment” and “allegations of irregular returns” of migrants to Greece. Yet it endorsed the new arrangement, which was rubber-stamped by Tirana and the EU two months later.

      Asked about the allegation of migrants and refugees becoming caught in a game of “endless ping-pong” between Greek and Albanian border police, Grimheden told BIRN: “We have seen and in some locations still see migrants being forced back and forth across borders in different locations in Europe. This is certainly problematic and the parts where Frontex can or can try to influence this, we have taken measures. But the issue is typically far from Frontex involvement”.

      “We see a number of concerns in several countries that we are operating in, and Albania is one of those. Some countries are more open about addressing identified problems and others less so, at least Albania belongs to the group that is not ignoring the problems.”
      Albania: ‘No irregular migrant is pushed back’

      Albanian authorities deny engaging in pushbacks. According to Albania’s Law on Aliens, anyone entering irregularly can be expelled, particularly if they intend only to transit across Albania. Data from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, shows that in 2023, only 6.5 per cent of 4,307 apprehended migrants were referred to the asylum procedure.

      According to Serious Incident Reports seen by BIRN, groups of migrants and refugees are regularly apprehended either at the border or deep inside Albanian territory, taken to temporary holding facilities, transferred to nearby border crossing points, and told to cross back into Greece on foot.

      In all but one case, the Albanian authorities responded that the groups had been pre-screened – taking their basic information and making an initial assessment of their need for asylum – and served with removal orders.

      Neither the Greek Ministry of Citizens Protection nor Albania’s Ministry of Interior or General Directorate of Border Police responded to requests for comment.

      However, in exchanges with the FRO reviewed by BIRN, Albanian authorities rejected claims of systematic pushbacks.

      “No irregular migrant is pushed back,” the Albanian Ministry of Interior replied to the FRO in exchanges reviewed by BIRN. There was only one case in which four Albanian officers were found to have “led” a group of migrants back towards Greek territory and the officers were punished, it said.

      However, an investigation by the FRO, circulated in October 2023, said allegations of systematic pushbacks were “corroborated by all interviewed Frontex operational staff”.
      Intense discussions within Frontex about underreported violations

      In contrast to the widespread use of violence documented by the FRO in Frontex operations in Bulgaria or neighbouring Greece, most SIRs analysed by BIRN did not contain evidence of force being used by Albanian border police during alleged pushbacks, nor the direct involvement of Frontex personnel.

      One exception was a letter sent in August 2022 to the FRO by a Frontex officer serving in the Kakavije border region of southern Albania. The officer accused a Frontex colleague of mistreating two migrants by “hanging them” out of his vehicle while driving them.

      The letter states that upon being confronted about the incident, the officer in question laughed and claimed he had the protection of important people at Frontex HQ in Warsaw.

      Following up on the letter, the FRO found that despite the incident being “widely discussed” within the pool of Frontex officers on the ground, “no Serious Incident was reported, and no information was shared with the operational team”.

      The Frontex Press Office told BIRN that the officer involved was dismissed from the Frontex operation and his actions reported to his home country.

      The incident “served as a vital lesson and is now used in briefings for new officers to underscore the high standards expected of them”, the press office said.

      In his February 2023 email to Kalnaja, FRO head Grimheden urged her “send a message in the organisation that SIRs need to be issued when they become aware of possible fundamental rights situations – no excuses”.

      It is not clear from the documentation BIRN obtained whether Kalnaja, as acting Frontex head, responded to Grimheden’s email. She was replaced 12 days later when Hans Leijtens took on the leadership of Frontex as Leggeri’s successor.

      According to internal documents seen by BIRN, the issue of non-reporting of rights violations has been the subject of intense discussions within the Frontex Management Board, the agency’s main decision-making body, since at least September 2023.

      In January this year, the FRO issued a formal opinion on “addressing underreporting” to the Board, essentially flagging it as a serious issue beyond only Frontex operations in Albania.

      https://balkaninsight.com/2024/06/28/frontex-officers-failing-to-report-migrant-abuses-on-albania-greece-b

  • Migrazioni, nuovo accordo UE-Serbia
    https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/aree/Serbia/Migrazioni-nuovo-accordo-UE-Serbia-232455

    Nonostante le denunce di cattiva gestione dei flussi migratori e di violazioni dei diritti umani in Serbia, a fine giugno la Commissione europea ha siglato un nuovo accordo con Belgrado per rafforzare la cooperazione nel controllo delle migrazioni

  • Out of sight, out of mind : EU planning to offshore asylum applications ?

    In a letter sent to EU heads of state last month, European Commission president #Ursula_von_der_Leyen named 2024 “a landmark year for EU migration and asylum policy,” but noted that the agreement on new legislation “is not the end.” She went on to refer to the possibility of “tackling asylum applications further from the EU external border,” describing it as an idea “which will certainly deserve our attention.”

    “Safe havens”

    The idea of offshoring asylum applications has come in and out of vogue in Europe over the last two decades. In the early 2000s, a number of states wanted camps established in Albania and Ukraine, with the Blair government’s “safe haven” proposals providing an inspiration to other governments in the EU.

