Simone_Veil annonce retirer le prix #Zineb_El_Rhazoui à Valérie Pécresse
▻https://www.marianne.net/politique/droite/valerie-pecresse-annonce-retirer-le-prix-simone-veil-a-zineb-el-rhazoui#ut
#politique #société #démagogie #tartuffe #droite_dans_ses_bottes #train_train #pécresse #pécresse_de_contrebande
Livre : « Taïwan, une obsession chinoise » de Jacques Gravereau, entre la raison et l’hubris - Asialyst
▻https://asialyst.com/fr/2023/12/09/livre-taiwan-obsession-chine-jacques-gravereau-raison-hubris
La comparaison entre l’Ukraine et Taïwan est-elle en tout point pertinente ? Quels sont les scénarios du conflit sino-taïwanais ? L’opinion publique chinoise est-elle totalement favorable à une invasion de Taïwan par Pékin ? Autant de questions abordées avec acuité et nuance par Jacques Gravereau, l’un des plus grands spécialistes européens de l’Asie, dans son ouvrage, Taïwan, une obsession chinoise. Il répond aux questions d’Hubert Testard.
PENDANT ce TEMPS, à #NICE, #CIOTTI et #ESTROSI, et leur spectacle #transformiste de #PAIRE_NOEL : #TATA_YOYO
:-D :-D :-D
More than 1,000 unmarked graves discovered along EU migration routes
Bodies also piling up in morgues across continent as countries accused of failing to meet human rights obligations.
Refugees and migrants are being buried in unmarked graves across the European Union at a scale that is unprecedented outside of war.
The Guardian can reveal that at least 1,015 men, women and children who died at the borders of Europe in the past decade were buried before they were identified.
They lie in stark, often blank graves along the borders – rough white stones overgrown with weeds in Sidiro cemetery in Greece; crude wooden crosses on Lampedusa in Italy; in northern France faceless slabs marked simply “Monsieur X”; in Poland and Croatia plaques reading “NN” for name unknown.
On the Spanish island of Gran Canaria, one grave states: “Migrant boat number 4. 25/09/2022.”
The European parliament passed a resolution in 2021 that called for people who die on migration routes to be identified and recognised the need for a coordinated database to collect details of the bodies.
But across European countries the issue remains a legislative void, with no centralised data, nor any uniform process for dealing with the bodies.
Working with forensic scientists from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other researchers, NGOs and pathologists, the Guardian and a consortium of reporters pieced together for the first time the number of migrants and refugees who died in the past decade along the EU’s borders whose names remain unknown. At least 2,162 bodies have still not been identified.
Some of these bodies are piling up in morgues, funeral parlours and even shipping containers across the continent. Visiting 24 cemeteries and working with researchers, the team found more than 1,000 nameless graves.
These, however, are the tip of the iceberg. More than 29,000 people died on European migration routes in this period, the majority of whom remain missing.
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What is the border graves project?
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About the investigation
The Guardian teamed up with Süddeutsche Zeitung and eight reporters from the Border Graves Investigation who received funding from Investigative Journalism for Europe and Journalismfund Europe.
We worked with researchers at the International Committee of the Red Cross who shared exclusively their most up-to-date findings on migrant and refugee deaths registered in Spain, Malta, Greece and Italy between 2014 and 2021.
Other partners included Marijana Hameršak of the European Irregularized Migration Regime at the Periphery of the EU (ERIM) project in Croatia, Grupa Granica and Podlaskie Humanitarian Emergency Service (POPH) in Poland and Sienos Grupė in Lithuania. The journalist Maël Galisson provided data for France.
Reporters and researchers also checked death registers, interviewed prosecutors and spoke to local authorities and morgue directors, as well as visiting two dozen cemeteries to track the number of unidentified migrants and refugees who have died trying to cross into the EU in the past decade and find their graves.
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The problem is “utterly neglected”, according to Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović, who has said EU countries are failing in their obligations under international human rights law.
“The tools are there. We have the agencies and the forensic experts, but they need to be engaged [by governments],” she said. The rise of the hard right and a lack of political will were likely to further impede the development of a proper system to address “the tragedy of missing migrants”, she added.
Instead, pockets of work happen at a local level. Pathologists, for example, collect DNA samples and the few personal items found on the bodies. The clues to lives lost are meagre: loose change in foreign currency, prayer beads, a Manchester United souvenir badge.
The lack of coordination leaves bewildered families struggling to navigate localised, often foreign bureaucracy in the search for lost relatives.
Supporting them falls to aid organisations such as the ICRC, which has recorded 16,500 requests since 2013 for information to its programme for restoring family links from people looking for relatives who went missing en route to Europe. The largest number of requests have come from Afghans, Iraqis, Somalians, Guineans and people from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea and Syria. Only 285 successful matches have been achieved.
And now even some of this support is about to disappear. As governments cut their aid budgets, the ICRC has been forced to refocus its reduced resources. National Red Cross agencies will continue the family links programme but much of the ICRC’s work training police and local authorities is being cut.
A race against time
The mini set of scissors and comb worn on a chain were unique to 24-year-old Oussama Tayeb, a small talisman that reflected his job as a barber. For his cousin Abdallah, they were the hope that he had been found.
Tayeb set sail last year from the north-west of Algeria just before 8pm on Christmas Day. Onboard with him were 22 neighbours who had clubbed together to pay for the boat they had hoped would take them to Spain.
His family has been searching for him since. Abdallah, who lives in France, fears it is a race against time.
Spanish police introduced a database in 2007 in which data and genetic samples from unidentified remains are meant to be logged. In practice, the system breaks down when it comes to families searching for missing relatives, who have no clear information about how to access it.
The family had provided a DNA sample soon after Tayeb’s disappearance. With no news by February, they travelled to southern Spain for a second time to search for him. At the morgue in Almería, a forensic doctor reacted to Tayeb’s photo, saying he looked familiar. She recalled a necklace, but said the man she was thinking of was believed to have died in a jet ski accident.
“It was a really intense moment because we knew that Oussama was wearing a jet ski lifejacket,” Abdallah said.
Even with the knowledge that Tayeb’s body may have been found, his cousin was unable to see the corpse lying in the morgue without a police officer. Abdallah remembered the shocking callousness with which he was greeted at one of the many police stations he tried. “One policeman told us that if ‘they don’t want to disappear, they shouldn’t have taken a boat to Spain’.”
Looming over Abdallah’s continuing search is a practical pressure mentioned by the Spanish pathologist: bodies in the morgue are usually kept for a year and then buried, whether identified or not. “We only want an answer. If we see the chain, this would be like a death certificate. It’s so heartbreaking. It’s like we’re leaving Oussama in the fridge and we can’t do anything about it,” he said.
‘Here lies a brother who lost his life’
The local authorities that receive the most bodies are often on small islands and are increasingly saying they cannot cope.
They warn that an already inadequate system is going backwards. Spain’s Canary Islands have reported a record 35,410 men, women and children reaching the archipelago by boat this year. In recent months, most of these vessels have sought to land on the tiny, remote island of El Hierro. In the past six weeks alone, seven unidentified people were buried on the island.
The burial vaults of 15 unidentified people who were found dead on a rickety wooden vessel in 2020, in the town of Agüimes on Gran Canaria, bear identical plaques that read simply: “Here lies a brother who lost his life trying to reach our shores.”
In the Muslim section of Lanzarote’s Teguise cemetery, the graves of children are marked with circles of stones. They include the grave of a baby believed to have been stillborn on a deadly crossing from Morocco in 2020. Alhassane Bangoura’s body was separated from his mother during the rescue and was buried in an unmarked grave. His name is only recorded informally, engraved on a bowl by locals moved by his plight.
It is the same story in the other countries at the edge of the EU; unmarked graves dotted along their frontiers standing testament to the crisis. Along the land borders, in Croatia, Poland, Lithuania, the numbers of unmarked graves are fewer but still they are there, blank stones or sometimes an NN marked on plaques.
In France, the anonymous inscription “X” stands out in cemeteries in Calais. The numbers seem low compared with those found along the southern coastal borders: 35 out of 242 migrants and refugees who died on the Franco-British border since 2014 remain unidentified. The high proportion of the dead identified reflects the fact that people spend time waiting before attempting the Channel crossing so there are often contacts still in France able to name those who die.
Fragments of hope
Leaked footage of Polish border guards laughing at a young man hanging upside down, trapped by his foot, stuck in the razor wire on the top of the 180km (110-mile) steel border fence separating Belarus from Poland caused a brief social media storm.
But the moment he is caught in the searchlights, his frightened face briefly frozen, has haunted 50-year-old Kafya Rachid for the past year. She is sure the man is her missing child, Mohammed Sabah, who was 22 when she last saw him alive.
Sabah had flown from his home in Iraqi Kurdistan in the autumn of 2021 to Belarus, for which he had a visa. He was successfully taken across the EU border by smugglers but was detained about 50km (30 miles) into Poland and deported back to Belarus.
Waiting to cross again, his messages suddenly stopped. The family had been coming to terms with the fact he was probably dead. Then the video surfaced. With little else to go on, fragments such as this give families hope.
Sabah’s parents, as so often happens, were unable to get visas to travel to the EU. Instead, Rekaut Rachid, an uncle of Sabah who has lived in London since 1999, has made three trips to Poland to try to find him.
Rachid believes the Polish authorities lied to him when they told him the man in the video was Egyptian, and this keeps him searching. “They are hiding something. Five per cent of me thinks maybe he died. But 95% of me thinks he is in prison somewhere in Poland,” he said, adding: “My sister calls every day to ask if I think he is still alive. I don’t know how to answer.”
Shipping container morgues
In a corner of the hospital car park in the Greek city of Alexandroupolis, two battered refrigerated shipping containers stand next to some rubbish bins. Inside are the bodies of 40 people.
The border from Turkey into Greece over the Evros River nearby is only a 10- to 20-minute crossing, but people cross at night when their small rubber boats can easily hit a tree and capsize. Corpses decompose quickly in the riverbed mud, so that facial characteristics, clothing and any documents that might help identify them are rapidly destroyed.
Twenty of the corpses in the containers are the charred remains of migrants who died in wildfires that consumed this part of Greece during the summer’s heatwave. Identification has proved exceptionally difficult, with only four of the dead named to date.
Prof Pavlos Pavlidis, the forensic pathologist for the area, works to determine the cause of death, to collect DNA samples and to catalogue any personal effects that might help relatives identify their loved ones at a later date.
The temporary container morgues in Alexandroupolis are on loan from the ICRC. The humanitarian agency has loaned another container to the island of Lesbos, another migration hotspot, for the same purpose.
Lampedusa does not have that luxury. “There are no morgues and no refrigerated units,” said Salvatore Vella, the Sicilian head prosecutor who leads investigations into shipwrecks off its coast. “Once placed in body bags, the bodies of migrants are transferred to Sicily. Burial is managed by individual towns. It has happened that migrants have sometimes been buried in sort of mass graves within cemeteries.”
The scale of the problem was becoming so acute, said Filippo Furri, an anthropologist and an associate researcher at Mecmi, a group that examines deaths during migration, that “there have been cases of coffins abandoned in cemetery warehouses due to lack of space, or bodies that remain in hospital morgues”.
‘It’s not only a technical difficulty but also a political one’
“If you count the relatives of those who are missing, hundreds of thousands of people are impacted. They don’t know where their loved ones are. Were they well treated, were they respected when they were buried? That’s what preys on families’ minds,” said Laurel Clegg, the ICRC forensic coordinator for migration in Europe. “We have an obligation to provide the dead with a dignified burial; and [to address] the other side, providing answers to families through identification of the dead.”
She said keeping track of the dead relied on lots of parts working well together: a legal framework that protected the unidentified dead, consistent postmortems, morgues, registries, dignified transport and cemeteries.
The systems are inadequate, however, despite the EU parliament resolution. There are still no common rules about what information should be collected, nor a centralised place to store this information. The political focus is on catching the smugglers rather than finding out who their victims are.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said the rights and dignity of refugees and migrants had to be addressed alongside tackling people smuggling. They said each member state was responsible individually for how it dealt with those who died on its borders, but that the commission was working to improve coordination and protocols and “regrets the loss of every human life” .
In Italy, significant efforts have been made to identify the dead from a couple of well-reported, large-scale disasters. Cristina Cattaneo, the head of the laboratory of forensic anthropology and odontology (Labanof) at the University of Milan, has spent years working to identify the dead from a shipwreck in 2015 in which more than 1,000 people lost their lives.
Raising the wreck to retrieve the bodies has cost €9.5m (£8.1m) already. Organising the 30,000 mixed bones into identifiable remains of 528 bodies has been a herculean task. Only six victims have so far been issued official death certificates.
As political positions on irregular migration have hardened, experts are finding official enthusiasm for their complex work has diminished. “It’s not only a technical difficulty but also a political one,” Cattaneo said.
In Sicily, Vella has been investigating a fishing boat that sank in October 2019. It was carrying 49 people, mostly from Tunisia. Just a few miles off shore, a group onboard filmed themselves celebrating their imminent arrival in Europe before the boat ran out of fuel and capsized. The Italian coastguard rescued 22 people but 27 others lost their lives.
Coastguard divers, using robots, captured images of bodies floating near the vessel, but were unable to recover all of them. The footage circulated around the world. A group of Tunisian women who had been searching for their sons contacted the Italian authorities and were given permits to travel to meet the prosecutor, who showed them more footage.
One mother, Zakia Hamidi, recognised her 18-year-old son, Fheker. It was a searing experience for both her and Vella: “At that moment, I realised the difference between a mother, torn apart by grief, but who at least will return home with her child’s body, and those mothers who will not have a body to mourn. It is something heartbreaking.”
The torture of not knowing
The grief that people feel when they have no certainty about the fate of their missing relatives has a very particular intensity.
Dr Pauline Boss, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota in the US, was the first to describe this “ambiguous loss”. “You are stuck, immobilised, you feel guilty if you begin again because that would mean accepting the person is dead. Grieving is frozen, your decision-making is frozen, you can’t work out the facts, can’t answer the questions,” she said.
Not knowing often has severe practical consequences too. Spouses may not be able to exercise their parental rights, inherit assets or claim welfare support or pensions without a death certificate. Orphans cannot be adopted by extended family without one either.
Sometimes relatives are left in the dark for years. A decade on from a shipwreck disaster in 2013, bereaved families continue to gather in Lampedusa every year, still searching for answers. Among them this year was a Syrian woman, Sabah al-Joury, whose son Abdulqader was on the boat. She said that not knowing where he ended up was like having “an open wound”.
Sabah’s family said the torture of not being able to find out what happened to him was “like dying everyday”. Abdallah thinks he must make another trip from Paris to southern Spain before the end of the year. “What is difficult is not to have the body, not to be able to bury him,” he said.
Rituals around death were indicative of a deep human need, said Boss. “The most important thing is for the name to be marked somewhere, so the family can visit, and the missing can be remembered. A name means you were on this Earth, not forgotten.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2023/dec/08/revealed-more-than-1000-unmarked-graves-discovered-along-eu-migration-r
#migrations #asile #réfugiés #frontières #mourir_aux_frontières #tombes #fosses_communes #Europe #morts_aux_frontières #enterrement #cimetières #morgues #chiffres
The Border Graves Investigation
More than 1,000 migrants who died trying to enter Europe lie buried in nameless graves. EU migration policy has failed the dead and the living.
A cross-border team of eight journalists has confirmed the existence of 1,015 unmarked graves of migrants buried in 65 cemeteries over the past decade across Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, and Croatia. The reporters visited more than half of them.
Unidentified migrants lay to rest in cemeteries in olive groves, on hilltops, in dense forests, and along remote highways. Each unmarked grave represents a person who lost their life en route to Europe, and a fate that will remain forever unknown to their loved ones.
This months-long investigation underlines that Europe’s migration policies have failed more than a thousand people who have died in transit and the families who survive them.
In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognsing the need for a “coordinated European approach” for “prompt and effective identification processes” for bodies found on EU borders. Yet in 2022, the Council of Europe called this area a “legislative void”.
These failures mean that the responsibility of memorialising unidentified victims often ends up falling to individual municipalities, cemetery keepers and local good Samaritans, with many victims buried without any attempt at identification.
▻https://twitter.com/Techjournalisto/status/1733100115781386448
In the absence of official data from European and national governments, the Border Graves Investigation collaborated with The Guardian and Suddeutsche Zeitung to count 2,162 unidentified deaths of migrants across eight countries in Europe between 2014 and 2023.
The cross-border team conducted over 60 interviews in six languages. They spoke with families of the missing and deceased, whose loved ones left for Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Algeria and Sri Lanka.
They revealed the institutional and bureaucratic hurdles of searching for bodies and burying the remains of those that are found. One mother compared her unresolved grief to an “open wound,” and an uncle said it was like “dying every day”.
To understand the complex legal, medical and political landscape of death in each country, the journalists spoke with coroners, grave keepers, forensic doctors, international and local humanitarian groups, government officials, a European MEP and the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner.
The in-depth investigation reveals that the European Union is violating migrants’ last rights. The stories below show how.
The team
The Border Graves Investigation team consists of Barbara Matejčić, Daphne Tolis, Danai Maragoudaki, Eoghan Gilmartin, Gabriela Ramirez, Gabriele Cruciata, Leah Pattem, and is coordinated by Tina Xu. The project was supported by the IJ4EU fund and JournalismFund Europe.
Gabriele Cruciata is a Rome-based award-winning journalist specialising in podcasts and investigative and narrative journalism. He also works as a fixer, producer, journalism consultant, and trainer.
Gabriele Cruciata IG @gab_cruciata
Leah Pattem is a Spain-based journalist and photographer specialising in politics, migration and community stories. Leah is also the founder and editor of the popular local media platform Madrid No Frills.
X @leahpattem
IG @madridnofrills
Eoghan Gilmartin is a Spain-based freelance journalist specialising in news, politics and migration. His work has appeared in Jacobin Magazine, The Guardian, Tribune and Open Democracy.
X @EoghanGilmartin
Muck Rack: Eoghan Gilmartin
Gabriela Ramirez is an award-winning multimedia journalist specialising in migration, human rights, ocean conservation, and climate issues, always through a gender-focused lens. Currently serving as the Multimedia & Engagement Editor at Unbias The News.
X @higabyramirez
Linkedin Gabriela Ramirez
Instagram @higabyramirez
Barbara Matejčić is a Croatian award-winning freelance journalist, non-fiction writer and audio producer focused on social affairs and human rights
Website: ▻http://barbaramatejcic.com
FB: ▻https://www.facebook.com/barbara.matejcic.1
Instagram: @barbaramatejcic
Danai Maragoudaki is a Greek journalist based in Athens. She works for independent media outlet Solomon and is a member of their investigative team. Her reporting focuses on transparency, finance, and digital threats.
FB: ▻https://www.facebook.com/danai.maragoudaki
X: @d_maragoudaki
IG: @danai_maragoudaki
Daphne Tolis is an award-winning documentary producer/filmmaker and multimedia journalist based in Athens. She has produced and hosted timely documentaries for VICE Greece and has directed TV documentaries for the EBU and documentaries for the MSF and IFRC. Since 2014 she has been working as a freelance producer and journalist in Greece for the BBC, Newsnight, VICE News Tonight, ABC News, PBS Newshour, SRF, NPR, Channel 4, The New York Times Magazine, ARTE, DW, ZDF, SVT, VPRO and others. She has reported live for DW News, BBC News, CBC News, ABC Australia, and has been a guest contributor on various BBC radio programs, Times Radio, Morning Ireland, RTE, NPR’s ‘Morning Edition’, and others.
X: ▻https://twitter.com/daphnetoli
Instagram: ▻https://www.instagram.com/daphne_tolis/?hl=en
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/daphne-tolis
Tina Xu is a multimedia journalist and filmmaker working at the intersection of migration, mental health, socially engaged arts, and civil society. Her stories often interrogate the three-way street between people, policy, and power. She received the Excellence in Environmental Reporting Award from Society of Publishers in Asia in 2021, was a laureate of the European Press Prize Innovation Award in 2021 and 2022, and shortlisted for the One World Media Refugee Reporting Award in 2022.
X: @tinayingxu
IG: @tinayingxu
▻https://www.investigativejournalismforeu.net/projects/border-graves
1000 Lives, 0 Names: The Border Graves Investigation. How the EU is failing migrants’ last rights
What happens to those who die in their attempts to reach the European Union? How are their lives marked, how can their families honor them? How do governments recognize their existence and their basic rights as human beings?
Our cross-border team confirmed 1,015 unmarked graves of migrants in 65 cemeteries buried over the last 10 years across Spain, Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, and Croatia. We visited over half of them.
Each unmarked grave represents a person who lost their life en route to Europe, and a fate that remains painfully unknown to their loved ones.
In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing the need for a “coordinated European approach” for “prompt and effective identification processes” for bodies found on EU borders. Yet last year, the Council of Europe called this area a “legislative void.”
In the absence of official data from European and national governments, the Border Graves Investigation counted 2,162 unidentified deaths of migrants across eight countries in Europe from 2014-2023.
Our cross-border team conducted over 60 interviews in six languages. We spoke with families of the missing and deceased, whose loved ones left for Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraqi Kurdistan, Algeria, and Sri Lanka. They spoke about the institutional and bureaucratic hurdles of searching for, and if found, burying a body.
One mother compared the unresolved grief to an “open wound,” and an uncle said it was like “dying every day.”
Here is how Europe violates the “last rights” of migrants.
Widowed by Europe’s borders
“No water, I think I’ll die, I love you.” This is the last text Sanooja received from her husband, who disappeared after a pushback into the dense forest that stretches between Belarus, Lithuania, and Poland. For families searching for missing loved ones, the EU inflicts a second death of identity and acknowledgment.
Samrin and Sanooja were high school classmates. Both born in 1990, they grew up together in Kalpitiya, a town of 80,000 on the tip of a small peninsula in Sri Lanka. When Samrin first asked Sanooja out in the ninth grade, she said no. But years later, when her roommates snuck through her diary, they asked about the boy in all her stories.
When they turned 20, Sanooja was studying to be a teacher, while Samrin left town for work. After six years of video calls and heart emoji-laden selfies, Samrin returned home in 2017 and they got married, her in a white headscarf and indigo-sleeved dress, him in a matching indigo suit. Their son Haashim was born a year later. They called each other “thangam,” or gold.
https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WhatsApp-Image-2023-11-23-at-15.43.34_c43ee772-650x650.jpg 
https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/09c7d749-8a1c-4d2b-ae20-87d130895944-650x650.jpeg She hoped the birth of their son meant that Samrin would stay close by from now on. They took their son to the beach, to the zoo. Then the 2019 economic crisis hit, the worst since the country’s independence in 1948. There were daily blackouts, a shortage of fuel, and runaway inflation. In 2022, protests rocked the country, and the government claimed bankruptcy.
Samrin was a difficult person to fall in love with, says Sanooja, because he was so ambitious. Sanooja smiles bitterly over a video call from her home in Kalpitiya. The sun filters through the mango tree in the yard, where the two often sat together and made plans for their future.
But part of loving him, she explains, meant supporting him even in his hardest decisions. One of these decisions was to take a plane to Moscow, then to travel to Europe and send money home. “He went to keep us happy, to make us good.”
Their last day together, Sanooja surprised him with a cake: Sky blue icing, an airplane made of fondant, ascending from an earth made of chocolate sprinkles. In big letters: “Love you and will miss you. Have a safe journey, Thangam.” In their last photos together, Haashim sits laughing on Samrin’s lap as he cuts the cake. That night, Samrin squeezed his son and wept. The next day he put on a pair of blue Converse All-Stars, packed a black backpack, and set out. It was June 26, 2022. He had just turned 32 years old.
https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/unnamed-650x650.jpg 
https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/unnamed-1-e1701993313158-650x650.jpg Things did not go according to plan. He boarded a bus from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, but the fake Schengen visa they paid so much for was rejected at the Finnish border. Sanooja told him he could always come home. But in order to finance the journey, they had sold a plot of Samrin’s land and Sanooja’s jewelry, and borrowed money from friends. Samrin decided there was no turning back. He pivoted to plan B: He could go to Belarus, where he didn’t need a visa, and cross the border to Lithuania, in the Schengen zone.
When Samrin checked into the Old Town Trio Hotel in Vilnius on August 16, 2022, the first thing he did was call home: He had survived the forest. Sanooja was relieved to hear his voice. He told her about the eight days crossing the forest between Belarus and Lithuania, the mud up to his knees. Days without food, drinking dirty water. He told her especially about the pains in his stomach as he walked in the forest, due to his recent surgery to remove kidney stones. Sometimes he would urinate blood.