    The idea has come back with a bang in the last few years, with the UK attempting to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda (a plan now shelved), and EU governments noting their approval for similar schemes.

    Austria plays a key role in the externalisation of border and migration controls to the Balkans, and the country’s interior minister has called on the EU to introduce “asylum procedures in safe third countries,” referring to “a model that Denmark and Great Britain are also following.” Denmark adopted their own Rwanda plan, but that was suspended last year.

    “Innovative strategies”

    Now the idea has made it to the top of the EU’s political pyramid.

    “Many Member States are looking at innovative strategies to prevent irregular migration by tackling asylum applications further from the EU external border,” says von der Leyen’s letter (pdf).

    “There are ongoing reflections on ideas which will certainly deserve our attention when our next institutional cycle is under way,” it continues, suggesting that the intention is to get working on plans quickly from September onwards.

    The news comes just as almost 100 organisations, including Statewatch, have published a statement calling on EU institutions and member states to uphold the right to asylum in Europe, underlining that attempts to outsource asylum processing have caused “immeasurable human suffering and rights violations.”

    Von der Leyen goes on to indicate that the offshoring of asylum applications may be tacked onto existing migration control initiatives: “Building on experience with the emergency transit mechanisms or the 1:1, we can work upstream on migratory routes and ways of developing these models further.”

    The phrase “the 1:1” refers to the intended human trading scheme introduced by the 2016 EU-Turkey deal: “For every Syrian being returned to Turkey from Greek islands, another Syrian will be resettled from Turkey to the EU.” In a seven-year period, up to May 2023, fewer than 40,000 people were resettled under the scheme, while tens of thousands of people remained trapped in Greek camps awaiting their intended removal to Turkey.

    The current Commission president, who is soon likely to be elected for a second five-year term, goes on to say that the EU can “draw on the route-based approach being developed by UNHCR and IOM,” allowing the EU to “support the setting up of functioning national asylum systems in partner countries while strengthening our cooperation on returns to countries of origin.” In short: someone else should take care of the problem.

    These efforts will be bolstered by the new Asylum Procedure Regulation, says the letter, with the Commission considering “how to better work in synergy with future designated safe third countries.”

    “Hybrid attacks”

    The letter closes with a consideration of the use of so-called “hybrid attacks” by the EU’s geopolitical enemies.

    “When I was in Lappeenranta [in Finland] in April, it was clear that Russia’s actions at the border with Finland, or those of Belarus at the border with Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, are hybrid attacks aimed at undermining the security of our external borders, as well as that of the border regions and our citizens,” von der Leyen writes.

    The Commission president goes on to suggest that more legislation may be forthcoming on the topic, further reinforcing the security approach to migration, despite the EU having only just approved rules on the issue, where the term used is “instrumentalisation of migrants.”

    “We will therefore need to continue reflecting on strengthening the EU’s legal framework to provide for an appropriate response not only from a migration but also from a security perspective in line with the Treaties,” says the letter.

    The need for new legislation is also hinted at in the “strategic agenda” adopted by the European Council at the end of June, the same meeting to which von der Leyen’s letter was addressed.

    That document states the European Council’s intention to “find joint solutions to the security threat of instrumentalised migration.”

    As for the people targeted by all these initiatives, they are barely mentioned in the letter – but von der Leyen notes that the Commission is “conscious of the need… to enable durable solutions to be found for the migrants themselves.”

    It might be remarked, however, that “solutions” will likely only be considered “durable” to the EU if they are outside its territory.

    https://www.statewatch.org/news/2024/july/out-of-sight-out-of-mind-eu-planning-to-offshore-asylum-applications
    #lettre #migrations #asile #réfugiés #externalisation #frontières #safe_havens #ports_sûrs #Tony_Blair #Albanie #Rwanda #pays_tiers #pays_tiers_sûrs #Autriche #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #Danemark #innovations #accord_UE-Turquie #1:1 #IOM #OIM #HCR #hybrid_attacks #attaques_hybrides #géopolitique #Russie #Biélorussie #frontières_extérieures #instrumentalisation #menaces_sécuritaires

  • Bulgaria : Road to Schengen. Part One : the EU’s external border.

    On the 31st of March, Bulgaria - alongside Romania - joined Schengen as a partial member by air & sea. The inclusion of land crossings for full accession of these countries was blocked by an Austrian veto over concerns(1) that it would lead to an increase in people wanting to claim asylum in the EU.

    What is significant about Bulgaria becoming a Schengen member is that, what has been seen in the lead up, and what we will see following accession, is a new precedent of aggressively fortified borders set for the EU’s external Schengen borders. Which in turn may shape EU wide standards for border management.

    The EU’s external border between Bulgaria and Turkey has become infamous for a myriad of human rights violations and violence towards people who are forced to cross this border ‘illegally’. People continually face the violence of these crossings due to the lack of safe and legal routes allowing people to fulfill their right to seek asylum in Europe.