But he was in the European Union. He bought a plane ticket for a departure to Paris in four days, the city where he hoped to make his new life. What happened next is unclear. This is what Sanooja knows:
On the third day, Samrin walked into the hotel lobby, and the manager called security. Plainclothes officers shuttled him into a car and whisked him 50 kilometers back once more to the Belarusian border. In less than 72 hours, Samrin found himself trapped again in the forest he had fought to escape.
It was already dark when Samrin was left alone in the woods. He had no backpack, sleeping bag, or food. His phone was running out of battery. The next morning, Samrin came online briefly to send Sanooja a final message on WhatsApp: “No water, I think I’ll die. Trangam, I love you.”
That was the beginning of a deafening silence that stretched four and a half months. When she gets to this part of the story, Sanooja, ever talkative and articulate, apologizes that she simply cannot describe it. Her eyes glaze and flit upward.
The Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović asserts that families have a “right to truth” surrounding the fates of their loved ones who disappear en route to Europe. In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for “prompt and effective identification processes” to connect the bodies of those who perished to those searching for them. Two years on, Mijatović tells us not much has been done, and the issue is a “legislative void.”
As part of the Border Graves Investigation, conducted with a cross-border team of eight freelance journalists across Europe in collaboration with Unbias the News, The Guardian and Sueddeutche Zeitung, we followed the stories of those who have disappeared in the forest that covers the borders in Eastern Europe, between Belarus and the EU (Lithuania, Poland, Latvia).
We spoke with their families, as well as over a dozen humanitarian workers, lawyers, and policymakers from organizations in Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus, to piece together the question of what happens after something goes fatally wrong on Europe’s eastern border—and who is responsible.
Who counts the dead?
The forest along the Belarussian border is a dense landscape of underbrush, moss and swamps, and encompasses one of the largest ancient forest areas left in Europe.
Spanning hundreds of square kilometers across the borders with Lithuania and Poland, the forest became an unexpected hotspot when Belarus began issuing visas and opening direct flights to Minsk in the summer of 2021. This power play between Belarussian President Lukashenko and his EU neighbors has been called a “political game” in which migrants are the pawns.
Since 2021, thousands of people, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, have sought to enter the EU from Belarus via its borders in Poland and Lithuania. Hundreds of people have been caught in a one-kilometer no man’s land between Belarusian territory and the EU border fence, chased back and forth by border guards on both sides under threat of violence. Belarusian guards reportedly threatened to release dogs, and photographs emerged of bite wounds.
Since 2021, Poland and Lithuania have ramped up on “pushbacks,” in which border guards deport people immediately without the opportunity to ask for asylum, a process that is growing in popularity across Europe despite violating international law. Poland reports having conducted 78,010 pushbacks since the start of the crisis, and Lithuania 21,857. Samrin was apparently one of these cases.
While these two countries publish precise daily statistics for pushbacks, they do not publish data for deaths at the border, nor people reported missing.
“National states want to do this job secretly,” explains Tomas Tomilinas, a member of the Lithuanian Parliament. “We are on the margins of the law and constitution here, any government pushing people back is trying to avoid publicity on this topic.”
Official data is an intentional void. Both the Polish and Lithuanian Border Guards declined to share any numbers with us. However, there are organizations striving to keep count: Humanitarian groups in Poland, including Grupa Granica (“Border Group” in Polish) and Podlaskie Humanitarian Emergency Service (POPH), have documented 52 deaths on the Poland-Belarus border since 2021, and are tracking 16 unidentified bodies.
In Lithuania, the humanitarian group Sienos Grupė (“Border Group” in Lithuanian) has documented 10 deaths, including three minors who died while in detention centers, and three others who died in car accidents when chased by local authorities after crossing the border region. In Belarus, the NGO Human Constanta reports that 33 have died according to government data shared with them, but it was not recorded whether these bodies have been identified, and whether or where they are buried.
On the borders between Poland, Lithuania and Belarus, humanitarian groups have compiled a list of more than 300 people reported missing. The organizations emphasize that their numbers are incomplete, as they have neither the access nor the capacity to monitor the full extent of the problem.
Where to turn?
It was already past midnight in Sri Lanka when Samrin stopped responding to messages. From 8,000 km away, Sanooja tried to call for help. She found his last known coordinates on Find My iPhone, a blue dot in Trokenikskiy, Grodno region, just across the Belarus side of the border, and tried to report him missing.
The Lithuanian and Belarussian border guards picked up the phone. She begged them to find him, even if it meant arresting or deporting him. They responded that he had to call himself. It was baffling: How can a missing person call to report themselves?
She called the migrant detention camps, where people are often detained without access to a phone for months. Maybe he was locked up somewhere. As soon as she said “hello,” they responded, “no English,” and hung up. She emailed them instead, no response. She emailed UNHCR and the Red Cross Society. Both institutions said they had no information about the case. She emailed the police, who responded a week later that they had no information.
Sanooja had run into the rude reality that there is no authority responsible for nor prepared to respond to such inquiries. Even organizations dedicated to working with migrants, such as the migrant detention camp staff, would or could not respond to basic queries in English.
International humanitarian organizations, too, are almost absent in the region. Compared to the Mediterranean countries of Spain, Italy, and Greece, which have had a decade to organize to respond to mass deaths on their border, the presence of formal aid in Eastern Europe is much smaller.
Weeks passed, and in the terrible silence, every possibility behind her husband’s disappearance invaded Sanooja’s mind. Four-year-old Haashim began to cry out for his father every night, who used to wake him up with kisses. When they lost contact, Haashim often wet the bed and refused to go to school. “He must have had some intuition about his father,” said Sanooja.
Then Sanooja began to wonder if he could be in another country in the region: Latvia? Poland? She broadened her search to all four countries. There was no Sri Lankan Embassy in Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, or Latvia, so she emailed the closest one in Sweden. Then, she went on Facebook. That’s how she found the account of Sienos Grupė, and sent them a message.
Like many local humanitarian groups across the region, Sienos Grupė is a small team of four part-time staff and around 30 volunteers. The group banded together in 2021 to respond to calls for help through WhatsApp and Facebook and drop off vital supplies in the forest, such as food, water, power banks, and dry clothes.
“There is a body, please go”
Local volunteer groups were doing their best to aid the living, but it wasn’t long before they were being contacted to find the missing or the dead.
On the Polish border, everyone has heard of Piotr Czaban. A local journalist and activist, his contact is shared among migrants attempting to cross the border. He is known as the man who can help find the bodies of people left behind in the woods, a reputation he has lived up to many times. The demands of the work have led him to leave his full-time job.
He sits on the edge of a weathered log in a forest near Sokolka, a city near the Poland-Belarus border region where he lives. Navigating the thick undergrowth with ease in jeans and trekking boots, he recounts the first search he coordinated back in February 2022. He received a message on Facebook from a Syrian man in Belarus: “There is a body in the forest, here is the place, please go.”
Piotr was taken off guard. He asked his friends in the police what to do, and they told him the best way was to go himself, take photos, and then call the police. However, the border guards had closed the border region to all non-residents, including journalists and humanitarian workers, so he couldn’t pass the police checkpoints for the area where the body lay.
So Piotr made another call. This time to Rafal Kowalczyk, the 53-year-old director of the Mammal Research Institute, who has worked in the Bialowieza Forest for three decades. (“In my previous TV job, I interviewed him about bison, and thought he was a good man,” said Piotr by way of introduction).
Rafal was up for the task. As a wildlife expert, he had access to the restricted forest area, and now he ventured into the woods not to track bison, but to follow the clues sent by a despairing Syrian man.
In the swamp, Rafal found 26-year-old Ahmed Al-Shawafi from Yemen, barefoot and half-submerged in the water, one shoe in the mud nearby.
It was difficult for Rafal to point his camera at the face of a dead man, but he did, and this image still haunts him. Piotr forwarded the photos Rafal had taken to the police, with a straightforward message: “We know there’s a body there. Now you have to go.”
But what if Ahmed could have been found earlier, even alive?
“The police have no competence”
Until there is a photo of a dead body, police and border guards have often declined to search for missing or dead migrants.
Ahmed’s traveling companions, including the man who contacted Piotr, had personally begged Polish border guards for emergency medical aid for Ahmed. They had left Ahmed by the river in the throes of hypothermia to ask for help. Instead of calling paramedics, or searching for Ahmed at all, the border guards pushed the group back to Belarus, leaving Ahmed to die alone in the forest.
In our investigation, we heard of at least three other deaths that are eerily similar to Ahmed’s: Ethiopian woman Mahlet Kassa, 28; Syrian man Mohammed Yasim, 32; and Yemeni man Dr. Ibrahim Jaber Ahmed Dihiya, 33. In all three cases, traveling companions approached Polish officers for emergency medical attention, but instead got pushed back themselves. Help never arrived.
Each time the activists receive a report of a missing or dead person, they first share this information with the police. Piotr says he has received responses from the police, including, “We’re busy,” or “Not our problem.”
After police were provided with the photos and exact GPS location of Ahmed’s body, they called back to say they still couldn’t find him. When Rafal turned his car around to personally lead the police to his body, he found out why: The police had ventured into the swamp without waterproof boots or even a GPS to navigate in a forest where there is often no cell connection.
“The police are unequipped,” said Rafal, full of disbelief. Two years on from the crisis, the police still do not have the proper basic equipment nor training to conduct searches for people missing or dead in the forest. He recounts that in one trip to retrieve a body with police, they could only walk 300 meters in one hour, and one officer had lost the sole of his shoes in the mud.
The Polish police responded to our email, “The police is not a force with the competence to deal with persons illegally crossing borders.” As a result, eight of 22 bodies found this year on the Polish side of the border were discovered by volunteers like Piotr and Rafal.
On the Lithuanian side, Sienos Grupė says there are no such searches. “We are afraid there are many bodies in Lithuanian forests and the area between the fence and Belarus, but we are not allowed there,” says Aušrinė, a 23-year-old medicine student and Sienos Grupė volunteer in Lithuania. “Nobody is looking for them.”
“In two weeks, there is nothing there”
Rafal sits down in a wooden lodge on the edge of the forest and orders tea for himself while his two young children play on a tablet. It was his turn with the kids, he explains in a deep voice. His wife came home at four in the morning, after spending the whole night volunteering with POPH on a search for a man with diabetes in the forest.
He feared that time was running out. We met with Rafal on Thursday evening. The man was found on Saturday morning, already dead. He is the 51st death recorded in Poland this year.
In the forest, each search is a race against both time and wild animals.
The winter may preserve a body for two months, but in the summer, the time frame is much shorter. A few times, Rafal has come across mere skeletons. He explains, “When there is a smell, the scavengers go immediately. When you’ve got summer and flies, probably in two weeks, it’s done, there’s nothing there.”
In such advanced stages of decomposition, the body is exponentially more difficult to identify. However, DNA can be collected from bone fragments, in case families come searching. If they’re lucky, there are objects found close by: glasses, clothes, or jewelry. In one case, a family portrait found near the body was the key to identification.
However, the Suwałki Prosecutor’s Office in Poland explained to us that the Prosecutor’s Offices keep no central register of data on deceased migrants, such as DNA, personal belongings, or photographs.
“As a wife, I know his eyes”
Four and a half months after Samrin disappeared, Sanooja’s phone rang. It was January 5, 2023. She will never forget the voice of the man that spoke. He was calling from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sri Lanka, and informed her that her husband’s DNA had been matched to a body found in the Lithuanian forest. Interpol had drawn Samrin’s biometric data from the UK.
She considers it fate that the dots came together this way. When they were 20 years old, Samrin’s father passed away, and Samrin left for London on a student visa. Instead of studying, he washed dishes at McDonald’s and KFC, and stocked shelves at Aldi, Lidl, and Iceland. When his visa expired, he lived a clandestine existence, evading the authorities. At age 26, the Home Office arrested him, took his DNA, and deported him. This infraction turned out to be an unexpected lifeline for his identification.
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https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/WhatsApp-Image-2023-11-23-at-16.25.01_3874e9db-650x650.jpg “Getting the message that my husband was no more, that was nothing compared to those four and a half months,” said Sanooja. She had begun to fear that she would have to live with “lifelong doubt” around Samrin’s fate. Now she knew that four days after Samrin sent his goodbye message, his body was pulled from a river on the Lithuanian side of the border.
Sanooja has read the police report countless times now: On August 21, 2022, witness Saulius Zakarevičius went for a morning swim in the Neris River. After bathing, he saw something floating. Through binoculars, he was able to decipher human clothes. The river bank is covered with tall grass. At the end of the patch there was a male corpse lying face down. The surface of the skin was swollen, pale, chaotically covered with pink lines, resembling the surface of marble. The skin was peeling from the palms of the corpse…
She was asked to identify the corpse.
“As a wife, I know him. I know his eyes. To see them on a dead body, that was terrible.”
Sanooja
In photos of his personal items, she instantly recognized Samrin’s shoes: a muddy pair of blue Converse All-Stars, with the laces looped just the way he always did.
To be able to transport a dead body from Europe to any other part of the world, families must face the financial challenge of costs up to 10,000 euros. But the decision was not only about money for Sanooja. It was about time and dreams.
For one, she believed that he had suffered enough. “As Muslims, we believe that even dead bodies can feel pain,” she says softly. “I felt broken that he was in the mortuary, feeling the cold for four and a half months.”
And perhaps most of all, she recites what Samrin had told her before he left: “If I go, this time I’m not coming back.” In the end, Sanooja relied on her husband’s last will. “His dream was to be in Europe. So, at least his body will rest in Europe.”
“Graves without a plate”
Samrin’s death was the first border death publicly recognized by the Lithuanian government. Despite being the first, he did not receive any distinctive attention, and his resting place remained an unmarked mound of earth for more than eight months.
On a hot summer day in July, co-founder of Sienos Grupė, Mantautas Šulskus brings a green watering can and measuring tape to our visit to the Vilnius cemetery where Samrin was buried in February. Green grass is sprouting all over Samrin’s grave. But it is not the only one.
There are three smaller graves lined in a row. Among them, an eleven-year-old, a five-year-old, and a newborn baby rest side by side, their lives cut short in 2021. “These are three minors who died in detention centers in Lithuania,” Mantautas points out somberly.
These cases have not been officially acknowledged by Lithuanian authorities, and none of the graves of the minors bear a name, even though their identities were also known to authorities. This lack of recognition paints a haunting picture, suggesting a second, silent death—a death of identity and acknowledgment.
Bodies are sent to municipal or village governments to bury, and if they do not receive explicit instructions to create a plate, they often opt not to. As a result, the nameless graves of migrants are scattered across cemeteries in the region.
Yet Mantautas is here in the scorching heat to measure a stone plate nearby in the Muslim corner of the cemetery. Sanooja saw it during a video call with Sienos Grupė volunteers, so that she could pray virtually at her husband’s grave. She asked for a plate with Samrin’s name on it—“just exactly like that one there,” she pointed.
After some months, Sienos Grupė crowdfunded around 1,500 euros to buy and place stone plates for all four graves. The graves of Samrin and the three children now have names: Yusof Ibrahim Ali, Asma Jawadi, and Fatima Manazarova.
Resting at the feet of the grave is a plate made of stone bearing the inscription “M.S.M.M. Samrin, 1990-2022, Sri Lanka,” precisely as Sanooja has requested. She explains that, according to Islamic beliefs, this will ensure that her husband will rise when the last days come.
Hidden graves, unknown bodies
The chilling thing, Mantautas explains, is nobody knows how many graves of migrants there might be, except for the government, which buries them quietly, often in remote villages.
Organizations like Sienos Grupė find themselves grasping in the dark for leads. Last month, volunteers came across the grave of Lakshmisundar Sukumaran, an Indian man reported dead in April “quite by accident,” says Mantautas. The revelation came on the Eve of All Saint’s Day, when activists preparing for a control ran into a local returning from a visit to his mother’s grave: “There is a migrant buried in town.”
Indeed, Sukumaran’s grave stands alone in an isolated corner of a small cemetery in Rameikos, a village of 25 people on the Lithuanian-Belarus border. Set apart from crosses of various sizes, a vertical piece of wood bears the inscription: “Lakshmisundar Sukumaran 1983.06.05 – 2023.04.04.” The border fence is visible from his grave. The earth is decorated by the colorful leaves of Lithuanian autumn.
Sienos Grupė maintains a list of at least 40 people reported missing on the Lithuania-Belarus border, information the government does not record. When bodies are found, they strive to connect the dots: Location, gender, age, ethnicity, possessions, birthmarks, anything. But if authorities do not report when a body is found, the chances of locating anybody on this list are small.
Emiljia Śvobaitė, a lawyer and volunteer from Sienos Grupė, explains that the Lithuanian government will only confirm whether something they already know is correct. “It seems like they are hiding these kinds of stories and information unless somebody exposes it. They would only confirm the deaths after activists have said something about it.”
“No political will”
The Lithuanian Parliament building, known as the Seimas Palace, is an imposing glass-and-concrete building in downtown Vilnius. It is where the Lithuanians declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. From an office with a view over the square, Member of Parliament Tomas Tomilinas wryly explains that their government has legalized pushbacks essentially because Europe has not established that it’s illegal.
“I would say Europe has no political will to make pushbacks illegal. If there were a European law, the European Commission would put a ban on it. It would put a fine on Lithuania. But nobody’s doing that.”
Member of Lithuanian Parliament, Tomas Tomilinas
The Polish parliament legalized pushbacks in October 2021, and the Lithuanian parliament followed suit by legalizing pushbacks in April this year.
Emiljia raises concerns about the violence of pushbacks her clients have seen. “The government keeps telling us they do everything really nicely. They give people food, and even wave goodbye to them, in the daytime. But when we look at specific cases, where people end up without their limbs on them, those pushbacks are performed at night.”
She also raises concerns about legalized pushbacks in Lithuania, and whether border guards should be given the right to assess and deny asylum claims on the spot. “It’s funny because border guards should decide right away on the border whether a person is running from persecution, meaning a border guard should identify the conflict in the country of origin, and do all the work that the migration department is doing.”
“It’s naive to believe that the system would work.”
Fighting back in court
With the help of Sienos Grupė’s support for legal expenses, Sanooja took the case to court. If the Lithuanian officials wouldn’t speak with her, perhaps they would speak to lawyers.
Yet last month, Sanooja’s case was closed for the final time by the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office after seven appeals. The case never made it to trial.
The Vilnius court claims there is no basis for a criminal investigation. Emiljia, who was on the team representing Sanooja in the case, responds that the pre-trial investigation didn’t investigate the cause of death properly, nor how the acts of the border police might have caused or contributed to the death of the applicant’s husband.
Rytis Satkauskas, law professor, managing partner of ReLex law firm, and the lead attorney on Sanooja’s case, questions whether the Lithuanian courts are trying to hide something greater: he points to a series of inconsistencies in Samrin’s autopsy report.
Autopsies should be conducted immediately to determine the cause of death. However, Samrin’s autopsy report claims that the cause of death cannot be established because the body was in an advanced state of decomposition of up to five months.
Five months after Samrin’s death is the same time around which Sanooja got in touch to pursue the truth of the matter. Satkauskas does not think this is a coincidence: “I believe they left the body in the repository, then when they established the identity of the person, they had to do this autopsy.”
The autopsy report explains the advanced state of decomposition by referencing the marshy area in which it was found, claiming the heat of the marsh had accelerated decomposition by up to five months within a matter of days.
Satkauskas asks further: If Samrin simply drowned, then why do other measurements not add up? He references a table of measurements in the autopsy report, in which the weight and algae content of the lungs are normal. However, Satkauskas says, in cases of drowning, both weight and algae content should be much higher. “I’m convinced they have invented all those measurements,” Satkauskas puts simply.
As Sanooja’s case has exhausted all legal avenues in Lithuania, it is now eligible for appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.
Emilija points to a promising parallel: in Alhowais v. Hungary, the European Court of Human Rights ruled this February that a Hungarian border guard’s violent pushback ending in the drowning of a Syrian man violated Articles 2 and 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the “right to life” and against “torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The decision came in February this year, seven years after the death of the defendant’s brother. Yet for Sanooja and her team, the case provides hope that there is a growing legal precedent for victims of pushbacks.
A battle in court for Sanooja could be a long and expensive one. The case in Vilnius courts had cost 600 euros for each of the seven appeals, and after Sanooja ran out of funds after the first case, Sienos Grupė stepped in to shoulder the costs of the appeals.
For the ECHR, it will cost 1500 euros to submit the proposal. Sanooja is exploring the possibility of raising money through NGOs or other means to continue the long quest for truth.
The window of eligibility to appeal will close in February 2024.
“Wherever I go, I have memories”
Day by day, Sanooja’s son grows to look more like Samrin.
She has tried not to cry in front of him. “It makes him upset. I am the only person now for my son, so I should be strong enough to face these things,” says the 32-year-old widow. “But wherever I go, I have memories. And everything my son does reminds me of him.”
Before Samrin’s body was found, she told her son “false stories,” but with his body now interred, she has opened up to her son about her father’s death. He understands it the way a child might—he runs around telling neighbors his father is in heaven, and it’s a great place. It will be years before he can point to where Lithuania is on a map.
Thanks to the cooperation of the Sri Lankan embassy in Sweden, Sanooja is one of the few families who have been able to receive a death certificate. She notes this will be crucial when her son enrolls for school and if they decide to sell or expand their property. However, to correct the misspelling on the document, she needs to travel to Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, which takes ten hours and nearly 10,000 rupees.
Meanwhile, Samrin’s death has ruptured the family into those who can accept the reality of his death, and those who cannot. Sanooja’s mother-in-law has ceased contact with her, unable to wrap her head around the fact that her boy is gone. When Samrin had left, he promised his mother to send money so that she would no longer have to wake up early to make pastries to sell in the morning. On the day of Samrin’s funeral, she told the family, “That is not my son.”
“What difference does it make, finding the body and burying it?” asks Pauline Boss, the Psychology Professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota who coined the term “ambiguous loss,” which encompasses the unique stress of not knowing whether someone you love is alive or dead.
Professor Boss states that burying someone is a distinct human need—not just for the dead, but for the living. “In all cases, a human being has to see their loved one transform from breathing to not breathing, and have the power and control to deal with the remains in their particular cultural way. It’s a human need, and it has been for eons.”
Yet few families are able to attend the funerals of their loved ones in Europe, for the same reason their loved ones tried to travel to Europe on such a dangerous road in the first place: inability to obtain a visa, or lack of funds.
“I hope one day I will visit, and I will show our son his father’s grave,” Sanooja declares.
When Samrin was interred into the snow-covered February earth of Liepynės cemetery in Vilnius on Valentine’s Day this year, a volunteer present at the burial offered to video call Sanooja through FaceTime.
In the grainy constellation of pixels of the phone screen in her palm, from 8,000 kilometers away, she watched her husband disappear forever into the cold European soil.
Missing data, missing souls in Italy
How Italy’s failing system makes it almost impossible for families to identify their relatives who passed away while reaching the EU.
Before the Syrian civil war erupted, Refaat Hazima was a barber in Damascus. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had also been barbers. Thanks to his craftsmanship, flair, and a reputation built over four generations, Refaat was a wealthy man. Together with his wife – a doctor for the national service – he could afford to have his three children study instead of sending them to work at a young age.
“They were always the top of the class,” he recalls in a nostalgic voice as he sits alone in a seaside restaurant on Lampedusa, a small Sicilian island halfway between Malta and the eastern coast of Tunisia. The rocky shores along which he now slowly enjoys eggplant served with fresh tuna were the scene of the most traumatic episode of his life.
“President Bashar al-Assad had centralized all power in his hands, and our daily life in Syria had become complicated.” Refaat was also temporarily imprisoned for political reasons. But the point of no return for him and his wife was the outbreak of civil war in 2011. It became clear that not only their children’s educational future was in jeopardy, but even the survival of their entire family.
So they decided to leave.
The couple paid smugglers more than fifty thousand dollars to attempt to reach Germany, where their children could continue their education. But amid rejections, hurdles, and hesitations that forced the family into months-long stages in different countries, Refaat and his family had to wait until 2013 to finally set sail to the European shores of Lampedusa.
Although it was autumn, the sea was calm that night. Initial concerns related to the sea conditions and the wooden boat that was all too heavily laden with humans now dissipated. In the darkness of the night sea, the shorelines and the flickering lights of street lamps and restaurants were in sight. But suddenly the boat in which they were traveling capsized.
“Everyone was screaming as we ended up in the sea,” Rafaat recalls. “I grabbed one of my children, my wife grabbed another child. But in the commotion and screaming of the nighttime shipwreck, two of my children disappeared.”
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The couple were rescued by Italian authorities and brought to the mainland along with one of their children. The other two, however, disappeared. “One of them told me Dad, give me a kiss on the forehead, and then I never saw him ever again.”
From 2013 to the present, Refaat has searched everywhere for their children. For 10 years he has been traveling, asking, and searching. He has even appeared on TV hoping one day to be reunited with them. But to this day he still does not know if his children were saved or if they are two of the 268 victims of the October 11, 2013 shipwreck, one of the worst Mediterranean disasters in the last three decades.
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https://unbiasthenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Italy_Lampedusa_Anniversary-Refaat-phone-768x430.jpg Uncertain and partial numbers
For more than two decades, Italy has been one of the main gateways for migrants wanting to reach the European Union. Between thirty and forty thousand people have died trying to reach Italy since 2000. But despite this strategic location, authorities have never created a comprehensive register to census the dead returned from the sea, and thus sources are confusing and approximate.
In any case, the figure of bodies found is only a percentage of the people who lost their lives while attempting to cross over to Europe. In fact, the bodies of those who die at sea are rarely recovered. When this happens, they are even more rarely identified by Italian authorities.
A study conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross tried to map the anonymous graves of migrants in various European countries and count the number of deaths recovered at sea. According to the report, between 2014 and 2019, 964 bodies of people – presumed migrants – were found in Italy, of which only 27 percent were identified. In most of the cases analyzed, identification occurred through immediate visual recognition by their fellow travelers, while those traveling without friends or relatives almost always remained anonymous.
Overall, 73 percent of the bodies recovered in Italy between 2014 and 2019 remain unknown.
A DNA test for everyone
“The vast majority of bodies end up at the bottom of the sea and are never recovered, becoming fish food,” explains Tareke Bhrane, founder of the October 3 Committee, an NGO established to protect the rights of those who die trying to reach Europe. “The Committee was born in the aftermath of the two disastrous shipwrecks on October 3 and 11, 2013 to make Italy understand that even those who die have dignity and that respecting that dignity is important not only for those who die, but also for those who survive,” Bhrane recounts.
On October 3, 2023, the Committee organized a large event on the island of Lampedusa to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the shipwreck. Dozens of families of people who died or disappeared gathered on the island, traveling from many European and Middle Eastern countries.
On the island were also forensic geneticists from Labanof, a leading forensic medicine laboratory at the University of Milan that has been working with prosecutors and law enforcement agencies for decades now to solve cases and identify unnamed bodies. Relatives of missing persons were thus able to undergo a free DNA test to find out more about their loved ones.
One of the committee’s main activities in recent years has been to lobby Sicilian municipalities for better management of anonymous graves. Thanks in part to the NGO, today almost all Sicilian provinces now house some victims of migration, often anonymous, in their cemeteries.
“Among the essential points of our mission,” Bhrane explains, “is to create a European DNA database for the recognition of victims, so that anyone who wants to can take a DNA test anywhere in Europe and find out if a loved one has lost their life trying to get here.”
Resigned and hopeful
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While Refaat has not yet resigned himself to the idea that his children may have died at sea, other relatives have become more aware and would like to know where Italy buried their loved ones. But this is often impossible because the graves are anonymous and there is a lack of national records that they can consult to find their loved ones.
This is the case for Asmeret Amanuel and Desbele Asfaha, two Eritrean nationals who are respectively the nephew and brother of one of the people aboard the boat that capsized in 2013.
“We heard from the radio that the boat he was traveling on had sunk. We never heard from him again,” Asmeret says. The two traveled all the way to Lampedusa to undergo DNA testing, hoping to match their loved one’s name for the first time with one of the many acronyms that have appeared on migrants’ anonymous graves and find out where he rests.
“I remember as children we used to play together,” says Desbele. “And instead today I don’t even know where to mourn him. Yet it would take so little.”
An organizational failure
Many Italian cemeteries hold anonymous graves of people who died while migrating, especially in the South. It is difficult to map them all and provide an exact number, just as it is nearly impossible to quantify the number of anonymous graves. Again, there is no centralized, national database, and even at the municipal level information is scarce and partial.
But thanks to an international investigation project called the “The Border Graves Investigation” and promoted by IJ4EU and Journalism Fund of which Unbias the News is one of the partners, it is now possible to shed light on what resembles a large European mass grave.
From the Italian side of the investigation, large gaps emerge on Italy’s part in the construction of a national cemetery archive. According to protocol, data on anonymous graves are supposed to be sent every three months from individual cemeteries and work their way up a long bureaucratic chain until they reach the desk of the government’s Special Commissioner for Missing Persons, an office created by the Italian government in 2007 precisely to create a single national database.
But sources from the Special Commissioner told the Border Graves Investigation team that unidentified bodies are not within their jurisdiction because in cases where there is an alleged crime (e.g., illegal immigration) the jurisdiction passes to the local magistrate. Thus, the source confirmed that no office systematically collects this data and that figures areeverything is scattered in individual prosecutors’ offices.
However, the documentary traces of migrants’ anonymous graves are often already lost in the records of the cemeteries themselves or municipal records, that is, at the first step in the chain. For example, in Agrigento, it is possible to visit the graves of men and women who died at sea marked by numbers, but in the paper registers consulted by our team of journalists there is no trace of them.
Yet the records are deposited a few meters from the graves themselves.
In Sciacca, Agrigento province, the municipal administration moved some anonymous graves of migrants inside a mass grave to make room for new burials. However, it did not follow the prescribed regulations and did not notify the relatives of the few victims who had been identified and whose names were listed on the grave. The matter was discovered at the time when a woman went to the cemetery to pray at her sister’s grave and did not find her in her usual place.
In other cases, anonymous graves have been moved from one cemetery to another due to the need for space, but without alerting the population.
The bureaucratic snag
Finding out the fate of a loved one is so complicated for several reasons. First, the identification of the body, which the Italian authorities do not generally consider a priority. Then there is the difficulty of recognition itself, especially when relatives are abroad or have difficulty contacting Italian authorities.
In addition, there is the problem of traceability of the bodies, which often remain on the seabed and, in the few cases where they are found, enter a bureaucratic machine in which it is arduous to recover their traces. Researcher and anthropologist Giorgia Mirto explained this to our investigative team: “The corpses should be registered in the registrar’s office where the body is found. But then the body is often moved within the same cemetery, from one cemetery to another or from one municipality to another, and so there is documentation that travels along with the body. Moves that are difficult to track.”
“Moreover,” Mirto adds, “adding to the difficulty is the absence of unified procedures. “With the Human Cost of Border Control project, we have seen that the only way to count these people and their graves is to do a blanket search of all the municipalities, all the cemetery offices, all the registrars’ offices and all the cemeteries, possibly adding the funeral homes as well.”
Thus, there is a problem with centralization and transparency of data that is often also linked to the huge austerity cuts that have forced municipalities to work understaffed. Emblematic is the Commissioner’s Office for Missing Persons, which would be responsible for compiling a list of unidentified bodies found on Italian soil, but has been left without a portfolio.
“As anthropologist Didier Fassin says,” the researcher concludes, “missing data is not the result of carelessness but is an administrative and political choice. It should be understood how much this choice is conscious and how much is the result of disinterest in the good work of municipal archives (an essential resource for historical memory and for the peace of victims’ families) or in understanding the cost of borders in terms of human lives.”
EU responsibilities
Forensic scientist Cristina Cattaneo – a professor at the University of Milan and director of the Labanof forensic laboratory – explained to our team that from a forensic point of view, the most important procedure for identifying a body is to collect both post-mortem (from tattoos to DNA, through cadaveric inspections and autopsies) and antemortem medical forensic information, that is, that which comes from family members regarding the missing person.
However, in many countries, including Italy, no law makes this procedure mandatory. In the case of people who die while migrating, this is done only in egregious cases, such as large shipwrecks that become news. “These cases have shown that a broad and widespread effort to identify the bodies of those who die at sea is possible,” says Cattaneo. “However, most people lose their lives in very small shipwrecks that don’t make too much news. And because there is no protocol to make data collection systematic, many family members are left in doubt as to whether their loved ones are alive or dead.”
All this happens despite the great efforts made over the years by the government’s Extraordinary Commissioner for Missing Persons, which, despite being the only national institution of its kind at the European level, has to manage a huge amount of data from all Italian municipalities. Data that are often disorganized, reported late, and collected without adhering to common and strict procedures.
This is why Cattaneo is among the signatories of an appeal calling for the enactment of a European law that would once and for all oblige member states to identify the bodies of migrants.
“Yet a European solution would exist and from a technical point of view it is already feasible,” Cattaneo adds. It involves data exchange systems such as Interpol, which at the European level already collects, organizes, and can share information and organically to member countries.
“It would be enough to expand the analysis to include missing migrants and thus make it possible to search and identify them on a European scale. But this is not being done because of a lack of political will on the part of Brussels,” Cattaneo concludes.
“The art of patience”
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlDtBRg02aU&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Funbiasthenews.org%2
Identifying the bodies of people who lose their lives coming to Europe is an important issue on several levels.
First and foremost, international humanitarian law protects the right to identity for both those who are alive and those who have died. But identifying is also an essential issue for those who remain alive. Indeed, without a death certificate, it is almost impossible for a spouse to marry again or to access survivor’s pensions, just as it is impossible for a minor relative to leave their country with an adult without running into a blockade by the authorities, who cannot rule out the possibility of child abduction.
Then there is the issue of suspended grief, namely the condition of those who do not know whether to search for a loved one or mourn his or her death.
This is the case for Asmeret and Desbele, but also for many relatives interviewed by our team.
Sabah and Ahmed, for example, are a Syrian couple. One of their sons disappeared in 2013 after a shipwreck in Italian waters. For 10 years, Ahmed retraced the same land and sea route followed by his son, hoping to find his body or at least get more information. But the efforts were in vain and to this day the family still does not know what happened to him.
“His children are still with us and often ask, ‘where is Dad? Where is Dad?’ but without a grave and a body, we still don’t know what to answer.”
Both Sabah and Ahmed are very religious and today rely on Allah to give them the comfort they have not found in the work of institutions. “The greatest gift from Allah,” they recount, “was the patience with which to be able to move forward in the face of such unnatural grief for a parent.”
A similar lesson was learned by Refaat, who like Ahmed and Sabah has been living in ignorance for ten years. Today he has opened a barber store in Hamburg and realized his dream of having his surviving son study in Germany.
“I have been searching for my children for ten years, and Allah knows I will search for them until the end of my days, should I find their dead bodies, or should I find them alive who knows where in the world. But I want to die knowing that I did everything I could to find them.”
Refaat Hazima
Sometimes his voice trembles. “I often talk to them in my sleep, I feel that they are still alive. But even if I were to find out they are dead, in all these years I would still have learned how to deal with frustration and pain, how to live with emptiness. And most importantly,” he concludes, “I would have learned the art of patience.”
#Italie #Tareke_Brhane #comitato_3_ottobre #3_octobre_2013 #Lampedusa
Unmarked monuments of EU’s shame in Croatia and Bosnia
Amid pushbacks and torture, many of the victims of the treacherous Balkan route are laid to an anonymous final resting place in Croatian and Bosnian cemetaries.
In the village of Siče in eastern Croatia, there are more inhabitants in the cemetery than among the living. The village has 230 living residents, and 250 dead. To be more precise, the cemetery is home to 247 locals and three unknown persons. There would be more people six feet under if Siče hadn’t gotten its own cemetery only in the 1970s. There would also be even more of the living if they hadn’t, like many from that region, gone to bigger cities in search of a better life. Abroad as well, mainly to Germany.
The graves of Siče’s inhabitants briefly tell the visitor who these people were, where they belong, and whether their loved ones care for them. That’s the thing with graves, they summarise the basic information of our life.
If the grave bears only the inscription “NN”, that summarises a tragedy.
Who are these three people whose names are unknown? How come their last resting place is a plain grave in Siče?
Even if you didn’t know, it’s clear that those three people don’t belong there.
They have been buried completely separated from the rest of the cemetery. Three wooden crosses with NN inscriptions, stuck in the ground at the edge of the cemetery. NN, an abbreviation of the Latin nomen nescio, literally means, “I do not know the name.” The official explanation from the public burial ground operator is that space has been left for more possible burials of those whose names are not known. However, the explanation that springs to mind when you get there is that they were buried separately so they wouldn’t mix with the locals. Or as the mayor of another town, where NN migrants have also been buried at the edge of the cemetery, let slip in a telephone conversation, “So that they’re not in the way.”
At the cemetery in Siče, these are the only three graves that no one takes care of. In about five years, all trace of them could disappear. The public burial ground operator is obliged to bury unidentified bodies, but not to maintain graves unless the grave belongs to a person of “special historical and social significance.”
NN1, NN2 and NN3 are of special significance only to their loved ones, who probably don’t even know where they are. Maybe they are waiting to finally hear from them from Western Europe. Maybe they’re looking for them. Maybe they mourn them.
Identities known but buried as unknown
If you do dig a little deeper, you will learn a thing or two about those who rest here nameless.
In the early, cold morning of December 23, 2022, the police found two bodies on the banks of the Sava, the river that separates Croatia from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It separates the European Union from the rest of Europe. According to the police report, they also found a group of twenty foreign citizens who illegally entered Croatia via the river. The group was missing one more person. After an extensive search, a third body was found in the afternoon. The pathologist of the General Hospital in the town of Nova Gradiška established the time of death for all three people as 2:45 A.M. Two died of hypothermia, one drowned.
Identity cards from a refugee camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina were found on them. We learned that, according to their IDs, all three were from Afghanistan: Ahmedi Abozari was 17 years old, Basir Naseri was 21 years old and Shakir Atoin was 25 years old. NN1, NN2 and NN3.
Other migrants from the group also confirmed the identity of two of them, as the Brodsko-Posavska County police administration told us. Then why were they buried as NN? If it was known that they were from Afghanistan, why were they buried under crosses? If families are looking for them, how will they find them?
The cemetery management was kind and said that they perform burials according to what is written in the burial permit signed by the pathologist – and it said NN.
The pathologist said that he enters the data based on the information he receives from the police.
The competent police department told us that the person is buried according to the rules of the local municipality.
Siče cemetery belongs to the municipality of Nova Kapela, whose mayor, Ivan Šmit, discontentedly listed all the costs that his municipality incurred for those burials and said that whoever is willing to pay for it can change the NN inscription into names.
We came across a series of similar administrative ambiguities while investigating how authorities deal with the deceased people they recover at EU borders as a part of the Border Graves Investigation carried out by a team of eight freelancers from across Europe together with Unbias the News, The Guardian and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
There is no centralised European database on the number of migrants’ graves in Europe.
But the team managed to confirm the existence of at least 1,931 migrants’ graves in Greece, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Malta, Poland and France, dating from 2014 to 2023. Of these, 1,015 were unidentified. More than half of the unidentified graves are in Greece, 551, in Italy 248, and in Spain 109. The data were obtained based on the databases of international organizations, non-governmental organizations, scientists, local authorities and cemeteries, and field visits.
The team visited 24 cemeteries in Greece, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Poland and Lithuania, where there are a total of 555 graves of unidentified migrants in the last decade, from 2014 to 2023.
These are only those whose bodies have been found. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) estimates that more than 93% of those who go missing on Europe’s borders are never found.
Families lost in bureaucracy
December 2022, when the three young Afghans died, was rainier than usual and the Sava River swelled. It is big and fast to begin with.
In that area, just three days earlier, five Turkish citizens went missing after their boat overturned on the Sava. Among them were a two-year-old girl, a twelve-year-old boy and their parents. The brother of the missing father came from Germany to Croatia to find out what happened to the family. From the documentation, which we have in our possession, it is evident that with the help of translator Nina Rajković, he tried to get information about his missing relatives from several police stations. Even months later, he hasn’t received any updates.
The two had wanted to file a missing person’s report, but the police told them that there was no point in doing so if the person had not previously been registered in the territory of Croatia or Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We encountered a number of similar examples. A young man had come to Croatia and reported to the police in both Croatia and Slovenia that his brother had drowned in the Kupa River that separates the two countries. However, his brother’s disappearance was not recorded in the Croatian national database of missing persons, which is publicly available. The police did not contact him after several unidentified bodies were found in the Kupa in the following days.
In another example, an Afghan man waited six months for the body of his brother, who drowned when they tried to cross the Sava together, also in December 2022, to be transferred from Croatia to Bosnia and Herzegovina so that he could bury him. Although he had confirmed that it was his brother, the identification process was lengthy and complicated.
There are numerous families who tried from afar to track down their loved ones who had disappeared in the territory of Croatia, only to finally give up in discouragement.
There are many questions and few clear answers when it comes to the issue of missing and dead migrants on the so-called Balkan Route, of which Croatia is a part. There are no clear protocols and procedures defining to whom and how to report a missing person. It is not known whether missing migrants are actively searched for, as tourists are when they disappear in the summer. It is not clear how much and which information is needed for identification.
“The circulation of information between institutions and individual departments seems almost non-existent to me."
“In one case, it took me more than two months and dozens of phone calls and emails to different addresses, police stations, police departments, hospitals, and the state attorney’s office, just to prompt the initiation of identification, which to this day, more than a year later, has not been completed,” says Marijana Hameršak, activist and head of the project “European Regime of Irregular Migration on the Periphery of the EU” of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb, which collects knowledge and data on missing and dead migrants.
Searches for missing migrants and attempts to identify the dead in Croatia, as well as in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, most often rely on the efforts of volunteers and activists, who, like Marijana, untiringly search for information in the chaotic administration because families who do not know the language find this task practically insurmountable.
“Die or make your dream come true”
The Facebook group “Dead and Missing in the Balkans” became the central place to exchange photos and information about the missing and the dead between families and activists.
The competent Ministry of the Interior does not have a website in English with an address where one can write from Afghanistan or Syria and inquire about the fate of loved ones, leave information about them, and report them missing. There is also no regional database on missing and dead migrants on which the police administrations would cooperate, not even the ones from the countries where the most crossings are recorded – from Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia.
In an interview with our team, Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, emphasised that the creation of a centralised European database of missing and dead migrants is extremely important. If such a database combined ante-mortem and post-mortem data on the deceased, the chances of identification would greatly increase.
“Families have a right to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones.”
Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights
Yet, police cooperation in keeping the EU’s external border impervious is effective.
Previously, people attempting to migrate did not try to cross the Sava so often. They knew it was too dangerous. They share information with each other and do not venture across such a river in children’s inflatable boats or inner tubes. Unless they are utterly desperate. With pushbacks and the use of force, which many organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been warning about for years, the Croatian police made it difficult to cross at other, less dangerous points along the Croatian border, which is the longest external land border in the European Union. As a young Moroccan in Bosnia and Herzegovina who tried to cross the border to Croatia 11 times but was pushed back by the Croatian police each time told us, “You have two choices: die or make your dream come true.”
It is difficult to determine how many died on the Balkan Route in an attempt to fulfil their dream. The most comprehensive data for ex-Yugoslav countries is collected by the researchers of the “European Regime of Irregular Migration on the Periphery of the EU (ERIM)” project. It records 346 victims from 2014 to 2023 in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Kosovo. Each entry in ERIM’s database is individual and contains as much data as the researchers managed to collect, and they use all available sources – media reports, witnesses, official statistics, activist channels. But the figure is certainly significantly higher. Some who went missing were never even registered anywhere.
Many bodies were never found. For example, another common border crossing, the Stara Planina mountain range between Bulgaria and Serbia, is a rough and inaccessible terrain. Only those who have been driven to this route by the same fate will come across the bodies, and they will not risk encountering authorities to report it.
If people die in the minefields remaining from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, there will not be much left of their bodies. Most bodies were found drowned in rivers, but there is no estimate of how many who drowned were never reported missing, or were never found.
The Croatian Ministry of the Interior provided us with data on migrants who have died in Croatia since 2015, when records began to be kept, until the end of November 2023: according to the data, a total of 87 migrants died on the territory of the Republic of Croatia. To put it more precisely: that’s how many bodies were found in Croatia. Not a single official body in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia keeps records of migrants buried in that territory.
However, we managed to obtain data for Croatia, thanks to inquiries sent to over 500 addresses of cities, municipalities and municipal companies that manage cemeteries. According to the data obtained, there are 59 graves of migrants in 32 cemeteries in Croatia who were buried in the last decade, namely from 2014 until September 2023. Of these, 45 have not been identified. The Ministry of the Interior says that since 2001, DNA samples have been taken from all unidentified bodies. We asked the Ministry to allow us to talk with experts who work on the identification of migrants, but we were not approved.
Some of the buried were exhumed and returned to their families in their country of origin, although this is a demanding and extremely expensive process for the families.
The burden of not knowing
Among the NN graves is a stillborn baby from Syria buried in 2015 in the town of Slavonski Brod. A five-year-old girl who drowned in the Danube was buried in Dalje in 2021. Last summer, a young man died of exhaustion in the highlands in the Dubrovnik area. Some were hit by a train. Many died of hypothermia. Some die because they were not provided medical help early enough. Some don’t believe anything can help them, so they committed suicide.
According to the law, they are buried closest to the place of death, which are mostly small cemeteries, such as the one in Siče. Often, just like in that village, their graves are separated from the rest of the cemetery. In some places, like in Otok, one of the tender-hearted local women has given herself the task of taking care of the NN grave. In others, like the cemetery in Prilišće, the NN wooden cross from 2019 has already rotted.
Each of these NN graves leaves behind loved ones who bear the burden of not knowing what happened. In psychology, this is called ambiguous loss, which means that as long as relatives do not have confirmation that their loved ones are dead, and as long as they do not know where their bodies are, they cannot mourn them.
If they go on with their lives, they feel guilty. And so they remain frozen in a state between despair and hope. American psychologist Dr. Pauline Boss is the author of the concept and theory of “ambiguous loss.”
“A grave is so important because it helps to say goodbye,“ she said in an interview for our investigation.
There are also practical consequences of this frozen state: succession rights cannot be carried out, bank accounts cannot be accessed, family pensions cannot be obtained, the partner cannot remarry, and custody of children is complicated.
Many families in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina know ambiguous loss very well. Both countries went through war in the 1990s that left thousands of people missing.
Both countries have special laws on the missing in those wars and well-developed mechanisms of search, identification, data storage and mutual cooperation. But this does not apply to migrants who vanish and die among the thousands who are on the move along the Balkan Route.
Croatia responsible for death of a child
Croatia became an important point of entry into the European Union after Hungary closed its borders in September 2015. From then until March 2016, it is estimated that around 660,000 refugees passed through the Croatian section of the Balkan corridor – the interstate, organised route. This corridor allowed them to get from Greece to Western Europe in two or three days. Most importantly, their journey was safe.
Of these hundreds of thousands of people on the move, the Croatian Ministry of the Interior did not record a single death in 2015 and 2016.
The corridor was established to prevent casualties after a large number of refugees died on the railway in Macedonia in the spring of 2015. However, with the conclusion of the EU-Turkey refugee agreement in March 2016, the corridor closed. The EU committed to generously funding Turkey to keep refugees on its territory, so that they do not come to the European Union. And so the perilous, informal Balkan Route remained the only option. Many take it. In the first ten months of 2023 alone, the Croatian police recorded 62,452 actions related to illegal border crossings.
Both the Croatian Ombudswoman Tena Šimonović Einwalter and Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatović warn of the same thing: border and migration policies have a clear impact on the risk of migrants going missing or die. It is necessary to establish legal and safe migration routes in the EU.
However, the EU expects Croatia to protect its external border, and Croatia is doing so wholeheartedly. Croatian Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović calls such practices “techniques of discouragement” and says they are fully in line with the EU Schengen Border Code.
The result of such practices is, for example, the death of Madina Hussiny. The six-year-old girl from Afghanistan was struck by a train and killed after Croatian police “discouraged” her and her family away from the Croatian border and told them to follow train tracks back to Serbia in the middle of the night in 2017. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in November 2021 that Croatia was responsible for Madina’s death.
In a typical “discouragement,” Croatian police transport people to points along the border and order them to cross. In the testimonies we heard, as well as in many reports of non-governmental organisations, people described having to wade or swim across rivers, climb over rocks or make their way through dense forest. They often cross at night, sometimes stripped naked, and without knowing the way because the police usually take away their mobile phones.