    In 2022 it was along this border that live ammunition(2) was first used against people seeking asylum in the EU. Shot by the Bulgarian authorities. In the same year it was reported(3) that people were illegally detained for up to 3 days in a cage-like structure attached to the police station in the border town of Sredets. It was also known that vehicles belonging to the European border force Frontex - who are responsible for border management and supposedly upholding fundamental rights - were present in the vicinity of the cages holding detained people.

    The EU’s illegal border management strategy of pushbacks are also well documented and commonplace along this border. Testimonies of pushbacks in this region are frequent and often violent. Within the past year Collective Aid has collected numerous testimonies from survivors of these actions of the state who describe(4) being stripped down to their underwear, beaten with batons and the butts of guns, robbed, and set on by dogs. Violence is clearly the systematic deterrence strategy of the EU.

    Similar violence occurs and is documented along Bulgaria’s northern border with Serbia. During an assessment of the camps in Sofia in March, outside of the Voenna Rampa facility, our team spoke to an Afghan man who, 6 months prior, was beaten so badly during a pushback that his leg was broken. Half a year later he was still using a crutch and was supported by his friends. Due to the ordeal, he had decided to try and claim asylum in Bulgaria instead of risking another border crossing.

    Despite the widespread and well documented violations of European and international law by an EU member state, at the beginning of March Bulgaria was rewarded(5) with its share of an 85 million Euro fund within a ‘cooperation framework on border and migration management’. The money within this framework specifically comes under the Border Management and Visa Instrument (BMVI) 2021 – 2027, designed to ‘enhance national capabilities at the EU external borders’. Within the instrument Bulgaria is able to apply for additional funding to extend or upgrade technology along its borders. This includes purchasing, developing, or upgrading equipment such as movement detection and thermo-vision cameras and vehicles with thermo-vision capabilities. It is the use of this border tech which enables and facilitates the illegal and violent practices which are well documented in Bulgaria.

    Close to the town of Dragoman along the northern border with Serbia, we came across an example of the kind of technology which used a controlled mounted camera that tracked the movement of our team. This piece of equipment was also purchased by the EU, and is used to track movement at the internal border.

    The cooperation framework also outlines(6) a roadmap where Frontex will increase its support of policing at Bulgaria’s border with Turkey. In late February, in the run up to Bulgaria becoming a Schengen member, on a visit to the border with Turkey, Hans Leijtens - Frontex’s executive director - announced(7) an additional 500 - 600 additional Frontex personnel would be sent to the border. Tripling the numbers already operational there.

    Meanwhile Frontex - who have been known(8) to conceal evidence of human rights violations - are again under scrutiny(9) for their lack of accountability in regards to the upholding of fundamental rights. Two days prior to the announcement of additional Frontex staff an investigation(10) by BIRN produced a report from a Frontex whistleblower further highlighting the common kinds of violence and rights violations which occur during pushbacks at this border. As well as the fact that Frontex officers were intentionally kept away from ‘hot spots’ where pushbacks are most frequent. The investigation underlines Frontex’s inability to address, or be held accountable for, human rights violations that occur on the EU’s external borders.

    The awarded money is the next step following a ‘successful’ pilot project for fast-track asylum and returns procedures which was started in March of the previous year. The project was implemented in the Pastrogor camp some 13km from the Turkish border which mostly houses people from the Maghreb region of northwest Africa. A 6 month project report(11) boasts a 60% rejection rate from around 2000 applicants. In line with the EU’s new migration pact, the project has a focus on returns whereby an amendment to national legislation has been prepared to allow a return decision to be made and delivered at the same time as an asylum rejection. As well as the launch of a voluntary return programme supported by the 2021-2027 Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF). Through which cash incentives for voluntary returns will be increased across the board. These cash incentives are essentially an EU funded gaslighting project, questioning the decisions of people to leave their home countries based on their own survival and safety.

    Our team visited the former prison of the Pastrogor camp in March. Which at the time held only 16 people - some 5% of its 320 capacity.

    The implementation of this pilot project and the fortification of the border with Turkey have been deemed a success by the EU commision(12) who have praised both as indicators of Bulgaria’s readiness to join the Schengen area.

    Unsurprisingly, what we learn from Bulgaria’s accession to becoming a Schengen member is that the EU is not only deliberately ignoring Bulgaria’s dire human rights history in migration and border management. But, alongside the political and economic strengthening brought with Schengen accession, they are actively rewarding the results of such rights violations with exceptional funding that can sustain the state’s human rights infringements. All while the presence of Frontex validates the impunity enjoyed by Bulgaria’s violent border forces who show no respect for human rights law. In early April the European Commision gave a positive report(13) on the results from EU funding which support this border rife with fundamental rights abuses. In a hollow statement Bulgaria’s chief of border police stated: “we are showing zero tolerance to the violation of fundamental rights”.

    What the changes in border management strategies at the EU’s external border to Turkey- in light of Bulgaria’s entry to the Schengen - mean in reality is that people who are still forced to make the crossing do so at greater risk to themselves as they are forced deeper into both the hands of smuggling networks and into the dangerous Strandzha national park.