Up to 80% of all pushbacks by Croatian police may be impacted by one or more forms of torture, indicates data collected by Border Violence Monitoring Network in 2019. That means that thousands were victims of border torture.
According to data collected by the Danish Refugee Council, in the two-year period from the beginning of 2020 to the end of 2022, at least 30,000 people were pushed back to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“While trying to reach Europe”
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=112&v=SFLYVVtsjGc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fu
Among them is Arat Semiullah from Afghanistan. In November 2022, he intended to cross the Sava River and enter Croatia from Bosnia. He was 20 years old. He drowned and was buried at the Orthodox cemetery in Banja Luka. His family in Afghanistan did not know what happened to him. He had sent his mom a selfie with a fresh haircut for entering the European Union and then he stopped answering.
The mother begged her nephew Payman Sediqi, who lives in Germany, to try to find him. Payman got in touch with the activist Nihad Suljić, who voluntarily helps families find out what happened to their loved ones in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They spent weeks trying to get information. Payman travelled to Bosnia and managed to find his relative thanks to the helpfulness of a policewoman who showed him forensic photographs. Arat’s mom confirmed by phone that it was her son.
Arat’s obituary published in Bosnia and Herzegovina said that “Croatian police sank the boat using firearms, and he tragically drowned.” With the help of the Muslim community, and at the request of the family, his body was transferred to the Muslim cemetery in the village of Kamičani. The family wanted to bury him in Afghanistan, but it was too expensive and bureaucratically complicated.
In September 2023, we met with Nihad and Payman when a large tombstone was erected for Arat. It says, “Drowned in the Sava River while trying to reach Europe.” Payman told us that Arat was crossing the Sava with a group of others trying to enter Europe. Some of them managed to cross over to the Croatian side, but then the Croatian police shot at the rubber boat Arat was in. The boat sank and Arat drowned. That’s what a survivor who crossed over to the Croatian bank of the Sava told Payman. Payman says that Arat’s family is in great pain, but at least they know where their son is and that he was buried according to their religious customs. It is important to Payman that his relative’s grave says he died as a migrant.
“People die every day in Europe, fleeing countries where there is no life for them. Their dreams are buried in Europe. No one cares about them, not even when European policemen shoot at them,” Payman says.
Payman knows what kind of dreams he’s talking about. He himself came to Germany illegally at the age of 16. He says he was lucky.
Nihad advocates that other graves of migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina also be permanently marked as such. He takes us to the cemetery in the town of Zvornik, where 17 NN migrants are buried. Nihad says he was informed that some of them had their passport on them when they were found. From the cemetery, you can see the river Drina, which separates Serbia from Bosnia and where many lives have been lost during crossing attempts. About 30 bodies were found in the Drina this year alone. Nihad says that they are lucky if they wash up on the Bosnian riverbanks, because in Serbia the authorities often do not perform autopsies nor take DNA samples. This was confirmed to us by activists from Serbia. In those cases, they are forever and completely lost to their families.
The earthen NN graves in Zvornik are overgrown and not demarcated, so you wouldn’t know if you are stepping on them. Nihad managed to convince the Town of Zvornik to replace the wooden signs with black stone. It is important to him that they are buried with dignity, but he also finds it important that they stand there as a memorial.
“My wish is that even 100 years from now these graves stand as monuments of the EU’s shame. Because it was not the river that killed these people, but the EU border regime,” Nihad says.
▻https://unbiasthenews.org/unmarked-monuments-of-eus-shame-croatia-bosnia
Counting the invisible victims of Spain’s EU borders
Investigation finds hundreds of victims of migration to the EU lie in unmarked graves along Spain’s borders, with government taking no coordinated action to guarantee “last rights.”
In January 2020, Alhassane Bangoura was buried in an unmarked grave in the Muslim area of Teguise municipal cemetery in Lanzarote as city officials and members of the local Muslim community watched on. He had been born only a couple of weeks earlier onboard a cramped patera migrant boat on which his mother, who is from Guinea, and 42 others were trying to reach the Spanish Canary Islands. Their boat was adrift on the Atlantic ocean after its motor had failed two days earlier, and Alhassane’s mother had gone into labour at sea. Her child only lived for a few hours before dying just off the coast of Lanzarote.
Alhassane’s case shocked the island and made national news. Yet as mourners paid their respects, his mother was 200 kilometres away in a migrant reception centre on the neighbouring island of Gran Canaria, having been unable to get permission from authorities to remain on Lanzarote for the funeral.
“She’d been allowed to see the body of her son one more time before being transferred, and I accompanied her to the funeral home,” says Mamadou Sy, a representative of the local Muslim community. “It was very emotional as she was leaving. All we could do was promise her that her son would not be alone; that like any Muslim, he’d be brought to the Mosque where his body would be washed by other mothers; that we would pray for him and that afterwards we’d send her a video of the burial.”
Nearly four years later, Alhassane’s final resting place remains without a formal headstone. It lies next to more than three dozen graves of unidentified migrants – whose names are completely unknown but who, like Alhassane, are also victims of Europe’s brutal border regime.
Border Graves
Such a scene is no anomaly along Spain’s vast coastline. Border graves like these can be found in cemeteries stretching from Alicante on the country’s eastern Mediterranean coast to Cádiz on the Atlantic seaboard and south to the Canaries. Some have names but, more often than not, the inscription reads some variation of “unidentified migrant,” “unknown Moroccan,” or “victim of the Strait [of Gibraltar],” or there is simply a hand-painted cross.
In Barbate cemetery in Cádiz, where the deceased are sealed into niches in traditional brick-walled stacks around two metres in height, groundskeeper Germán points out over 30 different migrant graves, the earliest of which date from 2002 and the most recent are from a shipwreck in 2019.
"No one ever comes to visit, but on days when there are funerals here and flowers are about to be thrown out, I place them on the tombs containing the unknown migrants,” he explains. “In some of the older graves, you have the remains of up to five or six migrants together, each placed in separate sacks within the same niche to save space.”
Along the coast, in Tarifa, Spain’s earliest mass grave of unidentified migrants, containing 11 victims from a 1988 shipwreck, overlooks the northern reaches of the African continent, which can be seen on a clear day. Meanwhile, around 400 kilometres west of the African coast, on the remote Canarian island of El Hierro, seven unidentified migrants have been buried in the last two months, along with the remains of 30-year old Mamadou Marea. “Locals joined us to accompany the remains of each of these people to their last resting place,” explains Amado Carballo, a councillor on El Hierro. “What upset all of us was not being able to put a name on the tombstone and simply having to leave the person identified by a police code.”
Such concern was less evident in Arrecife, Lanzarote where two unidentified graves from February this year have been left sealed with a covering that still bears a corporate logo.
There is no comprehensive data on how many identified and unidentified migrant graves exist in Spain, and the country’s Interior Ministry has never released figures for the total number of bodies recovered across the various maritime migration routes. But in exclusive data from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Unbias The News can reveal that the bodies of an estimated 530 people who died at Spain’s borders were recovered between 2014 and 2021 – of which 292 remain unidentified.
In the six month Europe-wide Border Graves Investigation, undertaken in conjunction with Unbias the News, The Guardian and Süddeutsche Zeitung, 109 unidentified migrant graves from 2014-21 were confirmed in Spain across 18 locations. According to a study by the University of Amsterdam, a further 434 unidentified graves stem from 2000-2013 in at least 65 cemeteries.
These graves are symbols of a much wider humanitarian tragedy. The ICRC estimates that just 6.89% of those who go missing on Europe’s borders are found, while the Spanish NGO Walking Borders gives an even lower figure for the West African Atlantic route to the Canaries, estimating that only 4.2 percent of the bodies of those who die are ever recovered.
Guaranteeing “last rights”
The unvisited and anonymous graves are also a reflection of the fact that the rights to both identification and a dignified burial for those who have died on migration routes have been consistently neglected by national authorities in Spain. As in other European countries, successive Spanish governments have failed to develop legal mechanisms and state protocols to guarantee these “last rights” of victims, as well as their families’ corresponding “right to know” and to mourn their loved ones.
The problem is “utterly neglected,” says Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, who insists that EU countries are failing in their obligations under international human rights law to secure families’ “right to truth”. In 2021, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for “prompt and effective identification processes” to inform families about the fate of their loved ones. Yet last year, the Council of Europe called the area a “legislative void.”
“People are always calling the office and asking us how to search for a family member, but you have to be honest and say there’s no clear official channel they can turn to,” explains Juan Carlos Lorenzo, director of the Spanish Refugee Council (CEAR) on the Canary Islands. “You can put them in touch with the Red Cross, but there’s no government-led programme of identification. Nor is there the type of dedicated office needed to coordinate with families and centralise information and data on missing migrants.”
This year alone we are working with over 600 families whose loved ones have disappeared. These families, who are from Morocco, Algeria, Senegal, Guinea and as far afield as Sri Lanka are very much alone and are poorly protected by public administrations. In turn, this means that there are criminal networks and fraudsters seeking to extract money from them.”
Helena Maleno, director of Walking Borders
Even in the case of a victim’s identification, a recent report from the Human Rights Association of Andalucia lays out the legal and financial barriers families face in terms of repatriating their loved ones. In 2020/21, ICRC figures show that 284 bodies were recovered but that, of the 116 identified, only 53 were repatriated. The Andalusian Association for Human Rights (APDHA) report also notes, with respect to border graves, that “many people end up buried in a manner contrary to their beliefs.” Just half of Spain’s 50 provinces have Muslim cemeteries, not all of which are on the Spanish coast.
For Maleno, these state failures are no accident: “Spain and other European states have a policy of making the victims, as well as the border itself, invisible. You have policies of denying the number of dead and of concealing data, but for the families this means obstacles in terms of accessing information and burial rights, as well as endless bureaucratic hurdles.”
“I dream of Oussama”
Abdallah Tayeb has gained first-hand experience of the dysfunctionality of the Spanish system in his attempts to confirm whether a body recovered almost a year ago is that of his cousin Oussama, a young barber from Algeria who dreamed of joining Tayeb in France.
The unnamed corpse, which Tayeb strongly believes is his cousin, is currently in a morgue in Almería and looks set to be buried in an unmarked grave in the new year – unless he can achieve a last minute breakthrough.
“The feeling is one of powerlessness,” he admits. “Nothing is transparent.”
Abdallah Tayeb was born in Paris to Algerian parents but spends every summer in Algeria with his family. “As Oussama and I were pretty much the same age, we were really close. He was obsessed with the idea of coming to Europe, as two of his brothers were already living in France. But I didn’t know he had actually arranged to leave on a patera last December.”
Oussama was among 23 people (including seven children) who vanished after setting out from Mostaganem, Algeria, on a motor boat on Christmas Day 2022. Soon after the patera went missing, his brother Sofiane travelled from France to Cartagena in southern Spain – the destination the vessel had hoped to reach. With the help of the Red Cross, Sofiane was able to file a missing persons report with the Spanish authorities and submit a DNA sample, which he hopes will result in a match with a body held in a morgue. However, so far, he has been unable to piece together any concrete information regarding his brother’s fate.
A second trip to Spain in February did lead to a breakthrough, however. After driving down the Mediterranean coast together, Tayeb and his cousin Sofiane managed to speak to a forensic pathologist working in the Almería morgue, who seemed to recognise a photo of Oussama. “She kept saying ‘This face looks familiar’ and also mentioned a necklace – something he’d been wearing when he left.” According to the pathologist, there was a potential match with an unidentified body recovered by the coastguard on 27 December 2022.
Feeling that they were finally close to getting some answers, they were informed at the police headquarters in Almería that, in order to view the body for a visual identification, they would need permission from the police station where the corpse had initially been registered. “This was when the real nightmare began,” Tayeb remembers. Handed a list of five police stations from across the wider region where the corpse could have been registered, they spent the next two days driving from station to station along the Murcian coast.
“The first police station we visited wouldn’t even let us in the door when we told them we were asking about a missing migrant, and after that it was always the same script: this is not the right place; we don’t have a body; you have to go there instead.” When the pair returned to the first station in Huércal de Almeria after being repeatedly told it was the right place to ask, impatient officers refused to engage, citing privacy laws, and even told them to warn other families searching for missing migrants not to keep coming to inquire.
“In the end,” Tayeb explains, “we came to the reality that they will never let us have any information. It was very heartbreaking, especially going back to France. It felt like we were leaving him [there] in the fridge.”
As the subsequent months passed, the frustration and anxiety built for the family. “In May we were told that the DNA sample we gave five months earlier had only just arrived in Madrid and had still not been processed and sent to the database.” No further information has been forthcoming, and Spanish authorities have a policy of only getting in touch with families when there is a positive match and not if the test comes back negative.
Tayeb is contemplating one final visit to Spain to try and retrieve his cousin Oussama, partly to be certain for his own sake that he’s done everything in his power to find him, but he’s worried that the journey could reopen his trauma of ambiguous loss. “The effort of going is not painful, but what is painful is coming back with nothing,” he says. “This lack of information is the worst thing.”
“All the people on board were from the same neighbourhood in Mostaganem. I have had a chance to talk to many of their families, and they are destroyed. There is such grief but also no answers. There are only rumours, and some of the mothers believe their sons are in prisons in Morocco and Spain. We all have dreams [about the missing]. In the end, you trust what you will see in your dreams, like cosmic reality telling you he is coming. I dream of Oussama.”
Dr Pauline Boss, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota, USA, explains the concept of ambiguous loss: “It looks like complicated grief, intrusive thoughts,” she says. “There’s nothing else on your mind but the fact that your loved one is missing. You can’t grieve because that would mean the person is dead, and you don’t know for sure.”
A defective system
Of all the families of those who went missing on Oussama’s patera, only Tayeb and four other families have been able to file a missing persons report with the Spanish authorities, and only two have been able to give a DNA sample. According to a 2021 study from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), one of the major complications families face in their searches is that in order to register someone as a missing person in Spain, you have to file a report with police in the country itself, which for many families is “a virtually impossible feat” as there are no visas to travel for this purpose.
The IOM report also notes that, while many families file missing person reports in their home countries, they are “aware of the almost symbolic nature of their efforts” and that “it will never result in any kind of investigation being launched in Spain.”
Along with the IOM, there have been efforts by domestic NGOs, including APDHA and more than a hundred grassroots organisations, to call out Spain’s failure to adapt existing missing person procedures to the transnational challenges of cases of people who disappeared while migrating. These organisations have repeatedly argued that the country’s legal framework regarding missing persons must be adapted to ensure families can file missing person cases from abroad.
They have also pushed for the development of specific protocols for police handling cases of disappeared migrants, as well as the creation of a missing-migrant database so as to centralise information and allow it to be exchanged with authorities in other countries. The latter would include a full range of both post-mortem data (from tattoos to DNA, through cadaveric inspections and autopsies) and antemortem medical forensic information, that is, that which comes from family members regarding the missing person.
“The reality is that the situation across Europe is consistently poor,” explains Julia Black, an analyst with IOM’s Missing Migrant Project. “Despite our research showing these pressing needs of families, neither Spain nor any other European country has significantly changed policy or practice to help this neglected group [in recent years]. Support for families is available only on a very ad hoc basis, mostly in response to mass casualty events that are in the public eye, which leaves many thousands of people without meaningful support.”
Non-state actors such as the Red Cross and Walking Borders, as well as a network of independent activists, try to fill this void. “It’s a terrible job that we shouldn’t be doing, because states should be responding to families and guaranteeing the rights of victims across borders,” Maleno explains. In the case of the Mostaganem patera, Walking Borders is now planning to visit Algeria next year to take DNA samples from family members and bring them back to Spain. But Maleno also acknowledges that her NGO often has to then “apply a lot of pressure” to get authorities to accept these samples.
This is something left-wing MP Jon Iñarritu from the Basque EH Bildu party also confirms: “As I sit on the Spanish parliament’s Interior Committee, I’ve had to intervene on a number of occasions to help families seeking to register DNA samples, talking with the foreign ministry or the interior ministry to get them to accept the samples. But it shouldn’t require action from an MP to get this to happen. The whole process needs to be standardised with clear and automatic protocols [for submission]. Right now, there’s no one clear way to do it.”
Even when IOM recommendations have become the subject of parliamentary debate in Spain, they have tended not to translate into government action. In 2021, for example, a resolution was passed by the Spanish Congress calling on the government to establish a dedicated state office for the families of disappeared migrants. “It’s clear we need to ease the administrative and bureaucratic ordeal for families by offering them a single point of contact [with state authorities],” explains Iñarritu, who sponsored the motion.
Yet while even government parties voted in favour of the resolution, the countries’ current centre-left administration has failed to act on it in the 18 months since. “From my point of view, the government has no intention of implementing the proposal,” Iñarritu argues. “They were only offering symbolic support.”
When the above points were put to Spain’s Interior ministry, the reply was that: “The treatment of unidentified corpses arriving on the Spanish coast is identical to that of any other corpse. In Spain, for the identification of corpses, the law enforcement agencies apply the INTERPOL Disaster Victim Identification Guide. Although this guide is especially indicated for events with multiple victims, it is also used as a reference for the identification of an isolated corpse.”
NGOs and campaigners insist, however, that the application of the INTERPOL guide is no substitute for a specific protocol tailored to the demands of missing migrant cases or for the creation of particular mechanisms to allow for the exchange of information with families and authorities in other jurisdictions.
Close connections with the people they have helped compensate for strained social interactions and online hate. “They call me brother, sister, and even father,” Rybak shares.
Burial rights
APDHA migration director Carlos Arce argues that, within a European framework that views irregular migration predominantly “through the prism of serious crime and border security, […] not even death or disappearance puts an end to the repeated assault on the dignity of migrant people.” Iñarritu also points to the EU’s wider border regime: “Many issues that don’t fit into this dominant policy framework, such as the right to identification, are simply left unmanaged on a day-to-day basis. They are simply not a priority.”
This is also clear with respect to the Spanish government’s inaction on guaranteeing a dignified burial to those whose bodies are recovered. As noted by a 2023 report from APDHA, “while repatriation is the most desired option for families […,] the cost is very high (thousands of euros) and very few of their [home countries’] embassies help [to cover it].” The NGO recommends that Spain establish repatriation agreements with the countries where migrants come from so as to create “mortuary safe passages” guaranteeing their return at a reduced cost.
Furthermore, Spain’s central government has also failed to put in place mechanisms to ensure the right of unidentified migrants to a dignified burial within the country, instead maintaining that local councils are responsible for all charitable burials. This has meant that very specific municipalities where coastguard rescue boats are stationed are left legally responsible for the bulk of the interments – and most of these municipalities lack local cemeteries able to cater for traditional Muslim burials.
The potential for this issue to become a flashpoint for anti-immigration sentiment was made clear this September when the mayor of Mogán in Gran Canaria, Onalia Bueno, insisted that her municipality would no longer pay for such burials, as she did not want to “detract the costs from the taxes of my neighbours.”
CEAR’s Juan Carlos Lorenzo condemns such “divisive language, which frames the issue in terms of wasting my ‘neighbours’ money’ on someone who is not a neighbour,” and points instead to the actions of municipalities in El Hierro as a positive counterexample.
Carballo notes that “over 10,000 people have arrived in El Hierro since September, the same as the island’s population. These are quite long trips, between six and nine days at sea, and right now people are arriving in a terrible state of health. With those who have died in recent months, we’ve tried to offer them a dignified burial within the means at our disposal. We’ve had an imam present, with Islamic prayers said before the remains were laid to rest.”
Currently, the responsibility of memorialising unidentified victims comes down to individual municipalities and even cemetery keepers. Like Gérman at the cemetery in Barbate, who tries to dignify the unmarked tombs by placing flowers on top of them, the cemetery of Motril has adorned tombs with poems. In Teguise, the council has an initiative encouraging locals to leave flowers on the migrant graves when they come to visit the remains of their own families.
In another memorial, a collection of around 50 discarded fishing boats has become a distinctive feature of Barbate port. These small wooden boats with Arabic script on their hulls were used by migrants attempting to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Instead of the boats’ being scrapped, APDHA was able to convert the scrapyard into a memorial site and to place plaques on boats stating how many migrants were travelling on them and where and when they were found.
In the case of little Alhassane Bangoura, residents routinely come to leave fresh flowers and tokens of affection, among which is a small granite bowl with his first name inscribed on it. But many victims are buried without any attempt at identification – and as countless NGOs, politicians and activists demand, it should not be simply left to good-willed residents, grave keepers or local councillors to ensure the last rights of the victims of Fortress Europe.
▻https://unbiasthenews.org/counting-the-invisible-victims-of-spains-eu-borders
#Espagne #Lanzarote #îles_Canaries #route_Atlantique #Teguise #Barbate #Cádiz #Tarifa #Arrecife
The unidentified: Unmarked refugee graves on the Greek borders
Graves marked only with a stick, graves covered with weeds: a cross-border investigation documents official indifference surrounding the dignified burial of refugees who lose their lives at the Greek border.
The phone rang on a morning in October 2022 at work, in Finland, where 35-year-old Mohamed Samim has been living for the last ten years or so.
His nephew did not have good news: his brother Samim, Tarin Mohamad, along with his son and two daughters, was on a boat that sank near a Greek island, having sailed from the Turkish coast to Italy.
When Samim arrived in Kythera the next day, he learned that – although weak after not eating for three days – his brother had managed to save his family before a wave took him away. He immediately went to the site of the wreck. In the water he saw bodies floating – he couldn’t see his brother’s face, but he recognized his back.
The Coast Guard said that the bad weather had to pass before they could pull the dead from the sea. The first day passed, the second day passed, until on the third day it was finally possible. The coastguard confirmed that 8 Beaufort winds and the morphology of the area made it impossible to retrieve the bodies. Samim will never forget the sight of his brother at sea.
In Kalamata, it took four days of shifting responsibility between the hospital and the Coast Guard, and the help of a local lawyer who “came and yelled at them” to allow him to follow the identification process of his brother.
He was warned that it would be a soul-crushing procedure, and that he would have to wear a triple mask because of the smell. Samim says that due to a lack of space in the morgue’s refrigerators, some of the wreck victims were kept in the chamber outside the refrigerator.
“The stress and the smell. Our knees were shaking”, recalls Samim when we meet him in Kythera a year later.
They started showing him decomposing bodies. First the ones outside the refrigerator. He didn’t recognize him among them. They went out and changed the masks they wore, returned, opened the refrigerators in turn, reaching the last one.
“He was lying there, calm. The man you love. We were kind of happy that, after days, we could see him,” Samim said.
Unclaimed dead
The number of people dying at Europe’s borders is growing. In addition to the difficulty of recording the deaths, there is also the challenge of identifying the bodies, a traumatic process for the relatives. In some cases, however, there are bodies that remain unidentified, hundreds of men, women and children buried in unidentified graves.
In July 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognising the right to identification of people who lose their lives trying to reach Europe, but to date there is no centralised registration system at a pan-European level. Nor is there a single procedure for the handling of bodies that end up in mortuaries, funeral homes – even refrigerated containers.
The problem is “utterly neglected”, European Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatovic told Solomon, and added that EU countries are failing in their obligations under international human rights law”. The tragedy of the missing migrants has reached horrifying proportions. The issue requires immediate action,” she added.
The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants platform, which acknowledges that its data is not a comprehensive record, reports more than 1,090 missing refugees and migrants in Europe since 2014.
As part of the Border Graves investigation, eight European journalists, together with Unbias the News, the Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Solomon, have spent seven months investigating what happens to the thousands of unidentified bodies of those who die at European borders, and for the first time they have recorded almost double that number: according to the data collected, more than 2,162 people died between 2014 and 2023.
We studied documents and interviewed state coroners, prosecutors and funeral home workers; residents and relatives of the deceased and missing; and gained exclusive access to unpublished data from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
In 65 cemeteries along the European border - Greece, Spain, Italy, Malta, Poland, Lithuania, France, Spain, Italy, Malta, Lithuania, France and Croatia - we have recorded more than 1,000 unidentified graves from the last decade.
The investigation documents how state indifference to the dignified burial of people who die at the border is pervasive in European countries.
In Greece, we recorded more than 540 unidentified refugee graves, 54% of the total recorded by the European survey. We travelled to the Aegean islands and Evros, and found graves in fields sometimes covered by weeds, and marble slabs with dates of death erased, while in other cases a piece of wood with a number is the only marking.
The data from our survey, combined with the data from the International Committee of the Red Cross, is not an exhaustive account of the issue. However, they do capture for the first time the gaps and difficulties of a system that leads to thousands of families not knowing where their relatives are buried.