    The Strandzha national park straddles the Bulgarian-Turkish border. It is in this densely forested and mountainous area of land where people are known to often make the border crossing by foot. A treacherous journey often taking many days, and also known to have taken many lives - lighthouse reports identified 82 bodies of people on the move that have passed through three morgues in Bulgaria. Many of whom will have died on the Strandzha crossing.

    It is reported(14) that morgues in the towns of Burgas and Yambol - on the outskirts of the Strandzha national park - are having difficulty finding space due to the amount of deaths occurring in this area. So much so that a public prosecutor from Yambol explained this as the reason why people are being buried without identification in nameless graves, sometimes after only 4 days of storage. It is also reported that families who tried to find and identify the bodies of their deceased loved ones were forced to pay cash bribes to the Burgas morgue in order to do so.

    Through networks with families in home countries, NGOs based nearby make efforts to alert authorities and to respond to distress calls from people in danger within the Strandzha national park. However, the Bulgarian state makes these attempts nearly impossible through heavy militarisation and the associated criminalisation of being active in the area. It is the same militarisation that is supported with money from the EU’s ‘cooperation framework’. Due to these limitations even the bodies that make it to morgues in Bulgaria are likely to be only a percentage of the total death toll that is effectively sponsored by the EU.

    Local NGO Mission Wings stated(15) that in 2022 they received at most 12 distress calls, whereas in 2023 the NGO stopped counting at 70. This gives a clear correlation between increased funding to the fortification of the EU’s external border and the amount of lives put in danger.

    People are also forced to rely more on smuggling networks. Thus making the cost of seeking asylum greater, and the routes more hidden. When routes become more hidden and reliant on smuggling networks, it limits the interaction between people on the move and NGOs. In turn, testimonies of state violence and illegal practices cannot be collected and violations occur unchallenged. Smuggling networks rely on the use of vehicles, often driving packed cars, vans, and lorries at high speed through the country. Injuries and fatalities of people on the move from car crashes and suffocating are not infrequent in Bulgaria. Sadly, tragic incidents(16) like the deaths of 18 innocent people from Afghanistan in the back of an abandoned truck in February last year are likely only to increase.

    https://www.collectiveaidngo.org/blog/2024/5/3/bulgaria-road-to-schengen-part-one-the-eus-external-border
    #Bulgarie #frontières #Schengen #migrations #frontières_extérieures #asile #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #violence #Turquie #Sredets #encampement #Frontex #droits_humains #Serbie #Sofia #Voenna_Rampa #Border_Management_and_Visa_Instrument (#BMVI) #aide_financière #technologie #Dragoman #Pastrogor #camps_de_réfugiés #renvois #expulsions #retour_volontaire #Asylum_Migration_and_Integration_Fund (#AMIF) #Strandzha #Strandzha_national_park #forêt #montagne #Burgas #Yambol #mourir_aux_frontières #décès #morts_aux_frontières #identification #tombes #criminalisation_de_la_solidarité #morgue

    –-

    ajouté à ce fil de discussion :
    Europe’s Nameless Dead
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1029609

  • #Route_des_Balkans : les migrants noyés dans la Drina

    Des dizaines de migrants en route vers l’Union européenne meurent noyés chaque année dans les eaux froides de la #rivière #Drina entre la #Serbie et la #Bosnie et sont enterrés anonymement dans les cimetières voisins, où des activistes bénévoles tentent de leur donner une sépulture digne et de retrouver leurs proches sans nouvelles.

    https://www.arte.tv/fr/videos/119298-000-A/route-des-balkans-les-migrants-noyes-dans-la-drina
    #Bosnie-Herzégovine #cimetière #mourir_aux_frontières #vidéo #reportage #morts_aux_frontières #Balkans #noyade #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #cimetière #Nihad_Suljic #Vidak_Simic #Bijeljina #anonymat #identification #autopsie #ADN #DNA

  • Slovenia, carceri sovraffollate di passeur della Rotta Balcanica. Sono quasi la metà

    Gli arresti compiuti nei confronti dei trafficanti di esseri umani, colloquialmente noti come passeur, sta generando un sovraffollamento delle carceri della Slovenia. La Rotta Balcanica e in generale l’immigrazione clandestina si ripercuote pertanto anche sul sistema carcerario sloveno; un problema noto a Trieste e in Friuli Venezia Giulia dove la mancanza di spazi e di condizioni adeguate per i detenuti costituiscono una problematica sollevata più volte dalle istituzioni attive nell’ambito.
    Le centinaia di arresti compiuti negli ultimi anni hanno portato a una saturazione delle carceri della Slovenia. Vi sono 1808 persone detenute in totale; in particolare “tutte le sezioni maschili sono sovraffollate” ha comunicato l’amministrazione slovena alla STA – Slovenian Press Agency.
    La situazione maggiormente grave è, qual è naturale, a Lubiana dove l’occupazione sfonda il 200%; a Maribor è del 171%, a Celje del 165%; il carcere di maggiori dimensioni in Slovenia, a Dob, ha un’occupazione pari al 128%.
    Sugli odierni 1808 carcerati, 850 figurano come cittadini stranieri implicati nella tratta di esseri umani.