Lesvos: 167 unidentified refugee graves
A long dirt road surrounded by olive trees leads to the gate of the cemetery of Kato Tritos, which is usually locked with a padlock.
The “graveyard of refugees,” as they call it on the island, is located about 15 kilometers west of Mytilene. It is the only burial site exclusively for refugees and migrants in Greece.
During one of our visits, the funeral of four children was taking place. They lost their lives on August 28, 2023, when the boat they were on with 18 other people sank southeast of Lesvos.
The grieving mother and several women, including family members, sat under a tree, while the men prayed near the shed used for the burial process, according to Islamic tradition.
In Kato Tritos and Agios Panteleimonas, the cemetery on Mytilene where people who died while migrating had been buried until then, we counted a total of 167 unidentified graves from between 2014-2023.
Local journalist and former member of the North Aegean Regional Council Nikos Manavis explains that the cemetery was created in 2015 in an olive grove belonging to the municipality of Mytilene due to an emergency: a deadly shipwreck in the north of the island on October 28 of that year resulted in at least 60 dead, for whom the island’s cemeteries were not sufficient.
Many shipwreck victims remain buried in unidentified graves. Gravestones are marked with the estimated age of the deceased and the date of burial, sometimes only a number. Other times, a piece of wood and surrounding stones mark the grave.
“What we see is a field, not a graveyard. It shows no respect for the people who were buried here.”
Nikos Manavis
This lack of respect for the Lower Third Cemetery mobilized the Earth Medicine organization. As Dimitris Patounis, a member of the NGO, explains, in January 2022 they made a proposal to the municipality of Mytilene for the restoration of the cemetery. Their plan is to create a place of rest with respect and dignity, where refugees and asylum seekers can satisfy the most sacred human need, mourning for their loved ones.
Although the city council approved the proposal in the spring of 2023, the October municipal elections delayed the project. Patounis says he is positive that the graves will soon be inventoried and the area fenced.
Christos Mavrachilis, an undertaker at the Agios Panteleimon cemetery, recalls that in 2015 Muslim refugees were buried in a specific area of the cemetery.
“If someone was unidentified, I would write ‘Unknown’ on their grave,” he says. If there were no relatives who could cover the cost, Mavrachilis would cut a marble himself and write as much information as he could on the death certificate. “They were people too,” he says, “I did what I could.”
For his part, Thomas Vanavakis, a former owner of a funeral parlour that offered services in Lesvos until 2020, also says that they often had to cover burials without receiving payment. “Do you know how many times we went into the sea and paid workers out of our own pockets to pull out the bodies and didn’t get a penny?” he says.
Efi Latsoudi, who lives in Lesvos and works for Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), says that in 2015 there were burials that the municipality of Mytilene could not cover, and sometimes “the people who participated in the ceremony paid for them. We were trying to give a dignity to the process. But it was not enough,” she says.
Latsoudi recalls something a refugee had mentioned to her in 2015: ’The worst thing that can happen to us is to die somewhere far away and have no one at our funeral’.
The municipality of Mytilene did not answer our questions regarding the dignified burial of refugees in the cemeteries under its responsibility.
Chios and Samos: graves covered by weeds
According to Greek legislation, the local government (and in case of its inability, the region) covers the cost of the burial of both unidentified people who die at the border and those who are in financial difficulty.
For its part, the Municipal Authority of Chios stated that funding is provided for the relevant costs, and that “within the framework of its responsibilities for the cemeteries, it maintains and cares for all the sites, without discrimination and with the required respect for all the dead.”
But during our visit in August to the cemetery in Mersinidi, a few kilometers north of Chios town, where refugees are buried next to the graves of the locals, it was not difficult to spot the separation: the five unidentified graves of refugees were marked simply by a marble, usually covered by vegetation.
Natasha Strachini, an RSA lawyer living in Chios, has taken part in several funerals of refugees both in Chios and Lesvos. For her, the importance of the local community and presence at such a difficult human moment is very important.
Regarding burials, he explains that “only a good registration system could help relatives to locate the grave of a person they have lost, as usually in cemeteries after three to five years exhumations take place.” He says that sometimes a grave remains unidentified even though the body has been identified, either because the identification process was delayed or because the relatives could not afford to change the grave.
In Heraion of Samos, next to the municipal cemetery, on a plot of land owned by the Metropolis and used as a burial site for refugees, we recorded dozens of graves dating between 2014-2023. The plaques – some broken – placed on the ground, hidden by branches, pine needles and pine cones, simply inscribe a number and the date of burial.
Lawyer Dimitris Choulis, who lives in Samos and handles cases related to the refugee issue, commented: ‘It is a shameful image to see such graves. It is unjustifiable for a modern society like Greece.”
Searching for data
The International Committee of the Red Cross is one of the few international organisations working to identify the dead refugees. Among other things, they have conducted several training sessions in Greece for members of the Coast Guard and the Greek Police.
“We have an obligation to provide the dead with a dignified burial; and the other side, providing answers to families through identification of the dead. If you count the relatives of those who are missing, hundreds of thousands of people are impacted. They don’t know where their loved ones are. Were they well treated, were they respected when they were buried? That’s what preys on families’ minds,” says Laurel Clegg, ICRC forensic Coordinator for Migration to Europe.
She explains that keeping track of the dead “consists of lots of parts working well together – a legal framework that protects the unidentified dead, consistent post-mortems, morgues, registries, dignified transport, cemeteries”
However, countries’ “medical and legal systems are proving inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem,” she says.
Since 2013, as part of its programme to restore family links, the Red Cross has registered 16,500 requests in Europe from people looking for their missing relatives. According to the international organisation, only 285 successful matches (1.7%) have been made.
These matches are made by the local forensic experts.
“We always collect DNA samples from unidentified bodies. It is standard practice and may be the only feasible means of identification,” says Panagiotis Kotretsos, a forensic pathologist in Rhodes. The samples are sent to the DNA laboratory of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Greek Police, according to an INTERPOL protocol.
According to the Red Cross, difficulties usually arise when families are outside the EU, and are due to a number of factors, such as differences in the legal framework or medical systems of the countries. For example, some EU countries cannot ‘open’ a case and take DNA samples from families without a mandate from the authorities of the country where the body of the relative being sought has been recovered.
The most difficult part of the DNA identification process is that there needs to be a second sample to be compared with the one collected by the forensic experts, which has to be sent by the families of the missing persons. “For a refugee who started his journey from a country in central Africa, travelled for months, and died in Greece, there will be genetic material in the morgue. But it will remain unmatched until a first-degree relative sends a DNA sample,” says Kotretsos.
He explains that this is not always possible. “We have received calls from relatives who were in Syria, looking for missing family members, and could not send samples precisely because they were in Syria.”
Outside the university hospital of Alexandroupolis, two refrigerated containers provided by the Red Cross as temporary mortuaries house the bodies of 40 refugees.
Pavlos Pavlidis, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the Democritus University of Thrace, has since 2000 performed autopsies on at least 800 bodies of people on the move, with the main causes of death being drowning in the waters of Evros and hypothermia.
The forensic scientist goes beyond the necessary DNA collection: he or she records data such as birthmarks or tattoos and objects (like wallets, rings, glasses), which could be the missing link for a relative looking for a loved one.
He says a total of 313 bodies found in Evros since 2014 remain unidentified. Those that cannot be identified are buried in a special cemetery in Sidiro, which is managed by the municipality of Soufli, while 15-20 unidentified bodies were buried in Orestiada while the Sidiro cemetery was being expanded.
The bodies of Muslim refugees who are identified are buried in the Muslim cemetery in Messouni Komotini or repatriated when relatives can cover the cost of repatriation.
“This is not decent”
In response to questions, the Ministry of Immigration and Asylum said that the issue of identification and burial procedures for refugees does not fall within its competence. A Commission spokesman said that no funds were foreseen for Greece, but that such expenditure “could be supported under the National Programme of the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund”, which is managed by the Migration Ministry.
Theodoros Nousias is the chief forensic pathologist of the North Aegean Forensic Service, responsible for the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios and Lemnos. According to the coroner, the DNA identification procedure has improved a lot compared to a few years ago.
Nusias says he was always available when asked to identify someone. “You have to serve people, that’s why you’re there. To serve people so they can find their family,” he adds.
The coroner lives in Lesvos, but says he has never been to the cemetery in Kato Tritos. “I don’t want to go. It will be difficult for me because most of these people have passed through my hands.”
In October 2022, 32-year-old Suja Ahmadi and his sister Marina also travelled to Kythera and then to Kalamata to identify the body of their father, Abdul Ghasi.
The 65-year-old had started the journey to Italy with his wife Hatige – she survived. The two brothers visited the hospital, where they were shown all eight bodies, male and female, although they had explained from the start that the man they were looking for was a man.
Their father’s body was among those outside the freezer.
“My sister was crying and screaming at them to get our father out of the refrigerator container because he smelled,” Suja recalls. “It was not a decent place for a man.”
▻https://unbiasthenews.org/the-unidentified-unmarked-refugee-graves-in-the-greek-borders
#Grèce #Chios #Evros #Samos #Alexandroupolis #Lesbos #Kato_Tritos #Sidiro #Mersinidi #Mersinidi #Pavlos_Pavlidis
Enterrar a más de mil personas sin nombre: las trabas de la UE y España para identificar los cuerpos de migrantes
Cientos de personas fallecidas en la última década yacen en tumbas sin nombre en España, sin que el Gobierno tome medidas coordinadas para garantizar su identificación
En enero de 2020, Alhassane Bangoura fue enterrado en una tumba sin nombre en la zona musulmana del cementerio municipal de Teguise, en Lanzarote, ante la presencia de funcionarios municipales y miembros de la comunidad musulmana local. El pequeño había nacido apenas un par de semanas antes a bordo de una patera abarrotada en la que su madre, originaria de Guinea, y otras 42 personas intentaban llegar a las Islas Canarias. La embarcación llevaba dos días a la deriva en el océano Atlántico, tras averiarse el motor, y la madre de Alhassane se puso de parto en el mar. Su hijo sólo alcanzó a vivir unas pocas horas antes de morir frente a la costa de Lanzarote.
El caso de Alhassane conmocionó a la isla y saltó a las noticias de todo el país. Sin embargo, mientras los asistentes al entierro ofrecían sus condolencias, la madre del bebé fallecido se encontraba a 200 kilómetros de distancia, en un centro de acogida de migrantes de la vecina isla de Gran Canaria, al no haber podido obtener permiso de las autoridades para permanecer en Lanzarote durante el funeral.
“Le habían permitido ver el cuerpo de su hijo una vez más antes de ser trasladada, y yo la acompañé a la funeraria”, cuenta Mamadou Sy, representante de la comunidad musulmana local. “Fue muy emotivo cuando se tuvo que marchar. Lo único que pudimos hacer fue prometerle que su hijo no estaría solo; que, como cualquier musulmán, sería llevado a la mezquita, donde su cuerpo sería lavado por otras madres; que rezaríamos por él y que después le enviaríamos un vídeo del entierro”.
Casi cuatro años después, el lugar donde reposan los restos de Alhassane sigue sin tener una lápida formal. La tumba se encuentra junto a los restos de más de tres docenas de personas migrantes no identificadas, cuyos nombres se desconocen por completo pero que, como Alhassane, también son víctimas del brutal régimen fronterizo de Europa.
Las tumbas de la frontera
A lo largo de las fronteras de la Unión Europea, miles de personas están siendo enterradas de forma precipitada en tumbas sin nombre. El equipo de investigación de Border Graves (Las Tumbas de la Frontera) ha contabilizado que, en los últimos 10 años, al menos 2.162 cadáveres de migrantes han sido encontrados en las fronteras europeas sin identificar.
El equipo de investigación también ha confirmado la existencia de 1.015 tumbas de inmigrantes sin identificar entre 2014 y 2021 en 103 cementerios, todas ellas pertenecientes a personas que intentaban emigrar a Europa.
El problema está “absolutamente abandonado”, afirma Dunja Mijatović, Comisaria de Derechos Humanos del Consejo de Europa, que insiste en que los países de la UE incumplen sus obligaciones en virtud de la legislación internacional sobre derechos humanos. “La tragedia de los migrantes desaparecidos ha alcanzado una magnitud espantosa. El asunto exige una actuación inmediata”.
Las condiciones de sepultura de estos migrantes varían en todo el continente. En la última década, en la isla griega de Lesbos, un olivar se ha convertido en un cementerio informal para refugiados. Al menos 147 tumbas sin identificar se pueden encontrar en el pequeño pueblo de Kato Tritos, que según explica el periodista Nikos Manavis brotaron tras la gran oleada de refugiados de 2015. “Los otros cementerios de la isla eran inapropiados y no podían cubrir el número de muertos que había que enterrar en Lesbos”, afirma. “Pero no es un cementerio. Es sólo un campo. No se muestra ningún respeto por la gente enterrada aquí”.
En Siče, una población al este de Croacia, se hallan las tumbas de tres refugiados afganos al borde del cementerio del pueblo, separadas de las de los residentes locales. Los tres hombres no identificados, que se ahogaron intentando cruzar el río Sava desde Bosnia a Croacia, están enterrados bajo sencillas cruces de madera en las que se lee “NN” (desconocido).
En la frontera entre Lituania y Bielorrusia, un pequeño cementerio de la tranquila localidad de Rameikos alberga la tumba de un emigrante indio. El lugar está marcado por un trozo de madera vertical, a pocos metros de la valla fronteriza. En el cementerio de Piano Gatta, en Agrigento (Sicilia), están enterrados decenas de cadáveres sin identificar del naufragio de Lampedusa en 2013, en el que perdieron la vida 368 personas de Eritrea y Somalia al hundirse el pesquero en el que viajaban.
En cuanto a la extensa costa española, pueden encontrarse tumbas de inmigrantes desde Alicante hasta Cádiz, y hacia el sur hasta las Canarias. Algunas tienen nombre, pero lo más frecuente es que las inscripciones sean del estilo de “inmigrante no identificado”, “marroquí desconocido” o “víctima del Estrecho [de Gibraltar]”. O, simplemente, una cruz pintada a mano.
En el cementerio de Barbate, en Cádiz, donde los difuntos están sepultados en nichos, el jardinero Germán señala más de 30 tumbas de inmigrantes: las más antiguas datan de 2002 y las más recientes son de un naufragio de 2019. “Nunca viene nadie a visitarlos, pero los días que hay funerales aquí y se van a tirar las flores antiguas, las coloco en las tumbas de los migrantes desconocidos”, explica. “En algunas de las más antiguas hay restos de hasta cinco o seis emigrantes juntos, cada uno colocado en bolsas separadas dentro del mismo nicho para ahorrar espacio”.
Tal preocupación era menos evidente en Arrecife, Lanzarote, donde dos tumbas no identificadas de febrero de este año se han dejado selladas con una cubierta que aún lleva el logotipo de una empresa.
No existen datos exhaustivos sobre cuántas fosas de inmigrantes identificadas y no identificadas existen en España, y el Ministerio del Interior nunca ha dado a conocer cifras sobre el número total de cadáveres recuperados en las distintas rutas migratorias marítimas. Pero los datos del Comité Internacional de la Cruz Roja (CICR) revelan que entre 2014 y 2021 se recuperaron los cuerpos de alrededor de 530 personas fallecidas en las fronteras españolas, de las cuales 292 permanecen sin identificar.
En los diez meses que ha durado la investigación europea Border Graves, llevada a cabo de manera conjunta entre un grupo de periodistas independientes y los medios Unbias the News, The Guardian y Süddeutsche Zeitung y publicada en exclusiva en España por elDiario.es, se ha confirmado la existencia de 109 tumbas de migrantes no identificados entre 2014 y 2021 en 18 lugares de España. Según un estudio de la Universidad de Ámsterdam, otras 434 tumbas sin identificar se remontan al periodo 2000-2013 en al menos 65 cementerios del territorio nacional.
Estas tumbas son símbolos de una tragedia humanitaria mucho mayor. El CICR calcula que sólo el 6,89% de los restos mortales de las personas que desaparecen a lo largo de las fronteras europeas son recuperados, mientras que la ONG española Caminando Fronteras da una cifra aún más baja para la ruta atlántica de África Occidental a Canarias, estimando que sólo se recupera el 4,2% de los cuerpos de los fallecidos.
Garantizar los “últimos derechos”
Las tumbas anónimas y sin visitar reflejan también el hecho de que el derecho a la identificación y a un entierro digno de los fallecidos en las rutas migratorias ha sido sistemáticamente desatendido por las autoridades nacionales españolas. En 2021, el Parlamento Europeo aprobó una resolución que reconoce el derecho a la identificación de los fallecidos en las rutas migratorias, y la necesidad de una base de datos coordinada que recoja los datos de la frontera. Pero, al igual que en otros países europeos, los sucesivos gobiernos han sido incapaces de desarrollar mecanismos legales y protocolos estatales para garantizar estos “últimos derechos” de las víctimas, así como el “derecho a saber” y a llorar a sus seres queridos que corresponde a las familias.
“La gente siempre llama a la oficina y nos pregunta cómo buscar a un familiar, pero hay que ser sincero y decir que no hay un canal oficial claro al que puedan dirigirse”, explica Juan Carlos Lorenzo, coordinador del Consejo Español para los Refugiados (CEAR) en Canarias. “Se les puede poner en contacto con la Cruz Roja, pero no hay un programa de identificación liderado por el Gobierno. Tampoco existe el tipo de recurso especializado necesario para coordinarse con las familias y centralizar la información y los datos sobre los migrantes desaparecidos”.
Helena Maleno, directora de Caminando Fronteras, afirma: “Sólo este año estamos trabajando con más de 600 familias cuyos seres queridos han desaparecido. Estas familias, procedentes de Marruecos, Argelia, Senegal, Guinea y países tan lejanos como Sri Lanka, están muy solas y poco protegidas por las administraciones públicas. A su vez, esto significa que hay redes criminales y estafadores que buscan sacarles dinero”.
Incluso en el caso de la identificación de una víctima, un reciente informe de la Asociación Pro Derechos Humanos de Andalucía (APDHA) expone las barreras legales y financieras a las que se enfrentan las familias para repatriar a sus seres queridos. En 2020/21, las cifras del CICR muestran que se recuperaron 284 cuerpos pero que, de los 116 identificados, sólo 53 fueron repatriados. El informe de la APDHA también señala, respecto a las tumbas fronterizas, que “muchas personas acaban enterradas de manera contraria a sus creencias”. Apenas la mitad de las 50 provincias españolas cuentan con cementerios musulmanes, y no todos están en la costa española.
Para Maleno, estos fallos del Estado no son casualidad: “España y otros Estados europeos mantienen una política de invisibilización de las víctimas y de la propia frontera. Tienen políticas de negación del número de muertos y de ocultación de datos, pero para las familias esto significa obstáculos en cuanto al acceso a la información y a los derechos de sepultura, así como interminables trabas burocráticas”.
“Sueño con Oussama”
Abdallah Tayeb ha sufrido en primera persona las deficiencias del sistema español en sus intentos por confirmar si un cadáver recuperado en diciembre de 2022 es el de su primo Oussama, un joven barbero argelino que soñaba con reunirse con Tayeb en Francia.
Tayeb está convencido de que el cuerpo sin identificar, que se cree que está en un depósito de cadáveres de Almería, es el de su primo. Está previsto que los restos sean enterrados a comienzos del próximo año en una tumba sin nombre, a menos que se consiga algún avance de última hora. “La sensación es de impotencia”, admite. “No hay nada de transparencia”.
Tayeb nació en París, de padres argelinos, pero pasa todos los veranos en Argelia con su familia. “Como Oussama y yo teníamos más o menos la misma edad, estábamos muy unidos. Le obsesionaba la idea de venir a Europa, pues dos de sus hermanos ya vivían en Francia. Pero yo no sabía que en realidad ya había organizado su viaje en una patera a finales del año pasado”.
Oussama formaba parte de un grupo de 23 personas (entre ellas siete niños) que desaparecieron tras zarpar de Mostaganem, Argelia, en una lancha motora el día de Navidad de 2022. Poco después de la desaparición de la patera, su hermano Sofiane viajó de Francia a Cartagena, el destino al que esperaba llegar la embarcación. Con la ayuda de la Cruz Roja, Sofiane pudo presentar una denuncia por desaparición y dar una muestra de ADN, pero no pudo reunir ninguna información concreta sobre la suerte de su hermano.
Sin embargo, un segundo viaje a España en febrero condujo a un gran avance. Tras recorrer juntos la costa mediterránea, Tayeb y su primo Sofiane consiguieron hablar con una patóloga forense que trabaja en la morgue de Almería, quien pareció reconocer una foto de Oussama. “No paraba de decir ’esta cara me suena’ y también mencionó un collar, algo que llevaba cuando se fue”. Según la forense, había una posible coincidencia con un cuerpo sin identificar recuperado por los guardacostas el 27 de diciembre de 2022.
El laberinto burocrático
Con la sensación de que por fin estaban cerca de obtener alguna respuesta, en la comisaría de Almería les informaron de que, para poder ver el cadáver –o incluso las pertenencias– y proceder a su identificación visual, necesitarían el permiso de la comisaría donde se había registrado inicialmente el cadáver. “Fue entonces cuando empezó la verdadera pesadilla”, recuerda Tayeb. Les entregaron una lista de cinco comisarías de toda la región en las que se podría haber registrado el cadáver, y se pasaron los dos días siguientes conduciendo de comisaría en comisaría a lo largo de la costa murciana.
“En la primera comisaría que visitamos ni siquiera nos dejaron entrar cuando les dijimos que estábamos buscando a un inmigrante desaparecido, y después siempre fue la misma consigna: éste no es el lugar adecuado; no tenemos ningún cadáver; tenéis que ir a este otro lugar…”, continúa. Cuando ambos regresaron a la primera comisaría de Huércal de Almería, después de que les dijeran repetidamente que era el lugar adecuado para preguntar, los agentes, impacientes, se negaron a atenderlos, alegando leyes de protección de la intimidad, e incluso les dijeron que advirtieran a otras familias que buscaban a migrantes desaparecidos que no siguieran viniendo a preguntar.
“Al final”, explica Tayeb, “nos dimos cuenta de que nunca nos darían ninguna información. Fue muy desgarrador, sobre todo volver a Francia. Fue como si le dejáramos [allí] en la nevera”.
Incertidumbre
A medida que pasaban los meses, la frustración y la ansiedad aumentaban para la familia. “En mayo nos dijeron que la muestra de ADN que habíamos dado cinco meses antes acababa de llegar a Madrid y aún no había sido procesada ni enviada a la base de datos”. No se les ha facilitado más información, y las autoridades españolas tienen la política de ponerse en contacto con las familias sólo cuando hay una coincidencia positiva, pero no si la prueba da negativo.
Tayeb se plantea una última visita a España para intentar recuperar a su primo Oussama, en parte para estar seguro de que ha hecho todo lo posible por encontrarlo, pero le preocupa que el viaje pueda reabrir su trauma de “pérdida ambigua”. “El esfuerzo de ir no es doloroso, lo doloroso es volver sin nada”, dice. “Esta falta de información es lo peor”.
La Dra. Pauline Boss, catedrática emérita de Psicología de la Universidad de Minnesota (EE.UU.), explica el concepto de pérdida ambigua: “Se parece a un duelo complejo, con pensamientos intrusivos”, dice. “No tienes otra cosa en la cabeza más que el hecho de que tu ser querido ha desaparecido. No puedes afrontar el duelo, porque eso significaría que la persona está muerta, y no lo sabes con certeza”.
Tayeb lo explica con sus propias palabras: “Todas las personas que iban a bordo eran del mismo barrio de Mostaganem. He podido hablar con muchas de sus familias y están destrozadas. Hay mucho dolor, pero tampoco hay respuestas. Sólo hay rumores, y algunas de las madres creen que sus hijos están en cárceles de Marruecos y España. Todos tenemos sueños [sobre los desaparecidos]. Al final, confías en lo que ves en tus sueños, como si la realidad cósmica te dijera que va a venir. Sueño con Oussama”.
Un sistema defectuoso
De todas las familias de los desaparecidos en la patera de Oussama, sólo Tayeb y otras tres familias han podido presentar denuncias de desaparición ante las autoridades españolas, y únicamente en dos casos se han podido entregar muestras de ADN. Según un informe de 2021 de la Organización Internacional para las Migraciones (OIM), una de las mayores complicaciones a las que se enfrentan las familias en sus búsquedas es que, para registrar a alguien como desaparecido en España, hay que presentar una denuncia ante la policía del propio país, lo que para muchas familias es “una hazaña prácticamente imposible”, ya que no existen visados para viajar con este fin.