    Vi è attualmente un nuovo carcere in via di costruzione a Dobrunje, a est di Lubiana, il cui completamento è previsto entro il 2025. Tuttavia, anche se venisse inaugurato in questi giorni, non risolverebbe il sovraffollamento odierno. In mancanza di alternative, similmente a quanto avviene in Italia, ci si limita a spostare i condannati di carcere in carcere; si sta inoltre valutando se ridurre o meno la durata della pena. Non migliora la situazione la carenza di personale addetto al sistema penitenziario; appena 550 addetti per gestire quasi duemila detenuti. Parte del personale penitenziario è inoltre prossimo alla pensione.
    Man mano che la Rotta Balcanica, col giungere della primavera -estate 2024, ritornerà a essere attiva il problema si ripresenterà tanto in Slovenia, quanto in Friuli Venezia Giulia, dove le difficoltà di gestione delle carceri costituiscono un argomento ricorrente.

    https://www.triesteallnews.it/2024/03/slovenia-carceri-sovraffollate-di-passeur-della-rotta-balcanica-sono-
    #Slovénie #criminalisation_de_la_migration #trafiquants #passeurs #asile #migrations #réfugiés #emprisonnement #prisons #frontière_sud-alpine #Balkans #route_des_Balkans

  • N.N. – No Name, No Nation, Not Necessary, No Noise
    https://www.meltingpot.org/2024/03/n-n-no-name-no-nation-not-necessary-no-noise

    di Diego Saccora, Lungo la rotta balcanica APS e Andrea Rizza Goldstein, Arci Bolzano-Bozen É a partire dalla fine del 2017 che il flusso delle persone in movimento per le rotte dei Balcani ha cominciato a interessare in maniera sempre più consistente la Bosnia-Erzegovina. Se all’inizio del 2018 la via di accesso principale passava dal Montenegro e prima ancora dalla Grecia e dall’Albania, già qualche segnale di quella che sarebbe poi diventata la via più utilizzata dal 2019 lo si registrava lungo le rive del fiume Drina, al confine tra Serbia e Bosnia-Erzegovina. Uno degli indicatori di questi attraversamenti, (...)

    #Notizie #Confini_e_frontiere #Redazione

  • Migration : à la frontière bosno-croate, le rêve européen brisé par les #violences_policières

    A la frontière bosno-croate, porte d’entrée vers l’Union européenne, les violences des garde-frontières croates sur les personnes tentant de traverser se multiplient et s’intensifient. Des violences physiques qui marquent les corps et les esprits des migrants qui les subissent et qui transforment le rêve européen de ces hommes, femmes et enfants en cauchemar continu dans l’attente d’une vie meilleure à l’ouest. Notre collègue Ugo Santkin, journaliste au pôle international $s’est rendu sur place, sur cette frontière bosno-croate qui cristallise la politique migratoire sécuritaire de l’Union européenne. Il revient avec nous sur la situation et sur les témoignages qu’il a recueillis.

    https://www.lesoir.be/571804/article/2024-03-01/migration-la-frontiere-bosno-croate-le-reve-europeen-brise-par-les-violences

    Pour écouter le podcast :
    https://podcasts.lesoir.be/main/pub/podcast/539480

    #migrations #frontières #Bosnie #Bosnie-Herzégovine #Croatie #violence #réfugiés #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #gardes-frontières #podcast #audio

  • Rotta balcanica: i sogni spezzati nella Drina
    https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/aree/Bosnia-Erzegovina/Rotta-balcanica-i-sogni-spezzati-nella-Drina-229948

    Nelle acque del fiume Drina, in Bosnia Erzegovina, decine di migranti sono morti nel tentativo di avvicinarsi al sogno di una vita migliore in quell’Europa che li respinge. Volontari del Soccorso alpino di Bijeljina e attivisti sono impegnati nel difficile recupero dei corpi

    • Rotta balcanica : i sogni spezzati nella Drina

      Nelle acque del fiume Drina, in Bosnia Erzegovina, decine di migranti sono morti nel tentativo di avvicinarsi al sogno di una vita migliore in quell’Europa che li respinge. Volontari del Soccorso alpino di Bijeljina e attivisti sono impegnati nel difficile recupero dei corpi.

      “Finora non mi è mai capitato di sognare uno dei corpi ritrovati, non ho mai avuto incubi. Proprio mai. Credo sia una questione di approccio. Soltanto chi non ha la coscienza pulita fa incubi”, afferma Nenad Jovanović, 37 anni, membro della squadra del Soccorso alpino di Bijeljina.

      Negli ultimi sei anni, Jovanović ha partecipato alle operazioni di recupero di oltre cinquanta corpi di migranti nell’area che si estende dal villaggio di Branjevo alla foce del fiume Drina [nella Bosnia orientale], tutti di età inferiore ai quarant’anni, annegati nel tentativo di entrare in Bosnia Erzegovina dalla Serbia, per poi proseguire il loro viaggio verso altri paesi europei, in cerca di un posto sicuro per sé e per i propri familiari.