El informe de la OIM también señala que, aunque muchas familias presentan denuncias de personas desaparecidas en sus países de origen, son “conscientes del carácter casi simbólico de sus esfuerzos” y de que “nunca darán lugar a que se inicie ningún tipo de investigación en España.”
Junto con la OIM, algunas ONG nacionales, como la APDHA y más de un centenar de organizaciones comunitarias, han denunciado la incapacidad de España para adaptar los procedimientos vigentes en materia de personas desaparecidas a los retos transnacionales que plantean los casos de migrantes desaparecidos. Estas organizaciones han defendido en repetidas ocasiones que el marco jurídico del país en materia de personas desaparecidas debe adaptarse para garantizar que las familias puedan presentar denuncias desde el extranjero por casos de personas desaparecidas.
También han presionado para que se elaboren protocolos específicos para la policía al tratar casos de migrantes desaparecidos, así como para que se cree una base de datos de migrantes desaparecidos que permita centralizar la información y haga posible el intercambio con autoridades de otros países. Esta incluiría todos los datos disponibles post mortem (desde tatuajes hasta ADN, pasando por inspecciones de cadáveres y autopsias) como de información médica forense ante mortem, es decir, la que procede de los familiares en relación con la persona desaparecida.
“La realidad es que la situación en toda Europa es sistemáticamente deficiente”, explica Julia Black, analista del Proyecto Migrantes Desaparecidos de la OIM. “A pesar de que nuestras investigaciones muestran estas necesidades acuciantes de las familias, ni España ni ningún otro país europeo ha cambiado [en los últimos años] de forma significativa sus políticas, ni tampoco han mejorado las prácticas para ayudar a este grupo desatendido. El apoyo a las familias sólo está disponible de forma muy puntual, sobre todo en respuesta a sucesos con víctimas masivas que están en el punto de mira de la opinión pública, lo que deja a muchos miles de personas sin un apoyo adecuado”.
Actores no estatales como la Cruz Roja y Caminando Fronteras, así como una red de activistas independientes, intentan llenar este vacío. “Es un trabajo terrible que no deberíamos estar haciendo, porque los Estados deberían responder a las familias y garantizar los derechos de las víctimas más allá de las fronteras”, explica Maleno. En el caso de la patera de Mostaganem, Caminando Fronteras tiene previsto viajar a Argelia el año que viene para tomar muestras de ADN de los familiares y traerlas a España. Pero Maleno también reconoce que su ONG a menudo tiene que “ejercer mucha presión” para que las autoridades acepten estas muestras.
Es algo que también confirma Jon Iñarritu, diputado de EH Bildu: “Como miembro de la Comisión de Interior del Congreso de los Diputados, he tenido que intervenir en varias ocasiones para ayudar a las familias que querían registrar muestras de ADN, hablando con el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores o con el Ministerio del Interior para que aceptaran las muestras. Pero no debería ser necesaria la intervención de un diputado para conseguirlo. Es necesario normalizar todo el proceso con protocolos claros y automáticos [para la presentación de las muestras]. Ahora mismo, no hay una forma clara de hacerlo”.
Incluso cuando las recomendaciones de la OIM han sido objeto de debate parlamentario en España, no han tendido a traducirse en medidas gubernamentales. En 2021, por ejemplo, el Congreso de los Diputados aprobó una Proposición no de Ley en la que se instaba al Gobierno a crear una oficina estatal específica para las familias de migrantes desaparecidos. “Está claro que necesitamos aliviar el calvario administrativo y burocrático para las familias ofreciéndoles un único punto de contacto [con las autoridades estatales]”, explica Iñárritu, impulsor de la moción.
Sin embargo, aunque los partidos en el gobierno votaron a favor de la resolución, no se ha tomado ninguna medida al respecto en los 18 meses transcurridos desde la aprobación de la resolución. “Desde mi punto de vista, el Gobierno no tiene ninguna intención de aplicar la propuesta”, argumenta Iñárritu. “Sólo ofrecían un apoyo simbólico”.
Cuando se expusieron las cuestiones anteriores al Ministerio del Interior, la respuesta fue la siguiente: “El tratamiento de los cadáveres sin identificar que llegan a las costas de España es idéntico al hallazgo de cualquier otro cadáver. En España, para la identificación de cadáveres, las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado aplican la Guía de INTERPOL para la Identificación de Víctimas de Catástrofes. Esta Guía, aunque está especialmente indicada para los sucesos con víctimas múltiples, también es aplicada como referencia para la identificación de un cadáver aislado”.
Derechos de sepultura
El director de migraciones de APDHA, Carlos Arce, escribe que, en un marco europeo que contempla la migración irregular predominantemente a través del prisma de la criminalidad grave y la seguridad fronteriza, “ni siquiera la muerte o desaparición de las personas migrantes pone freno a la concatenación de ataques a su dignidad”. Por su parte, Iñárritu también apunta al régimen fronterizo más amplio de la UE: “Muchas cuestiones que no encajan en este marco político dominante, como el derecho de identificación, simplemente se dejan sin gestionar en el día a día. Sencillamente, no son una prioridad”.
Esto también queda claro en lo que respecta a la inacción del gobierno español a la hora de garantizar un entierro digno a las personas cuyos cuerpos son recuperados. Como señala un informe de 2023 de APDHA, “aunque la repatriación es la opción más deseada por las familias [...] el coste es muy elevado (miles de euros) y muy pocas de sus embajadas ayudan [a sufragarlo]”. La ONG recomienda a España que establezca acuerdos de repatriación con los países de procedencia de los inmigrantes para crear “salvoconductos mortuorios” que garanticen su retorno a un coste reducido.
A esto se suma que el gobierno central tampoco ha establecido mecanismos para garantizar el derecho de los inmigrantes no identificados a un entierro digno dentro del territorio español, sino que sostiene que los ayuntamientos son responsables de todos los entierros de carácter benéfico. Esto ha supuesto que municipios muy concretos, en los que están estacionadas las embarcaciones de salvamento marítimo, sean legalmente responsables de la mayor parte de los entierros, y la mayoría de estos municipios carecen de cementerios locales capaces de acoger entierros musulmanes tradicionales.
La posibilidad de que este asunto se convierta en un caldo de cultivo para el rechazo a la inmigración quedó patente el pasado mes de septiembre, cuando la alcaldesa de Mogán (Gran Canaria), Onalia Bueno, insistió en que su municipio dejaría de sufragar estos entierros, ya que no quería “detraer los costes de los impuestos de mis vecinos”. Juan Carlos Lorenzo, de CEAR, condena ese “lenguaje divisivo, que enmarca la cuestión en términos de malgastar el dinero de mis ’vecinos’ en alguien que no es un vecino”, y señala en cambio la actuación de los municipios de El Hierro como contraejemplo positivo.
En esta isla poco poblada, en los últimos dos meses han sido enterrados siete inmigrantes no identificados, junto con los restos de Mamadou Marea, de 30 años. “Los habitantes de la isla se unieron a nosotros para acompañar los restos de cada una de estas personas hasta su lugar de descanso”, explica Amado Carballo, concejal de El Hierro. “Lo que nos entristeció a todos fue no poder poner un nombre en la lápida y simplemente tener que dejar a las personas identificadas con un código policial”.
Carballo señala que “más de 10.000 personas han llegado a El Hierro desde septiembre, lo mismo que la población de la isla. Son viajes muy largos, de entre seis y nueve días en el mar, y ahora mismo la gente llega en un pésimo estado de salud. A los que han muerto en los últimos meses hemos intentado ofrecerles un entierro digno dentro de los medios de que disponemos. Hemos contado con la presencia de un imán, que ha rezado oraciones del Islam antes de depositar los restos”.
En la actualidad, la responsabilidad de conmemorar a las víctimas no identificadas recae en los municipios e incluso en los responsables de los cementerios. Al igual que Germán en el cementerio de Barbate, que intenta dignificar las tumbas sin nombre colocando flores sobre ellas, el cementerio de Motril ha adornado las tumbas con poemas. En Teguise, el Ayuntamiento ha puesto en marcha una iniciativa que anima a los vecinos a dejar flores en las tumbas de los inmigrantes cuando vienen a visitar los restos de sus familiares.
En otro gesto conmemorativo, una colección de unas 50 barcas de pesca desechadas se ha convertido en un rasgo distintivo del puerto de Barbate. Estas pequeñas embarcaciones de madera con escritura árabe en el casco eran utilizadas por los emigrantes que intentaban cruzar el Estrecho de Gibraltar. En lugar de ser desguazadas, APDHA pudo convertir el astillero en un lugar conmemorativo y colocar placas en las embarcaciones en las que se indicaba cuántas personas viajaban en ellas y dónde y cuándo fueron encontradas.
En el caso del pequeño Alhassane Bangoura, los vecinos acuden habitualmente a dejar flores frescas y otras muestras de afecto, entre ellas un pequeño cuenco de granito con su nombre de pila inscrito. Pero muchas víctimas son enterradas sin ningún intento de identificación y, tal y como exigen innumerables ONG, políticos y activistas, no debería dejarse en manos de la buena voluntad de residentes, trabajadores de cementerios o concejales el garantizar los últimos derechos de las víctimas de la Fortaleza Europa.
▻https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/enterrar-mil-personas-nombre-trabas-ue-espana-identificar-cuerpos-migrantes
« Αγνώστων στοιχείων » : Πάνω από 1.000 αταυτοποίητοι τάφοι στα ευρωπαϊκά σύνορα
Τάφοι με μόνη σήμανση ένα ξύλο, μνήματα που καλύπτονται από αγριόχορτα : μια διασυνοριακή έρευνα οκτώ δημοσιογράφων σε συνεργασία με Solomon, Guardian και Süddeutsche Zeitung καταγράφει την αδιαφορία γύρω από την αξιοπρεπή ταφή των προσφύγων που χάνουν τη ζωή τους στα ευρωπαϊκά σύνορα.
Το τηλέφωνο χτύπησε ένα πρωινό του Οκτωβρίου 2022 στη δουλειά, στη Φινλανδία όπου ο 35χρονος Μοχάμεντ Σαμίμ ζει τα τελευταία δέκα περίπου χρόνια.
Ο ανιψιός του δεν είχε καλά νέα : ο αδερφός του Σαμίμ, Ταρίν Μοχαμάντ, μαζί με τον γιο και τις δύο κόρες του, βρισκόταν σε ένα σκάφος που βυθίστηκε κοντά σε ένα ελληνικό νησί, έχοντας αποπλεύσει από τα τουρκικά παράλια για την Ιταλία.
Όταν ο Σαμίμ έφτασε την επομένη στα Κύθηρα, έμαθε πως —παρότι αδύναμος αφού δεν είχε φάει επί τρεις μέρες— ο αδερφός του είχε καταφέρει να σώσει την οικογένειά του πριν ένα κύμα τον πάρει μακριά. Πήγε αμέσως στο σημείο του ναυαγίου. Μέσα στο νερό είδε σώματα να επιπλέουν — δεν μπορούσε να δει το πρόσωπο του αδερφού του, αλλά αναγνώρισε την πλάτη του.
Το Λιμενικό είπε πως έπρεπε να περάσει η κακοκαιρία για να μπορέσουν να βγάλουν τους νεκρούς από τη θάλασσα. Πέρασε η πρώτη μέρα, πέρασε και δεύτερη, ώσπου την τρίτη ημέρα κατέστη τελικά δυνατό. Το Λιμενικό επιβεβαίωσε στο Solomon πως άνεμοι έντασης 8 μποφόρ και η μορφολογία της περιοχής καθιστούσαν την ανάσυρση των σορών αδύνατη. Ο Σαμίμ δεν θα ξεχάσει ποτέ την εικόνα του αδερφού του στη θάλασσα.
Στην Καλαμάτα, χρειάστηκε να περάσουν τέσσερις ημέρες μετακύλισης της ευθύνης μεταξύ νοσοκομείου και Λιμενικού, και η βοήθεια μιας ντόπιας δικηγόρου που « ήρθε και τους έβαλε τις φωνές », προκειμένου να του επιτραπεί να ακολουθήσει τη διαδικασία ταυτοποίησης του αδερφού του.
Τον προειδοποίησαν πως θα ήταν μια ψυχοφθόρα διαδικασία, και πως θα έπρεπε να φορέσει τριπλή μάσκα λόγω της μυρωδιάς. Ο Σαμίμ λέει πως, λόγω έλλειψης χώρου στα ψυγεία του νεκροτομείου, ορισμένα από τα θύματα του ναυαγίου βρίσκονταν στον θάλαμο εκτός ψυγείου.
« Το άγχος και η μυρωδιά. Τα γόνατά μας έτρεμαν », θυμάται ο Σαμίμ όταν τον συναντάμε στα Κύθηρα ένα χρόνο μετά.
Ξεκίνησαν να του δείχνουν σώματα σε αποσύνθεση. Πρώτα αυτά εκτός ψυγείου. Δεν τον αναγνώρισε ανάμεσά τους. Βγήκαν έξω και άλλαξαν τις μάσκες που φορούσαν, επέστρεψαν, άνοιξαν με τη σειρά τα ψυγεία φτάνοντας στο τελευταίο.
« Βρισκόταν εκεί, ήρεμος. Ο άνθρωπος που αγαπάς. Ήμασταν κάπως χαρούμενοι που, μετά από μέρες, μπορούσαμε να τον δούμε », είπε ο Σαμίμ.
Νεκροί πρόσφυγες στα αζήτητα
Ο αριθμός των προσφύγων που πεθαίνουν στα σύνορα της Ευρώπης ολοένα και μεγαλώνει. Πέρα από τη δυσκολία καταγραφής των θανάτων, υπάρχει και η πρόκληση της ταυτοποίησης των σορών, μια διαδικασία ψυχοφθόρα για τους συγγενείς. Σε κάποιες περιπτώσεις, ωστόσο, υπάρχουν σοροί που μένουν αταυτοποίητες, εκατοντάδες άνδρες, γυναίκες και παιδιά που θάβονται σε τάφους αγνώστων στοιχείων.
Τον Ιούλιο του 2023, το Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο υιοθέτησε ψήφισμα που αναγνωρίζει το δικαίωμα στην ταυτοποίηση των ανθρώπων που χάνουν τη ζωή τους στην προσπάθεια να φτάσουν στην Ευρώπη, έως σήμερα ωστόσο δεν υπάρχει κεντρικό σύστημα καταγραφής σε πανευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο. Ούτε ενιαία διαδικασία για τη διαχείριση των σορών που καταλήγουν σε νεκροτομεία, γραφεία κηδειών — ακόμη και κοντέινερ ψύξης.
Το πρόβλημα είναι « εντελώς παραμελημένο », είπε στο Solomon η Ευρωπαία Επίτροπος Ανθρωπίνων Δικαιωμάτων, Dunja Mijatović, η οποία αναφέρει ότι οι χώρες της ΕΕ δεν εκπληρώνουν τις υποχρεώσεις τους βάσει του διεθνούς δικαίου των ανθρωπίνων δικαιωμάτων. « Η τραγωδία των αγνοούμενων μεταναστών έχει λάβει τρομακτικές διαστάσεις. Το ζήτημα απαιτεί άμεση δράση », πρόσθεσε.
Η πλατφόρμα Missing Migrants του Διεθνούς Οργανισμού Μετανάστευσης (ΔΟΜ), που αναγνωρίζει πως τα στοιχεία της δεν αποτελούν ολοκληρωμένη καταγραφή, κάνει λόγο για πάνω από 1.090 αγνοούμενους πρόσφυγες και μετανάστες στην Ευρώπη από το 2014.
Στο πλαίσιο της έρευνας Border Graves, οκτώ Ευρωπαίοι δημοσιογράφοι, από κοινού με την βρετανική εφημερίδα Guardian, την γερμανική εφημερίδα Süddeutsche Zeitung, και το Solomon για την Ελλάδα, ερεύνησαν επί επτά μήνες τι συμβαίνει με τις χιλιάδες αταυτοποίητες σορούς όσων χάνουν τη ζωή τους στα ευρωπαϊκά σύνορα, και καταγράφουν για πρώτη φορά έναν σχεδόν διπλάσιο αριθμό : σύμφωνα με τα στοιχεία που συγκεντρώθηκαν, περισσότεροι από 2.162 άνθρωποι πέθαναν την περίοδο 2014-2023.
Μελετήσαμε έγγραφα και πήραμε συνεντεύξεις από κρατικούς ιατροδικαστές, εισαγγελείς και εργαζομένους σε γραφεία τελετών· από κατοίκους και συγγενείς θανόντων και αγνοουμένων· και αποκτήσαμε αποκλειστική πρόσβαση σε αδημοσίευτα στοιχεία της Διεθνούς Επιτροπής του Ερυθρού Σταυρού.
Σε 65 νεκροταφεία κατά μήκος των ευρωπαϊκών συνόρων –Ελλάδα, Ισπανία, Ιταλία, Μάλτα, Πολωνία, Λιθουανία, Γαλλία και Κροατία– καταγράψαμε περισσότερους από 1.000 τάφους αγνώστων στοιχείων κατά την τελευταία δεκαετία.
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/graves-Croatia_Sice-1536x878.jpg 
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Lampedusa_Graves-solomon-1536x862.jpg 
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Greece-soufli-graves-1536x1024.jpg Η έρευνα καταγράφει τον τρόπο με τον οποίο η κρατική αδιαφορία γύρω από την αξιοπρεπή ταφή των ανθρώπων που χάνουν τη ζωή τους στα σύνορα διαπερνά τις ευρωπαϊκές χώρες. Στην Ιταλία, συναντήσαμε ξύλινους σταυρούς. Στην Κροατία και τη Βοσνία, συναντήσαμε δεκάδες τάφους με την ένδειξη « ΝΝ » (αγνώστων στοιχείων), στη Γαλλία απλώς με ένα « Χ ».
Στα ισπανικά Γκραν Κανάρια, εντοπίσαμε πλάκες που δεν αναφέρουν την ταυτότητα των θανόντων, αλλά σε ποιο ναυάγιο πέθαναν : « Βάρκα μεταναστών νούμερο 4. 25/09/2022 ».
Στην Ελλάδα, καταγράψαμε περισσότερους από 540 αταυτοποίητους τάφους προσφύγων, το 54% όσων συνολικά κατέγραψε η ευρωπαϊκή έρευνα. Ταξιδέψαμε στα νησιά του Αιγαίου και τον Έβρο, και εντοπίσαμε τάφους σε χωράφια που ενίοτε καλύπτονται από αγριόχορτα, και μαρμάρινες πλάκες με ημερομηνίες θανάτου που έχουν σβηστεί, ενώ σε άλλες περιπτώσεις ένα κομμάτι ξύλο μαζί με έναν αριθμό αποτελεί τη μόνη σήμανσή τους.
Τα στοιχεία της έρευνάς μας, σε συνδυασμό με τα στοιχεία της Διεθνούς Επιτροπής του Ερυθρού Σταυρού, δεν αποτελούν εξαντλητική καταγραφή του ζητήματος. Ωστόσο, αποτυπώνουν για πρώτη φορά τα κενά και τις δυσκολίες ενός συστήματος, που οδηγεί χιλιάδες οικογένειες να μην γνωρίζουν πού είναι θαμμένοι οι συγγενείς τους.
Λέσβος : 167 αταυτοποίητοι τάφοι προσφύγων
Ένας μακρύς χωματόδρομος, που τριγυρίζεται από ελαιόδεντρα, οδηγεί στην πύλη του νεκροταφείου του Κάτω Τρίτου, που συνήθως παραμένει κλειδωμένη με λουκέτο.
Το « νεκροταφείο των προσφύγων », όπως το αποκαλούν στο νησί, βρίσκεται περίπου 15χλμ δυτικά της Μυτιλήνης. Αποτελεί τον μοναδικό χώρο ταφής αποκλειστικά για πρόσφυγες και μετανάστες στην Ελλάδα.
Κατά τη διάρκεια μίας από τις επισκέψεις μας, λάμβανε χώρα η κηδεία τεσσάρων παιδιών. Έχασαν τη ζωή τους στις 28 Αυγούστου 2023, όταν η βάρκα στην οποία επέβαιναν μαζί με 18 ακόμη ανθρώπους βυθίστηκε νοτιοανατολικά της Λέσβου.
Η πενθούσα μητέρα και αρκετές γυναίκες, μεταξύ των οποίων μέλη της οικογένειας, κάθονταν κάτω από ένα δέντρο, ενώ οι άνδρες προσεύχονταν κοντά στο υπόστεγο που χρησιμοποιείται για τη διαδικασία της ταφής σύμφωνα με την ισλαμική παράδοση.
Στον Κάτω Τρίτο και τον Άγιο Παντελεήμονα, το νεκροταφείο της Μυτιλήνης όπου θάβονταν οι πρόσφυγες έως τότε, μετρήσαμε συνολικά 167 τάφους αγνώστων στοιχείων μεταξύ 2014-2023.
Ο τοπικός δημοσιογράφος, και πρώην μέλος του Περιφερειακού Συμβουλίου Βορείου Αιγαίου Νίκος Μανάβης, εξηγεί πως το νεκροταφείο δημιουργήθηκε το 2015 σε έναν ελαιώνα που ανήκει στο δήμο Μυτιλήνης λόγω ανάγκης : ένα πολύνεκρο ναυάγιο στα βόρεια του νησιού, στις 28 Οκτωβρίου του έτους, είχε ως αποτέλεσμα τουλάχιστον 60 νεκρούς, για τους οποίους τα νεκροταφεία του νησιού δεν επαρκούσαν.
Πολλά θύματα ναυαγίων παραμένουν θαμμένα σε τάφους αγνώστων στοιχείων. Στις ταφόπλακες αναγράφεται η εκτιμώμενη ηλικία των θανόντων και η ημερομηνία ταφής, ενίοτε μόνο ένας αριθμός. Άλλες φορές, ένα κομμάτι ξύλο και περιμετρικά τοποθετημένες πέτρες σηματοδοτούν τον τάφο.
« Αυτό που βλέπουμε είναι ένα χωράφι, όχι ένα νεκροταφείο. Δεν δείχνει σεβασμό στους ανθρώπους που τάφηκαν εδώ », λέει ο Μανάβης.
Αυτή η έλλειψη σεβασμού στο νεκροταφείο του Κάτω Τρίτου κινητοποίησε την οργάνωση Earth Medicine. Όπως εξηγεί ο Δημήτρης Πατούνης, μέλος της ΜΚΟ, τον Ιανουάριο του 2022 έκαναν πρόταση στο δήμο Μυτιλήνης για την αποκατάσταση του νεκροταφείου. Το σχέδιό τους είναι να δημιουργήσουν ένα χώρο ανάπαυσης με σεβασμό και αξιοπρέπεια, όπου οι πρόσφυγες και οι αιτούντες άσυλο θα μπορούν να ικανοποιήσουν την πιο ιερή ανθρώπινη ανάγκη, το πένθος για τους αγαπημένους τους.
Παρόλο που το δημοτικό συμβούλιο ενέκρινε την πρόταση την άνοιξη του 2023, οι δημοτικές εκλογές του Οκτωβρίου καθυστέρησαν το έργο. Ο Πατούνης δηλώνει θετικός ότι σύντομα θα γίνει καταγραφή των τάφων και περίφραξη της περιοχής.
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/mavraxilis-border-graves-1536x864.png 
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Greece_Lesvos_Funeral-home-1536x862.png Ο Χρήστος Μαυραχείλης, νεκροθάφτης στο νεκροταφείο του Αγίου Παντελεήμονα, θυμάται ότι το 2015 οι μουσουλμάνοι πρόσφυγες θάβονταν σε συγκεκριμένη περιοχή του νεκροταφείου.
« Αν κάποιος ήταν αγνώστου ταυτότητας έγραφα στον τάφο του “Άγνωστος” », λέει. Εάν δεν υπήρχαν συγγενείς, που θα μπορούσαν να καλύψουν το κόστος, ο Μαυραχείλης έκοβε ο ίδιος ένα μάρμαρο και έγραφε όσα στοιχεία μπορούσε από το πιστοποιητικό θανάτου. « Άνθρωποι ήταν κι αυτοί », λέει, « έκανα ό,τι μπορούσα ».