      “Ogni volta che scoppia un nuovo conflitto in Medio Oriente, in Afghanistan, Iraq o altrove, assistiamo ad un aumento degli arrivi di migranti in cerca di salvezza nei paesi dell’Unione europea. Purtroppo, per alcuni di loro la Drina si rivela un ostacolo insormontabile. Il loro è un destino doloroso che può capitare a chiunque”, spiega Nenad Jovanović.

      Durante le operazioni di recupero dei corpi, Jovanović più volte è stato costretto a gettarsi nel fiume in piena, rischiando la propria vita.

      “Recentemente abbiamo recuperato il corpo di un uomo proveniente dall’Afghanistan. Era in acqua da circa un anno. I pescatori che per primi lo avevano notato non erano nemmeno sicuri che si trattasse di un corpo umano. Potete immaginare lo stato in cui si trovava”, afferma Jovanović.

      Un suo collega, Miroslav Vujanović, si sofferma sull’aspetto umano del lavoro del soccorritore. “A prescindere dallo stato di decomposizione, cerchiamo in tutti in modi possibili di recuperare il corpo nelle condizioni in cui lo troviamo. Nulla deve essere perso, nemmeno i vestiti. Perché siamo tutti esseri umani. Nel momento del recupero di un corpo magari non pensi alla sua identità, cerchi di fare il tuo lavoro in modo professionale e basta. Poi però quando torni a casa e vedi tua moglie e i figli, inizi a chiederti chi fosse quell’uomo e se anche lui avesse una famiglia. È del tutto normale riflettere su queste cose. Sono però pensieri intimi, che tendiamo a tenere dentro”.

      I volontari del Soccorso alpino di Bijeljina hanno partecipato anche alle operazioni di ricerca e assistenza alle popolazioni colpite dal terremoto nella regione di Banovina (in Croazia) nel 2020 e alle vittime del terremoto che l’anno scorso ha devastato la Turchia. In tutte queste operazioni sono stati costretti ad utilizzare le attrezzature prese in prestito o noleggiate, perché le autorità locali non rispettano gli accordi di cooperazione stipulati con altri paesi. Del resto, la Bosnia Erzegovina è il paese delle assurdità. Lo confermano anche i nostri interlocutori, aggiungendo che a volte si sentono incompresi anche dai loro familiari.

      “Mia moglie spesso si chiede come io possa fare questo lavoro. Oppure invito ospiti a casa per la celebrazione del santo della famiglia, e proprio quando stiamo per tagliare il pane tradizionale, mi chiama la polizia dicendo di aver trovato un cadavere nella Drina. Quindi, mi scuso con gli ospiti, chiedo loro di rimanere e vado a fare il mio lavoro. Non è un lavoro facile, ma per me la più grande soddisfazione è sapere che quel corpo recuperato sarà sepolto degnamente e che la famiglia della vittima, straziata dalla sofferenza, finalmente troverà pace”, spiega Nenad Jovanović.

      Recentemente, Jovanović, insieme ai suoi colleghi Miroslav Vujanović e Safet Omerbegić, ha partecipato ad una cerimonia di commemorazione in memoria dei migranti scomparsi e morti ai confini d’Europa. In quell’occasione sono state inaugurate le lapidi delle tombe dei sedici migranti sepolti nel nuovo cimitero di Bijeljina, situato nel quartiere di Hase. Trattandosi di corpi non identificati, ciascuna delle lastre in marmo nero reca incise, a caratteri dorati, la sigla N.N e l’anno della morte.

      Nel cimitero è stato piantato anche un filare di alberi in memoria delle vittime e sono state collocate due targhe commemorative con la scritta: “Non dimenticheremo mai voi e i vostri sogni spezzati nella Drina”. L’iniziativa è stata realizzata grazie al sostegno dell’associazione austriaca «SOS Balkanroute» e di Nihad Suljić, attivista di Tuzla, che da anni fornisce assistenza concreta ai rifugiati e partecipa alle procedure di identificazione e sepoltura dei morti.

      “Per noi è un grande onore e privilegio sostenere simili progetti. Si tratta di un’iniziativa pionieristica che può fungere da modello per l’intera regione. Per quanto possa sembrare paradossale, siamo contenti che queste persone, a differenza di tante altre, abbiano almeno una tomba. Abbiamo voluto che le loro tombe fossero dignitose e che non venissero lasciate al degrado, come accaduto recentemente a Zvornik”, sottolinea Petar Rosandić dell’associazione SOS Balkanroute.

      Rosandić spiega che la sistemazione delle tombe dei migranti nei cimiteri di Bijeljina e Zvornik è frutto di un’iniziativa di cooperazione transfrontaliera a cui hanno partecipato anche le comunità religiose di Vienna. Queste comunità, che durante la Seconda guerra mondiale erano impegnate nel salvataggio degli ebrei, oggi partecipano a diversi progetti a sostegno dei migranti lungo le frontiere esterne dell’UE.

      “Sulle lastre c’è scritto che si tratta di persone non identificate, ma noi sappiano che in ogni tomba giace il corpo di un giovane uomo i cui sogni si sono spezzati nella Drina. Ognuno di loro aveva una famiglia, un passato, i propri desideri e le proprie aspirazioni. Il loro unico peccato, secondo gli standard europei, era quello di avere un passaporto sbagliato, quindi sono stati costretti a intraprendere strade pericolose per raggiungere i luoghi dove speravano di trovare serenità e un futuro migliore”, afferma l’attivista Nihad Suljić.

      Suljić poi spiega che nel prossimo periodo i ricercatori e gli attivisti si impegneranno al massimo per instaurare una collaborazione con diverse istituzioni e organizzazioni. L’obiettivo è quello di identificare le persone sepolte in modo da restituire loro un’identità e permettere alle loro famiglie di avviare un processo di lutto.

      “Questi monumenti neri sono le colonne della vergogna dell’Unione europea – commenta Suljić - non è stata la Drina a uccidere queste persone, bensì la politica delle frontiere chiuse. Se avessero avuto un altro modo per raggiungere un posto sicuro dove costruire una vita migliore, sicuramente non sarebbero andati in cerca di pace attraversando mari, fiumi e fili spinati. Le loro tombe testimonieranno per sempre la vergogna e il regime criminale dell’UE”.

      Suljić ha invitato i cittadini dell’UE che hanno partecipato alla cerimonia di commemorazione a Bijeljina a chiamare i governi dei loro paesi ad assumersi la propria responsabilità.

      “Non abbiamo bisogno di donazioni né di corone di fiori. Vi invito però a inviare un messaggio ai vostri governi, a tutti i responsabili dell’attuazione di queste politiche, per spiegare loro le conseguenze delle frontiere chiuse, frontiere che uccidono gli esseri umani, ma anche i valori europei”.

      Dalla chiusura del corridoio sicuro lungo la rotta balcanica [nel 2015], nell’area di Bijeljina, Zvornik e Bratunac sono stati ritrovati circa sessanta corpi di migranti annegati nel fiume Drina. Stando ai dati raccolti da un gruppo di attivisti e ricercatori, nel periodo compreso tra gennaio 2014 e dicembre 2023 lungo il tratto della rotta balcanica che include sei paesi (Macedonia del Nord, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia Erzegovina, Croazia e Slovenia) hanno perso la vita 346 persone in movimento. Trattandosi di dati reperiti da fonti pubbliche, i ricercatori sottolineano che il numero effettivo di vittime con ogni probabilità è molto più alto. In molti casi, la tragica sorte dei migranti è direttamente legata ai respingimenti effettuati dalle autorità locali e dai membri dell’agenzia Frontex.

      “La morte alle frontiere è ormai parte integrante di un regime di controllo che alcuni autori definiscono un crimine in tempo di pace, una forma di violenza amministrativa e istituzionale finalizzata a mantenere in vita un determinato ordine sociale. Molte persone morte ai confini restano invisibili, come sono invisibili anche le persone scomparse. I decessi e le sparizioni spesso non vengono denunciati, e alcuni corpi non vengono mai ritrovati”, spiega Marijana Hameršak, ricercatrice dell’Istituto di etnologia e studi sul folklore di Zagabria, responsabile di un progetto sui meccanismi di gestione dei flussi migratori alle periferie dell’UE.

      In assenza di un database regionale e di iniziative di cooperazione transfrontaliera, sono i volontari e gli attivisti a portare avanti le azioni di ricerca di persone scomparse e i tentativi di identificazione dei corpi. Al termine della cerimonia di commemorazione, a Bijeljina si è tenuta una conferenza per discutere di questo tema.

      “Molte famiglie non sanno a chi rivolgersi, non hanno mai ricevuto indicazioni chiare. Finora le istituzioni non hanno mai voluto impegnarsi su questo fronte. Spero che a breve ognuno si assuma la propria responsabilità e faccia il proprio lavoro, perché non è normale che noi, attivisti e volontari, portiamo avanti questo processo”, denuncia Nihad Suljić.

      A dare un contributo fondamentale è anche Vidak Simić, patologo ed esperto forense di Bijeljina. Dal 2016 Simić ha eseguito l’autopsia e prelevato un campione di DNA di circa quaranta corpi di migranti, per la maggior parte rinvenuti nel fiume Drina.

      “Questa vicenda mi opprime, non mi sento bene perché non riesco a portare a termine il mio lavoro. Credo profondamente nel giuramento di Ippocrate e lo rispetto. Le leggi e altre norme mi obbligano a conservare i campioni per sei mesi, ho deciso però di conservarli per tutto il tempo necessario, in attesa che il sistema venga cambiato. La mia idea è di raccogliere tutti questi campioni, creare profili genetici individuali, pubblicarli su un sito appositamente creato in modo da aiutare le famiglie – in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Marocco e in altri paesi – che cercano i loro cari scomparsi.

      Lo auspicano anche il padre, la madre, la sorella e i fratelli di Aziz Alimi, vent’anni, proveniente dall’Afghanistan, che nel settembre dello scorso anno, nel tentativo di raggiungere la Bosnia Erzegovina dalla Serbia, aveva deciso di attraversare la Drina a nuoto con altri tre ragazzi. Poco dopo la sua scomparsa, nello stesso luogo da dove Aziz per l’ultima volta aveva contattato uno dei suoi fratelli, è stato ritrovato un corpo.