Από την πλευρά του, ο Θωμάς Βαναβάκης, πρώην ιδιοκτήτης γραφείου τελετών που πρόσφερε υπηρεσίες στη Λέσβο έως το 2020, λέει επίσης πως συχνά χρειάστηκε να καλύψουν ταφές δίχως να λάβουν αμοιβή. « Ξέρετε πόσες φορές μπήκαμε στη θάλασσα και πληρώσαμε εργάτες από την τσέπη μας για να τραβήξουμε τα πτώματα και δεν παίρναμε φράγκο ; », λέει.
« Το να βλέπεις τόσα μωρά, να τα μαζεύεις και να τα πετάς σε ένα κουτί… Πώς μπορείς να πας σπίτι και να κοιμηθείς μετά από αυτό ; », λέει ο Βαναβάκης.
Η Έφη Λατσούδη, που ζει στη Λέσβο και εργάζεται στην οργάνωση Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), λέει πως το 2015 υπήρχαν ταφές που δεν μπορούσε να καλύψει ο δήμος Μυτιλήνης, και ορισμένες φορές τις « πληρώναν οι άνθρωποι που συμμετείχαν στην τελετή. Προσπαθούσαμε να δώσουμε μια αξιοπρέπεια στη διαδικασία. Αλλά δεν ήταν αρκετό », λέει.
Η Λατσούδη θυμάται κάτι που της είχε αναφέρει μια προσφύγισσα το 2015 : « Το χειρότερο που μπορεί να μας συμβεί είναι να πεθάνουμε κάπου μακριά και να μην είναι κανείς στην κηδεία μας ».
Ο δήμος Μυτιλήνης δεν απάντησε στα ερωτήματά μας σχετικά με την αξιοπρεπή ταφή των προσφύγων στα νεκροταφεία ευθύνης του.
Χίος και Σάμος : τάφοι καλύπτονται από αγριόχορτα
Σύμφωνα με την ελληνική νομοθεσία, η τοπική αυτοδιοίκηση (και σε περίπτωση αδυναμίας της η περιφέρεια) καλύπτει το κόστος για την ταφή τόσο των αταυτοποίητων προσφύγων που πεθαίνουν στα σύνορα, όσο και εκείνων που βρίσκονται σε οικονομική αδυναμία.
Από πλευράς της, η δημοτική Αρχή Χίου δήλωσε πως προβλέπεται χρηματοδότηση για τις σχετικές δαπάνες, καθώς και ότι « στο πλαίσιο των αρμοδιοτήτων της για τα νεκροταφεία, συντηρεί και φροντίζει όλους τους χώρους, χωρίς διακρίσεις και με τον απαιτούμενο σεβασμό, για όλους τους νεκρούς ».
Αλλά κατά την επίσκεψή μας τον Αύγουστο στο νεκροταφείο του Μερσινιδίου, λίγα χιλιόμετρα βόρεια της πόλης της Χίου, όπου πρόσφυγες βρίσκονται θαμμένοι πλάι στα μνήματα των ντόπιων, δεν ήταν δύσκολο να εντοπίσει κανείς τον διαχωρισμό : οι πέντε τάφοι αταυτοποίητων προσφύγων σηματοδοτούνταν απλώς από ένα μάρμαρο, το οποίο έτεινε να υπερκαλύψει η βλάστηση.
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https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/chios-eu-graves-1152x1536.jpg Η Νατάσα Στραχίνη, δικηγόρος του RSA που ζει στη Χίο, έχει λάβει μέρος σε αρκετές κηδείες προσφύγων τόσο στη Χίο όσο και στη Λέσβο. Για εκείνη, είναι πολύ μεγάλη η σημασία της τοπικής κοινότητας και η παρουσία σε μια τόσο δύσκολη ανθρώπινη στιγμή.
Σχετικά με τις ταφές, εξηγεί πως « μόνο ένα καλό σύστημα καταγραφής θα μπορούσε να βοηθήσει τους συγγενείς να εντοπίσουν τον τάφο ενός ανθρώπου που έχασαν, καθώς συνήθως στα νεκροταφεία μετά από 3-5 χρόνια γίνονται εκταφές ». Αναφέρει πως ενίοτε ένας τάφος παραμένει αγνώστων στοιχείων παρότι η σορός έχει ταυτοποιηθεί, είτε γιατί καθυστέρησε η διαδικασία ταυτοποίησης, είτε γιατί οι συγγενείς δεν είχαν την οικονομική δυνατότητα να αλλάξουν το μνήμα.
Στο Ηραίο Σάμου, δίπλα στο δημοτικό νεκροταφείο, σε ένα οικόπεδο που ανήκει στη Μητρόπολη και χρησιμοποιείται ως χώρος ταφής προσφύγων, καταγράψαμε δεκάδες μνήματα που χρονολογούνται μεταξύ 2014-2023. Οι πλάκες –ορισμένες σπασμένες– που έχουν τοποθετηθεί στο έδαφος, « κρυμμένες » από κλαδιά, πευκοβελόνες και κουκουνάρια, αναγράφουν απλώς έναν αριθμό και τη χρονολογία της ταφής.
Ο δικηγόρος Δημήτρης Χούλης, που ζει στη Σάμο και χειρίζεται υποθέσεις γύρω από το προσφυγικό, σχολίασε σχετικά : « Είναι ντροπιαστική εικόνα να βλέπεις τέτοιους τάφους. Είναι αδικαιολόγητο για μια σύγχρονη κοινωνία όπως η Ελλάδα ».
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https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/samos-graves-eu-solomon-1536x1152.jpg Αναζητώντας στοιχεία
Η Διεθνής Επιτροπή του Ερυθρού Σταυρού είναι από τις λίγες διεθνείς οργανώσεις που εργάζονται για την ταυτοποίηση των νεκρών πρσοφύγων. Μεταξύ άλλων, και στην Ελλάδα έχουν πραγματοποιήσει αρκετές σχετικές εκπαιδεύσεις σε στελέχη του Λιμενικού και της Ελληνικής Αστυνομίας.
« Είναι υποχρέωσή μας να παρέχουμε στους νεκρούς μια αξιοπρεπή ταφή. Παράλληλα, οφείλουμε να δίνουμε απαντήσεις στις οικογένειες μέσω της ταυτοποίησης των νεκρών. Αν υπολογίσουμε τους συγγενείς των αγνοουμένων, αυτή η διαδικασία επηρεάζει εκατοντάδες χιλιάδες ανθρώπους. Δεν γνωρίζουν πού βρίσκονται οι αγαπημένοι τους. Τους φέρθηκαν καλά ; Τους σεβάστηκαν όταν τους έθαψαν ; », αναφέρει η Laurel Clegg, συντονίστρια ιατροδικαστής για τη μετανάστευση στην Ευρώπη.
Εξηγεί πως η καταγραφή των νεκρών αποτελεί διαδικασία που « απαιτεί την καλή συνεργασία μεταξύ πολλών μερών : ένα νομικό πλαίσιο που να προστατεύει τους αταυτοποίητους νεκρούς, συστηματικές νεκροψίες (consistent post-mortems), νεκροτομεία, ληξιαρχεία, αξιοπρεπή μεταφορά, νεκροταφεία ».
Ωστόσο, τα ιατρικά και νομικά συστήματα των χωρών αποδεικνύονται ανεπαρκή για να αντιμετωπίσουν τη διάσταση του προβλήματος, προσθέτει.
Από το 2013, στο πλαίσιο του προγράμματος για την αποκατάσταση οικογενειακών δεσμών, ο Ερυθρός Σταυρός έχει καταγράψει στην Ευρώπη 16.500 αιτήματα από ανθρώπους που αναζητούν αγνοούμενους συγγενείς τους. Σύμφωνα με τον διεθνή οργανισμό έχουν επιτευχθεί μόλις 285 επιτυχείς αντιστοιχίσεις (1,7%).
Τις αντιστοιχίσεις αυτές αναλαμβάνουν οι κατά τόπους ιατροδικαστές.
« Συλλέγουμε πάντα δείγματα DNA από τις σορούς αγνώστων στοιχείων. Είναι συνήθης πρακτική και μπορεί να είναι το μόνο εφικτό μέσο ταυτοποίησης », αναφέρει ο Παναγιώτης Κοτρέτσος, ιατροδικαστής στη Ρόδο. Τα δείγματα αποστέλλονται στο εργαστήριο DNA της Διεύθυνσης Εγκληματολογικών Ερευνών της Ελληνικής Αστυνομίας, σύμφωνα με πρωτόκολλο της INTERPOL.
Σύμφωνα με τον Ερυθρό Σταυρό, οι δυσκολίες συνήθως προκύπτουν όταν οι οικογένειες βρίσκονται εκτός ΕΕ, και οφείλονται σε διάφορους παράγοντες, όπως τυχόν διαφορές στο νομικό πλαίσιο ή στα ιατρικά συστήματα των χωρών. Για παράδειγμα, ορισμένες χώρες της ΕΕ δεν μπορούν να « ανοίξουν » υπόθεση και να πάρουν δείγματα DNA από οικογένειες, χωρίς εντολή από τις Aρχές της χώρας στην οποία έχει ανασυρθεί η σορός του συγγενή που αναζητάται.
Το πιο δύσκολο μέρος στη διαδικασία ταυτοποίησης μέσω DNA είναι ότι χρειάζεται να υπάρχει κι ένα δεύτερο δείγμα που θα συγκριθεί με εκείνο που συνέλεξαν οι ιατροδικαστές, το οποίο πρέπει να σταλεί από τις οικογένειες των αγνοουμένων. « Για έναν πρόσφυγα που ξεκίνησε το ταξίδι του από μια χώρα της κεντρικής Αφρικής, ταξίδεψε για μήνες, και πέθανε στην Ελλάδα, θα υπάρχει το γενετικό υλικό στο νεκροτομείο. Αλλά θα παραμείνει αταίριαστο μέχρι κάποιος συγγενής πρώτου βαθμού να στείλει δείγμα DNA », λέει ο Κοτρέτσος.
Εξηγεί πως αυτό δεν είναι πάντα εφικτό. « Έχουμε δεχτεί τηλεφωνήματα από συγγενείς που βρίσκονταν στη στη Συρία, και αναζητούσαν αγνοούμενα μέλη της οικογένειάς τους, και δεν μπορούσαν να στείλουν δείγματα ακριβώς επειδή βρίσκονταν στη Συρία ».
Έξω από το πανεπιστημιακό νοσοκομείο της Αλεξανδρούπολης, δύο κοντέινερ ψυγεία που έχουν παραχωρηθεί από τον Ερυθρό Σταυρό ως προσωρινοί νεκροθάλαμοι φιλοξενούν τα σώματα 40 προσφύγων.
Ο καθηγητής Ιατροδικαστικής στο Δημοκρίτειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θράκης, Παύλος Παυλίδης, έχει από το 2000 πραγματοποιήσει αυτοψίες σε τουλάχιστον 800 σώματα ανθρώπων σε κίνηση, με βασικές αιτίες θανάτου τον πνιγμό στα νερά του Έβρου και την υποθερμία.
Ο ιατροδικαστής δεν αρκείται στην απαραίτητη συλλογή DNA : καταγράφει δεδομένα όπως σημάδια γέννησης ή τατουάζ και αντικείμενα (π.χ. πορτοφόλια, δαχτυλίδια, γυαλιά), τα οποία θα μπορούσαν να αποτελέσουν τον συνδετικό κρίκο για έναν συγγενή που αναζητά το αγαπημένο του πρόσωπο.
Λέει πως συνολικά 313 σοροί που βρέθηκαν στον Έβρο από το 2014 παραμένουν αγνώστων στοιχείων. Όσες δεν μπορούν να ταυτοποιηθούν θάβονται σε ειδικό νεκροταφείο στο Σιδηρώ, το οποίο διαχειρίζεται ο δήμος Σουφλίου, ενώ 15-20 αταυτοποίητες σοροί τάφηκαν στην Ορεστιάδα όσο γινόταν η επέκταση του νεκροταφείου Σιδηρού.
Οι σοροί των μουσουλμάνων προσφύγων που ταυτοποιούνται ενταφιάζονται στο μουσουλμανικό νεκροταφείο στη Μεσσούνη Κομοτηνής ή επαναπατρίζονται, όταν οι συγγενείς μπορούν να καλύψουν το κόστος επαναπατρισμού.
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/alexandroupoli-graves-eu-1536x1024.jpg 
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/alexandroupoli-graves-eu-solomon-1536x1024.jpg 
https://wearesolomon.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/alexandroupoli-eu-graves-items-1536x1024.jpg « Αυτό δεν είναι αξιοπρεπές »
Απαντώντας σε σχετικά ερωτήματα, το υπουργείο Μετανάστευσης και Ασύλου είπε πως το ζήτημα των διαδικασιών ταυτοποίησης και ταφής προσφύγων δεν εμπίπτει στις αρμοδιότητές του. Εκπρόσωπος της Κομισιόν δήλωσε πως σχετικά κονδύλια προς την Ελλάδα δεν προβλέπονται, ωστόσο εν λόγω δαπάνες « θα μπορούσαν να υποστηριχθούν στο πλαίσιο του Εθνικού Προγράμματος του Ταμείου Ασύλου, Μετανάστευσης και Ένταξης », το οποίο διαχειρίζεται το υπουργείο Μετανάστευσης.
Ο Θεόδωρος Νούσιας είναι επικεφαλής ιατροδικαστής της Ιατροδικαστικής Υπηρεσίας Βορείου Αιγαίου, δηλαδή υπεύθυνος για τα νησιά Λέσβο, Σάμο, Χίο, και Λήμνο. Σύμφωνα με τον ιατροδικαστή, η διαδικασία ταυτοποίησης μέσω DNA έχει βελτιωθεί πολύ σε σχέση με πριν από μερικά χρόνια.
Ο Νούσιας λέει ότι πάντα ήταν διαθέσιμος, όταν του ζητήθηκε να αναγνωρίσει κάποιον. « Πρέπει να εξυπηρετείς τους ανθρώπους, γι’ αυτό βρίσκεσαι εκεί. Να εξυπηρετείς τους ανθρώπους για να μπορούν να βρουν την οικογένειά τους », προσθέτει.
Ο ιατροδικαστής ζει στη Λέσβο, αλλά λέει πως δεν έχει πάει ποτέ στο νεκροταφείο στον Κάτω Τρίτο. « Δεν θέλω να πάω. Θα είναι δύσκολο για μένα γιατί οι περισσότεροι από αυτούς τους ανθρώπους έχουν περάσει από τα χέρια μου ».
Τον Οκτώβριο του 2022, ο 32χρονος Σουτζά Αχμαντί και η αδελφή του Μαρίνα ταξίδεψαν επίσης στα Κύθηρα και, στη συνέχεια, στην Καλαμάτα προκειμένου να αναγνωρίσουν τη σορό του πατέρα τους, Αμπντούλ Γασί.
Ο 65χρονος είχε ξεκινήσει το ταξίδι για την Ιταλία μαζί με τη γυναίκα του Χατίτζε — εκείνη επέζησε. Τα δύο αδέλφια επισκέφθηκαν το νοσοκομείο, όπου τους έδειξαν και τα οκτώ πτώματα, άνδρες και γυναίκες, παρότι είχαν εξαρχής εξηγήσει πως ο άνθρωπος που αναζητούσαν ήταν άνδρας.
Το σώμα του πατέρα τους ήταν μεταξύ εκείνων που βρίσκονταν εκτός ψυγείου.
« Η αδελφή μου έκλαιγε και τους φώναζε να πάρουν τον πατέρα μας από το κοντέινερ ψυγείο γιατί μύριζε », θυμάται ο Σουτζά. « Δεν ήταν αξιοπρεπές μέρος για έναν άνθρωπο ».
Για την έρευνα συνεργάστηκαν οι : Gabriele Cruciata, Eoghan Gilmartin, Danai Maragoudaki, Barbara Matejčić, Leah Pattem, Gabriela Ramírez, Daphne Tolis and Tina Xu (συντονίστρια).
Η έρευνα υποστηρίχθηκε από το Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) και Journalismfund Europe.
▻https://wearesolomon.com/el/mag/format-el/erevnes/agnoston-stoixeion-pano-apo-1000-ataftopoihtoi-tafoi-sta-evropaika-syn
U Hrvatskoj pronađeno 45 neimenovanih grobova migranata, među njima je bila i 5-godišnja curica: ‘Policija ih često tjera u rijeku’
Telegram ekskluzivno donosi veliku priču Barbare Matejčić koja je, kao jedina novinarka iz Hrvatske, sudjelovala u međunarodnoj novinarskoj istrazi s kolegama iz uglednih medija poput britanskog Guardiana i njemačkog Süddeutsche Zeitunga. Otkrili su kako završavaju tijela onih koji su stradali pokušavajući ući u Europsku uniju
U selu Siče u istočnoj Hrvatskoj više je Sičana na groblju nego među živima: živih je 230, a umrlih 250. Točnije, na groblju je 247 Sičana i tri nepoznate osobe. Bilo bi ih još više pod zemljom da Siče svoje groblje nema tek od 1970-ih. Bilo bi još više i živih da nisu, kao mnogi iz tog kraja, odlazili u veće gradove ili u inozemstvo u potrazi za boljim životom. Grobovi Sičana, ukratko, posjetitelju kažu tko su ti ljudi bili, gdje pripadaju i posjećuju li ih bližnji. Tako to biva s grobovima, sažimaju osnovne informacije naših života. Ako na grobu stoji samo NN, to sažima tragediju.
Tko su te tri osobe kojima se ne zna ime? Kako im je posljednja adresa skromni humak u Siču? Migranti, utopili su se u obližnjoj rijeci, reći će vam mještani. Malo je mjesto, malo je groblje, sve se zna. I da ne znate ništa, jasno vam je da te tri osobe tu ne pripadaju. Ukopani su sasvim izdvojeno od ostatka groblja. Tri drvena križa s NN natpisima, zabodena u zemlju na rubu groblja. NN, kao skraćenica od latinskog nomen nescio, doslovno znači: ne znam ime.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQAGqiWBB78&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegram.hr%2F&
Službeno objašnjenje komunalnog poduzeća koje upravlja grobljem je da je ostavljeno mjesta za još mogućih ukopa onih kojima se ne zna ime. A objašnjenje na koje pomislite kad tamo dođete jest da su ukopani izdvojeno kako se ne bi miješali s mještanima. Ili, kako nam se u telefonskom razgovoru izlanuo načelnik jednog drugog mjesta gdje su također na margini groblja NN migrantski grobovi: “Da nam ne smetaju.”
Afganistanci pod križem
Na groblju u Sičama to su jedina tri groba o kojima nitko ne vodi računa. Za nekih pet godina mogao bi im nestati svaki trag. Komunalna poduzeća su dužna ukopati neidentificirana tijela, ali ne i održavati grobove osim ako grob nije od “osobe od posebnog povijesnog i društvenog značaja”, kako zakon nalaže. NN1, NN2 i NN3 su od posebnog značaja samo svojim bližnjima, koji vjerojatno ni ne znaju gdje su. Možda čekaju da im se konačno jave iz zapadne Europe. Možda ih traže. Možda ih oplakuju. No, ako zakopate malo dublje, saznat ćete ponešto o onima koji tu počivaju bez imena.
U rano i hladno jutro 23. prosinca 2022. policija je pronašla dva tijela na obali Save, koja je u tom području odvaja Hrvatsku od Bosne i Hercegovine. Odvaja Europsku uniju od ostatka Europe. Prema policijskom izvještaju, pronašli su i skupinu od dvadeset stranih državljana koji su tim putem nezakonito ušli u Hrvatsku. Skupini je nedostajala još jedna osoba. Nakon opsežne potrage u popodnevnim satima je pronađeno i treće tijelo. Patolog Opće bolnice u Novoj Gradiški ustanovio je da je smrt za sve troje nastupila u 2.45 u noći. Dvojica su umrla od pothlađenosti, jedan se utopio.
Kod njih su pronađene iskaznice iz izbjegličkog kampa u Bosni i Hercegovini. Saznali smo da su, prema iskaznicama, sva trojica bila iz Afganistana: Ahmedi Abozari imao je 17 godina, Basir Naseri imao je 21 godinu i Shakir Atoin je imao 25 godina. NN1, NN2 i NN3. Za dvojicu od njih su i drugi iz skupine migranata potvrdili identitet, rekli su nam iz Policijske uprave brodsko-posavske. Zašto su onda pokopani kao NN? Ako se znalo da su iz Afganistana, zašto su pokopani pod križem? Ako ih traže obitelji, kako će ih naći?
‘Neka plate za ime na grobu’
U upravi groblja su bili ljubazni i rekli da pokapaju prema tome kako stoji u dozvoli za ukop koju potpisuje patolog. A stajalo je NN. Patolog je rekao da podatke ispisuje na temelju informacija dobivenih od policije i mrtvozornika. Iz nadležne policije su nam rekli da se osoba sahranjuje po pravilima lokalne uprave. Groblje Siče pripada Općini Nova Kapela, čiji nam je načelnik Ivan Šmit nezadovoljno nabrojao sve troškove koje je njegova općina snosila za te ukope i poručio da ako će netko za to platiti, onda može promijeniti oznaku NN u imena.
Na niz smo takvih administrativnih nejasnoća naišli istražujući kako nadležna tijela postupaju s tijelima onih koji su stradali pokušavajući ući u Europsku uniju, kao dio Border Graves Investigation koje je proveo tim od osam slobodnih novinara u zemljama na migrantskim rutama, zajedno s britanskim Guardianom i njemačkim Süddeutsche Zeitungom.
Nema jedinstvene europske baze podataka o broju migranata koji su pokopani u Europi. No tim je uspio potvrditi najmanje 1.931 takav grob u Grčkoj, Italiji, Španjolskoj, Hrvatskoj, Malti, Poljskoj i Francuskoj u zadnjem desetljeću, dakle od 2014. do 2023. Od toga je 1.015 NN grobova. Više od polovice neidentificiranih grobova je, očekivano, u Grčkoj – 551, u Italiji 248 i u Španjolskoj 109. U Hrvatskoj smo utvrdili 59 grobova migranata koji su ukopani posljednjeg desetljeća, od čega ih 45 nije identificirano. Podaci su temeljeni na različitim bazama podataka koje u pojedinačnim zemljama prikupljaju međunarodne organizacije, nevladine udruge, znanstvenici i istraživači, kao i od lokalnih vlasti te terenskim radom.
Tim novinara je posjetio 24 groblja u Grčkoj, Italiji, Španjolskoj, Hrvatskoj, Poljskoj i Litvi, gdje je ukupno 555 grobova neidentificiranih migranata od 2014. do 2023. To su oni čija su tijela pronađena i pokopana. Međunarodni odbor Crvenog križa procjenjuje da se 87 posto onih koji nestanu na europskim južnim granicama nikad ne pronađe. Za kopnene migrantske rute nema procjena.
Traže li migrante kao što traže turiste?
Prosinac 2022. kad su umrla trojica mladih Afganistanaca je bio kišniji nego inače i Sava je nabujala. No ionako je velika i brza. Na tom je području samo tri dana ranije nestalo petero turskih državljana nakon što im se na Savi prevrnuo čamac. Među njima su bili dvogodišnja curica, dvanaestogodišnji dečko i njihovi roditelji. Brat nestalog oca je došao iz Njemačke u Hrvatsku kako bi saznao što se dogodilo s obitelji. Iz dokumentacije koju posjedujemo, vidljivo je da je uz pomoć turkologinje Nine Rajković pokušavao od više policijskih postaja doći do informacija u vezi nestalih. Nije ih dobio ni mjesecima kasnije. Htjeli su prijaviti nestanak, no u policiji im je rečeno da prijavu nema smisla pisati ako osobe nisu prethodno registrirane na području Hrvatske ili Bosne i Hercegovine.
Na niz smo sličnih primjera naišli baveći se ovom temom. Mladić je došao u Hrvatsku i prijavio policiji i u Hrvatskoj i u Sloveniji da mu se brat utopio u Kupi. No njegov nestanak nije evidentiran u hrvatskoj nacionalnoj bazi nestalih osoba koja je javno dostupna. Policija brata nije kontaktirala nakon što je u narednim danima u Kupi nađeno više neidentificiranih tijela. Afganistanac je šest mjeseci čekao da se tijelo njegova brata, koji se utopio kad su zajedno pokušali prijeći Savu također u prosincu 2022., prebaci iz Hrvatske u Bosnu i Hercegovinu da ga može pokopati. Iako je potvrdio da je riječ o njegovu bratu, proces identifikacije je bio spor i kompliciran.