      Dal momento che non è stato possibile identificare il corpo per via del pessimo stato in cui si trovava, i familiari di Aziz, che nel frattempo hanno trovato rifugio in Iran, hanno inviato un campione del suo DNA in Bosnia Erzegovina. Ripongono fiducia nelle istituzioni e nei cittadini bosniaco-erzegovesi per garantire ad Aziz almeno una sepoltura dignitosa.

      Ai presenti alla conferenza di Bijeljina si è rivolta anche la sorella di Aziz, Zahra Alimi, intervenuta con un videomessaggio. “Non abbiamo parenti in Europa che possano aiutarci e davvero non sappiamo cosa fare. Per favore aiutateci, nostro padre è affetto da un tumore e nostra madre ha sofferto molto dopo aver appreso la triste notizia [della scomparsa di Aziz]. Possiamo contare solo su di voi”.

      https://www.balcanicaucaso.org/aree/Bosnia-Erzegovina/Rotta-balcanica-i-sogni-spezzati-nella-Drina-229948
      #route_des_Balkans #Balkans #rivière #Bosnie-Hezégovine #migrations #réfugiés #mourir_aux_frontières #morts_aux_frontières #Bijeljina #Branjevo #Nenad_Jovanović #Nenad_Jovanovic #Serbie #frontières #commémoration #mémoire #cimetière #tombes #SOS_Balkanroute #Nihad_Suljić #Nihad_Suljic #dignité #monument #responsabilité

  • En Serbie, rendre invisibles les exilés

    La Serbie est le dernier pays non-membre de l’Union européenne de la route des Balkans. Traversée depuis des siècles, elle l’est aujourd’hui encore par de nombreux étrangers venus de Syrie, d’Afghanistan, de Turquie, même du Maroc… Car la Serbie reste le dernier rempart de la forteresse Europe. Ce petit pays de presque 7 millions d’habitants, entouré de huit frontières dont quatre avec l’Union européenne, applique une politique migratoire orchestrée par celle-ci.

    En effet, la Serbie demande son adhésion depuis plus de dix ans.

    Depuis le mois de décembre, après un contexte politique tendu, ce pays de transit tente de rendre invisibles les exilés, déjà soumis aux passeurs et aux lois en matière d’asile et d’immigration. En plein cœur de l’hiver, reportage entre Belgrade et la frontière croate de l’Europe.

    https://www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/grand-reportage/20240219-en-serbie-rendre-invisibles-les-exil%C3%A9s

    #emprisonnement #Serbie #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Belgrade #route_des_Balkans #Balkans #squat #opération_policière #peur #sécurité #insécurité #Sid #Šid #frontières #Croatie #transit #invisibilisation #Frontex #passeurs #frontières_extérieures #externalisation #visas #camps #solidarité #camps_de_réfugiés #refoulements #push-backs #migration_circulaire #game #the_game
    #audio #podcast

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina opened Negotiations on the Cooperation Agreement with FRONTEX

    By starting the negotiations on the Agreement with the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (FRONTEX), Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Ministry of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina fulfilled another of their obligations on the European road today.

    Along with the representatives of the BiH team for negotiations on the cooperation agreement with FRONTEX, the meeting that officially started this process was attended by the Minister of Security of Bosnia and Herzegovina Nenad Nešić and the Deputy Director General for Internal Affairs at the European Commission Oliver Onidi.

    After the establishment of operational cooperation with EUROPOL, this agreement is the next important step for BiH in the integration into the common European security area, the Ministry of Security of BiH announced.

    “Today we will start a process that will not mean cooperation with a single European institution for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but a confirmation that we are part of common and collective European security. I want to emphasize that our activities are aimed at eliminating threats and risks, primarily from organized crime that threatens development and economic stability of BiH, and increasing security for the citizens of BiH. FRONTEX will add a new dimension in this regard, strengthening our borders and their impermeability to security threats and organized crime in this dynamic time of migration as a serious source of all kinds of risks,” said Nešić.

    He emphasized that FRONTEX is a confirmation that BiH is a complicated country only when it needs an excuse not to do something, and that it is very functional and possible within its constitutional framework and the framework of the Dayton Agreement when they want to move things forward.

    Nešić wished the negotiating teams to effectively bring this work to an end, so that BiH would cease to be the only country in the Western Balkans that does not cooperate with FRONTEX.

    The Deputy General Director for Internal Affairs at the European Commission, Oliver Onidi, reminded that last year BiH made a big step by establishing full operational cooperation with EUROPOL, and that negotiations on cooperation with FRONTEX are also ahead of us.

    He emphasized that in a situation where there is an exceptional pressure of illegal migration, police cooperation and joint action in guarding and controlling borders is extremely important.

    https://sarajevotimes.com/bosnia-and-herzegovina-opened-negotiations-on-the-cooperation-agreeme

    #Bosnie #Bosnie-Hezégovine #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Frontex #accord #EUROPOL #Balkans #route_des_Balkans #frontières #contrôles_frontaliers