Naišli smo i na primjere obitelji koje nemaju nekoga u Europi tko može doputovati i uporno tragati za informacijama, već izdaleka pokušavaju ući u trag bližnjima koji se gube na području Hrvatske i na kraju su obeshrabreno odustali. Puno je pitanja i malo jasnih odgovora na temu nestalih i umrlih migranata na tzv. Balkanskoj ruti, čiji je Hrvatska dio. Ne postoje jasni protokoli i procedure oko toga kome i kako se prijavljuje nestanak. Ne zna se traži li se nestale migrante aktivno, kao što se ljeti traži nestale turiste. Nije jasno koliko je informacija, i kojih, potrebno za identifikaciju.
Obitelji se nemaju kome javiti
“Kruženje informacije između institucija i pojedinih odjela mi se čini gotovo nepostojeća. U jednom slučaju mi je trebalo više od dva mjeseca i deseci telefonskih poziva i mailova upućenih na različite adrese, policijske postaje, policijske uprave, bolnice, državno odvjetništvo, samo da potaknem pokretanje identifikacije koja do danas, više od godinu dana kasnije, još nije završena”, kaže Marijana Hameršak s Instituta za etnologiju i folkloristiku u Zagrebu. Ona vodi znanstveni projekt “Europski režim iregulariziranih migracija na periferiji EU” u kojem se prikuplja znanje i podaci o nestalim i umrlim migrantima. Na kraju sve ovisi o susretljivim i posvećenim pojedincima u institucijama, kaže Hamrešak, no oni ne mogu nositi cijeli teret disfunkcionalnog sustava.
Potrage za nestalim i pokušaji identifikacije umrlih migranata u Hrvatskoj, kao i susjednoj Bosni i Hercegovini, najčešće počivaju na trudu volontera i aktivista, koji poput Marijane tragaju za informacijama u kaotičnoj administraciji jer je obiteljima koje ne poznaju jezik taj zadatak praktički nesavladiv. Tako je Facebook grupa Dead and Missing in the Balkans postala glavno mjesto razmjene fotografija i podataka o nestalima i umrlima između obitelji i aktivista. Ne postoj internetska stranica na engleskom nadležnog Ministarstva unutarnjih poslova na koju se mogu javiti iz Afganistana ili Sirije i raspitati se za sudbinu svojih bližnjih, ostaviti podatke o njima i prijaviti nestanak.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PldA9Pa3LJc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegram.hr%2F&
Nema ni regionalne baze podataka o nestalim i umrlim migrantima na kojoj bi surađivale policije makar iz zemalja među kojima se bilježi najviše prelazaka – iz Bosne i Hercegovine u Hrvatsku. Povjerenica Vijeća Europe za ljudska prava Dunja Mijatović je u razgovoru s našim timom naglasila da je iznimno važno uspostaviti centraliziranu europsku bazu podataka o nestalim i umrlim migrantima. Kad bi takva baza podataka objedinjavala ante-mortem (podaci o osobi koji se prikupljaju od rodbine i poznanika, poput fizičkih karakteristika i opisa odjeće koju je nosila posljednji put, koje je predmete imala uz sebe itd.) i post-mortem (kao DNK uzorak i fotografije) podatke o umrlima, uvelike bi se povećale šanse za identifikaciju.
Poginuti ili ostvariti san
“Obitelji imaju pravo znati istinu o tome što se dogodilo njihovim najbližima”, kaže Mijatović. No suradnja policija susjednih zemalja u održavanju vanjske granice EU nepropusnom je učinkovita. Ranije migranti nisu tako često pokušavali prijeći Savu. Znali su da je previše opasna. Dijele informacije jedni s drugima i ne upuštaju se u prelazak takve rijeke u dječjim čamcima na napuhavanje ili u zračnicama kotača. Ako nisu sasvim očajni.
Hrvatska policija je push-backovima i upotrebom sile – na što već godinama upozoravaju Amnesty International i Human Rights Watch – otežala prelazak drugim, manje opasnim prijelazima duž zelene granice s Bosnom i Hercegovinom. Kako nam je rekao mladi Marokanac u Bosni i Hercegovini, koji je 11 puta pokušao preći u Hrvatsku ali ga je hrvatska policija svaki put vratila: “Imaš dva izbora: poginuti ili ostvariti san.” Koliko ih je poginulo na Balkanskoj ruti u pokušaju ostvarenja sna, teško je utvrditi. Najsveobuhvatniji podaci za zemlje bivše Jugoslavije su oni koje prikupljaju istraživači projekta “Europski režim iregulariziranih migracija na periferiji EU”, i broje 346 stradalih od 2014. do 2023. u Hrvatskoj, Bosni i Hercegovini, Srbiji, Sloveniji, Sjevernoj Makedoniji i na Kosovu.
ERIM-ova baza pojedinačno navodi svakog stradalog i sadrži onoliko podataka koliko su istraživači mogli prikupiti iz raznih izvora – medija, svjedoka stradanja, od institucija, iz aktivističkih kanala. No brojka je zasigurno bitno veća. Nestanak nekih nije ni evidentiran. Tijela mnogih nikad nisu pronađena. Stara planina između Bugarske i Srbije težak je i nedostupan teren. Tu će na preminule naići samo oni koji su istom sudbinom nagnani na taj put i neće riskirati prijavu. Ako stradaju u minskim poljima zaostalim iza ratova u Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini, od tijela im neće ostati mnogo. Najviše je pronađeno tijela utopljenih u rijekama, no nema procjena koliko utopljenih nije nikad pronađeno.
U Hrvatskoj 45 neidentificiranih
Hrvatsko Ministarstvo unutarnjih poslova nam je dostavilo podatke o stradalim migrantima od 2015., otkad vode evidenciju, do kraja studenog 2023.: ukupno 87 stradalih migranata na području Republike Hrvatske. Ni jedno službeno tijelo u Hrvatskoj, Bosni i Hercegovini i Srbiji ne vodi evidenciju o pokopanim migrantima na tom teritoriju. No za Hrvatsku smo uspjeli doći do podataka, zahvaljujući upitima poslanima na preko 500 adresa gradova, općina i komunalnih poduzeća koja upravljaju grobljima. Prema dobivenim podacima, u Hrvatskoj se na 32 groblja nalazi 59 grobova migranata, koji su ukopani posljednjeg desetljeća, dakle od 2014. do danas. Od toga ih 45 nije identificirano.
Neki pokopani migranti su ekshumirani i vraćeni obiteljima u zemlju porijekla, premda je to za obitelji zahtjevan i iznimno skup proces. U MUP-u navode da se od 2001. DNK uzorci uzimaju od svih neidentificiranih tijela, a obradu provodi Centar za forenzična ispitivanja, istraživanja i vještačenja Ivan Vučetić. Tražili smo od MUP-a razgovor sa stručnjacima koji rade na identifikaciji migranata, ali nam nije udovoljeno.
Među NN grobovima u Hrvatskoj je mrtvorođena beba iz Sirije pokopana 2015. u Slavonskom Brodu. Petogodišnja djevojčica koja se utopila u Dunavu i pokopana je 2021. u Dalju. Prošlo ljeto je mladić u brdovitom predjelu na dubrovačkom području umro od iscrpljenosti. Neke je udario vlak. Mnogi su umrli od pothlađenosti. Neki umru jer im nije na vrijeme pružena pomoć. Neki ne vjeruju da im išta više može pomoći pa se ubiju.
Nerazriješeni gubitak
Prema zakonu, sahranjuju se najbliže mjestu stradavanja tako da su uglavnom na malim grobljima poput onog u Sičama. Često su, baš kao tamo, njihovi grobovi izdvojeni od ostatka groblja. Ponegdje je, kao u Otoku, netko od mještanki mekog srca dao sebi u zadatak da brine o NN grobu. Negdje je, kao na groblju u Prilišću, NN drveni križ iz 2019. već istrunuo.
Iza svakog tog NN groba ostaju bližnji koji se nose s teretom neznanja što se dogodilo. Psiholozi to zovu nerazriješenim gubitkom, jer toliko dugo koliko bližnji nemaju potvrdu da su njihovi voljeni mrtvi i ne znaju gdje su im tijela, ne mogu žalovati za njima. Ako nastave sa životom, osjećaju krivnju. I tako su zamrznuti u stanju između očaja i nade. Američka psihologinja dr. Pauline Boss autorica je termina i teorije o nerazriješenom gubitku. “Znati gdje je grob bližnje osobe je jako važno jer pomaže da se oprostite”, rekla je dr. Boss u razgovoru za naš tim.
Postoji i praktična strana te zamrznutosti: ako osoba nije proglašena mrtvom, ne može se provesti nasljeđivanje, ne može se pristupiti bankovnom računu, ne može se dobiti obiteljska mirovina, partner ili partnerica se ne mogu ponovno vjenčati, komplicira se skrbništvo nad djecom. Mnoge obitelj i u Hrvatskoj i u Bosni i Hercegovini dobro poznaju nerazriješeni gubitak; ratovi u devedesetima ostavili su tisuće nestalih. Obje zemlje imaju posebne zakone o nestalima u tim ratovima i dobro razrađene mehanizme potrage, identifikacije, pohranjivanja podataka i međusobne suradnje. No to se ne primjenjuje na migrante koji se gube i pogibaju među tisućama koji se kreću Balkanskom rutom.
Uređeni koridor – nula mrtvih
Hrvatska je postala važna točka ulaska u Europsku uniju nakon što je Mađarska zatvorila granice u rujnu 2015. Od tada pa do ožujka 2016. preko hrvatske dionice Balkanskog koridora – dakle, međudržavnog, organiziranog puta – prema procjenama, prošlo je oko 660.000 izbjeglica. Taj koridor im je omogućio da od Grčke pa do zapadne Europe dođu u dva ili tri dana. I dolazili su sigurno. Od tih stotina tisuća ljudi u pokretu, hrvatski MUP ne bilježi niti jednu smrt 2015. i 2016. Koridor je i uspostavljen da bi se spriječila stradavanja nakon što je veći broj izbjeglica u proljeće 2015. poginuo na željezničkoj pruzi u Makedoniji.
No sa sklapanjem europsko-turskog sporazuma o izbjeglicama u ožujku 2016. godine, koridor je zatvoren. EU se obavezala izdašno financirati Tursku da izbjeglice drži na svom teritoriju kako ne bi dolazili u Europsku uniju. I tako je migrantima ostala pogibeljna Balkanska ruta. Mnogi njom idu. Samo u deset mjeseci 2023. hrvatska je policija evidentirala 62.452 postupanja vezano za nezakonite prelaske granice.
I Ured pučke pravobraniteljice u Hrvatskoj i povjerenica Vijeća Europe za ljudska prava upozoravaju na isto: granične i migracijske politike utječu na povećanje rizika od nestajanja migranata. I da je potrebno da se u EU uspostave legalni i sigurni putevi migracija. No, EU očekuje od Hrvatske da štiti zajedničku vanjsku granicu. I Hrvatska to zdušno radi. Takvu praksu ministar Davor Božinović naziva “obeshrabrivanjem” migranata da uđu u Hrvatsku.
‘Obeshrabreni’ pod vlak
Rezultat takve prakse je, primjerice, smrt Madine Hussiny. Šestogodišnju afganistansku djevojčicu je ubio vlak nakon što je njenu obitelj hrvatska policija “obeshrabrila” i usred noći 2017. potjerala nazad u Srbiju uz uputu da prate tračnice. Europski sud za ljudska prava u studenom 2021. je presudio da je Hrvatska odgovorna za Madininu smrt. U svjedočanstvima koja smo čuli, kao i u mnogim izvještajima nevladinih organizacija, migranti opisuju da im je hrvatska policija na granici naredila da pregaze ili preplivaju rijeku kako bi se vratili u Bosnu ili Srbiju, da se penju preko stijena, idu kroz šumu, nekad i svučeni dogola i ne znajući put jer im policija u pravilu oduzme mobitele.
Prema podacima koje prikuplja Dansko vijeće za izbjeglice, od početka 2020. do kraja 2022. najmanje je 30.000 ljudi prisilno vraćeno iz Hrvatske u Bosnu i Hercegovinu. Među njima je bio i Afganistanac Arat Semiullah. U studenom 2022. je namjeravao prijeći Savu i ući iz Bosne u Hrvatsku. Utopio se. Imao je 20 godina. Pokopan je na pravoslavnom groblju u Banja Luci. Njegova obitelj u Afganistanu nije znala što mu se dogodilo. Dan ranije je poslao mami fotografiju na kojoj je svježe ošišan za ulazak u Europsku uniju. I onda se prestao javljati.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2nVP5AL1x0&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegram.hr%2F&
Majka je molila nećaka Paymana Sediqija, koji živi u Njemačkoj, da ga pokuša pronaći. Payman je stupio u kontakt s aktivistom Nihadom Suljićem, koji u Bosni i Hercegovini samostalno pomaže obiteljima da doznaju što je s njihovim bližnjima. Tjednima su pokušavali doći do informacija. Payman je otputovao u Bosnu i uspio pronaći tijelo rođaka zahvaljujući susretljivosti policajke koja mu je pokazala forenzičke fotografije. Aratova mama je telefonski potvrdila da je to njezin sin.
U Europi sahranili snove
Na Aratovoj osmrtnici objavljenoj u Bosni i Hercegovini piše da je “hrvatska policija vatrenim oružjem potopila čamac te se on tragično utopio”. Uz pomoć muslimanske zajednice, a na želju obitelji, uspjeli su tijelo prebaciti iz Banja Luke na muslimansko groblje u Kamičanima. Htjeli su ga pokopati u Afganistanu, ali im je bilo previše skupo i birokratski komplicirano. U rujnu 2023. susreli smo se s Nihadom i Paymanom kad je Aratu postavljen velik kameni nadgrobni spomenik. Na njemu piše: “U pokušaju dolaska do Europe utopio se u rijeci Savi.”
Payman nam je ispričao da je Arat prelazio Savu u skupini migranata. Dio njih je uspio doći do hrvatske obale, no onda je hrvatska policija pucala u gumeni čamac u kojem je bio Arat. Čamac se potopio i Arat se utopio. Tako je Paymanu ispričao preživjeli koji je prešao na hrvatsku obalu Save. Payman kaže da je Aratova obitelj u velikoj boli, ali da makar znaju gdje im je sin i da je pokopan po religijskim običajima. Paymanu je važno da na grobu piše da je Arat stradao kao migrant.
“Svakodnevno u Europi umiru ljudi koji bježe iz zemalja u kojima im nema života. U Europi se sahranjuju njihovi snovi. Nikoga nije briga za njih, čak ni kad europski policajci pucaju na njih”, kaže Payman. Zna o kakvim snovima govori; i sam je ilegalno došao u Njemačku sa 16 godina. Kaže da je imao sreće. Nihad se zalaže da se i drugi grobovi migranata u Bosni i Hercegovini trajno obilježe. Vodi nas na groblje u Zvorniku gdje je pokopano 17 NN migranata. Kaže kako za neke od njih ima informaciju da su imali pasoš sa sobom kad su pronađeni.
‘Ove ljude nije ubila rijeka’
S groblja se vidi Drina, koja dijeli Srbiju od Bosne i u kojoj mnogi izgube život pokušavajući je preći. Samo je ove godine u Drini pronađeno tridesetak tijela. Nihad kaže da imaju sreće ako ih rijeka izbaci na bosansku stranu jer se u Srbiji često ne radi ni obdukcija niti uzimaju DNK uzorci. To su nam potvrdili i aktivisti iz Srbije. U tom slučaju su i u smrti sasvim izgubljeni za svoje obitelji. Zemljani NN grobovi u Zvorniku su zarasli i nisu omeđeni, tako da ne znate gazite li po njima.
Nihad je uspio uvjeriti Grad Zvornik da drvena obilježja zamijene crnim kamenom. Važno mu je da su pokopani dostojanstveno, ali mu je još važnije da ostanu svjedočiti. “Želja mi je da i za sto godina ovi grobovi budu spomenici srama EU. Jer, nije ove ljude ubila rijeka, nego granični režim EU”, kaže Nihad.
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJkS3qHfA54&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegram.hr%2F&
An obscure island grave: fate of deadly EU migration route’s youngest victim
Case of #Alhassane_Bangoura in #Lanzarote highlights Europe-wide failure as authorities struggle to cope with scale of deaths
Stretching less than a metre in length and covered in the ochre-coloured soil that dots the Canary island of Lanzarote, large stones encircle the tiny mound. There is no tombstone or plaque; nothing official to signal that this is the final resting site of the infant believed to be the youngest victim of one of the world’s deadliest migration routes.
Instead, two bouquets of plastic daisies adorn the grave, along with a granite bowl engraved with his name, Alhassane Bangoura, hinting at the impact his story had on many across the island.
His mother, originally from Guinea, was among three pregnant women who joined 40 others in an inflatable raft that left Morocco in early January 2020. After running out of fuel, the flimsy raft was left to the mercy of Atlantic currents for three days.
“They were driven by desperation,” said Mamadou Sy, a municipal councillor for the Socialist party in Lanzarote. “Nobody would get into one of these vessels if they had even a little bit of hope in their own country. Nobody would do it.”
So far this year, a record 35,410 migrants and refugees have arrived on the shores of the Canary Islands – a 135% increase over last year. More than 11,000 of them landed at the tiny island of El Hierro, home to just 9,000 people.
The surge in those risking the perilous route has transformed the archipelago into a microcosm of the wider strain playing out across the EU as authorities struggle to deal with the bodies of those that die on their way. A Guardian investigation in collaboration with a consortium of reporters has found that refugees and migrants are being buried in unmarked graves across the EU at a scale that is unprecedented outside of war.
In September, the mayor of Mogán, a municipality on the island of Gran Canaria, gave voice to the tensions that have at times surfaced as officials across the EU confront this issue, announcing she would no longer use her budget to cover the cost of burying refugees and migrants who are found along the shores that buttress the municipality.
“When they die on the high seas, it is the responsibility of the state,” Onalia Bueno told reporters, in rejection of a Spanish law that requires municipalities to foot the bills for people who die within their jurisdiction and who are either unidentified or whose families cannot cover the costs.
At the Teguise municipal cemetery on the island of Lanzarote, more than 25 unmarked graves sit among a plot containing about 60 graves in total. It was here that baby Alhassane was buried. His mother had delivered him as the rickety vessel pitched against the fierce Atlantic swells; those onboard later told media they never heard the baby cry.
His body was cold when the vessel was rescued, an emergency services spokesperson said. He was taken to the nearest hospital but was declared dead on arrival. His body was taken to judicial authorities as is the standard practice in Spain for migrants and refugees who perish at sea or on arrival.
Alhassane’s mother, who was unconscious when she was rescued, was later sent to Gran Canaria, about 200km (125 miles) away, where an NGO had agreed to take her into its care. But the Spanish judicial system had yet to release her son’s body – a process that can take up to eight months in Lanzarote.
The funeral took place on 25 January. “She wasn’t able to attend the funeral,” said Laetitia Marthe, who was among those who unsuccessfully battled for Alhassane’s mother to be allowed to attend. “Basically they’re treated like numbers.”
Instead, Marthe was among the handful of people who attended the funeral in her name.
Judicial officials had liaised with the mother to check the baby’s name, said Eugenio Robayna Díaz, the municipal councillor responsible for cemeteries in the city of Teguise. But he did not know why the name had not made it on to the grave.
Julie Campagne, an anthropologist based in Lanzarote, called for the baby’s grave to be marked with a plaque. “We’re witnessing the process of forgetting in real time. And this loss of memory comes with a shirking of our responsibility for what is happening.”
Generally speaking, all over the world, there is always a small fraction of people who die and are never identified, she added. “But that is not what is happening here. This is happening for specific reasons. This is happening because of the policy decisions of our governments.”
While Alhassane’s mother was not able to attend the funeral, what did eventually make it to his gravesite was a smooth stone, painted by her in yellow and red and brought there by those travelling from Gran Canaria shortly after the burial. Written on the stone was a message for her son.
More than three years of rain has washed away much of what was there but Marthe copied down the message, hoping to one day add it to a formal marker of the site. “I will miss you a lot my baby,” it reads. “I love you.”
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/an-obscure-island-grave-fate-of-deadly-eu-migration-routes-youngest-vic
Dead refugees in the Balkans: bribes to find missing relatives
In comparison to 2015, today more asylum seekers are dying on the Balkan route. While relatives are forced to overcome state indifference to identify their loved ones, they are also forced to bribe authorities, even border guards, in the hope of finding them.
He had hoped to find his son in a refugee camp. And after spending three weeks looking for him, he had prepared himself for the possibility of finding him in a hospital.
But he didn’t expect to find him in the graveyard.
When the policeman with Bulgarian insignia on his uniform showed him the picture of his son lying lifeless in the grass, he lost the ground under his feet. “I wish I could at least have been able to see Majd one last time. My mind still can’t believe that the person in this grave is my son,” says Husam Adin Bibars.
The 56-year-old Syrian refugee, a father of four other children, had spent 22 days searching for his son from afar when he decided to spend his meager savings to travel from Denmark to Bulgaria to look for him – but it was too late.
In Bulgaria, he learned that 27-year-old Majd’s body had been buried within just four days of its discovery. Majd had been buried as an unidentified person; there was nothing to indicate that the person buried under that pile of dirt, which Bibars later visited, was his son.
“We hear that Europe is the land of freedom, democracy, and human rights,” says Bibars soberly. “Where are human rights if I am not able to see my son before his burial?”
Dead without identification
Majd had crossed from Turkey to Bulgaria with a group of about 20 other people, hoping to reunite with his parents and siblings in Europe. Once he arrived, his pregnant wife and their daughter, Hannah, would follow.
Toward the end of September, he stopped returning calls and texts. The smuggler told Bibars that Majd had fallen ill and they needed to leave him behind. Authorities told Bibars his son died of thirst, exhaustion, and exposure.
In recent years, with the support of EU funds and the increased involvement of the European border agency Frontex, Balkan countries have stepped up border controls, constructing fences, deploying drones and surveillance mechanisms. But this doesn’t deter asylum seekers – it causes them to take longer and more dangerous routes to avoid authorities.
An investigation by Solomon in collaboration with investigative newsroom Lighthouse Reports, the German magazine Der Spiegel and German public television ARD, the British newspaper i, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, found that the hostility people face at the borders of Europe in life continues even in death.
We found that since the start of 2022, the lifeless bodies of 155 people presumed to be migrants have ended up in morgues close to borders along a route that includes Serbia, Bulgaria, and Bosnia.
According to the data, for 2023 there is already a 46% increase in deaths compared to the whole of 2022.
In the Balkans, people making the journey have to cope with harsh weather conditions, but also with pushbacks, increased brutality by border guards and smugglers, theft by border forces – even detention in secret prisons.
For their part, the families of those who go missing or die in the region have to search for their loved ones in morgues, hospitals, and special Facebook and WhatsApp groups, and to cope with an equally arduous effort facing the indifference of the authorities.
In Bulgaria, this investigation reveals, they often also need to pay bribes in the hope of learning more about their missing loved ones.
The 10 key findings of the investigation:
- In 2022, the number of people travelling irregularly through the Balkans to Western Europe reached its highest point since 2015, with Frontex recording 144,118 irregular border crossings.
– The corresponding figure for 2023 is lower (79,609 by September), but remains a multiple of 2019 (15,127) and 2018 (5,844).
– The Balkan route is more dangerous than ever: in the absence of a centralised relevant registration system, the International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants platform suggests that more people died or went missing in 2022 than in 2015.
- According to data gathered for this investigation, at least 155 unidentified bodies ended up in six selected morgues along a section of the Balkan route that includes Bulgaria, Serbia, and Bosnia. The majority of the bodies (92) were found this year.
- For 2023, the number is already showing a 46% increase compared to 2022, and is exploding in some morgues.
– Some morgues in Bulgaria (Burgas, Yambol) are having difficulty finding space for the bodies of refugees. Others in Serbia (Loznina) have no space at all.
- This contributes to unidentified bodies being buried within days, in ‘No Name’ graves. This means that families are left without the opportunity to search for their loved ones.
- In Bulgaria, families told us that they had to bribe staff at hospitals and morgues, but border guards too, when searching for their loved ones. Sources in the field confirm the practice, which is also recorded in an audio file in our possession.
– In Bosnia, at least 28 people presumed to be asylum seekers have already died in the Drina River this year, compared to just five in 2022 and three in 2021.
- Bureaucracy and lack of state interest are recorded as hampering efforts to identify dead asylum seekers.
Dead but cause of death unknown
What do you do when your little brother is missing, and because of your status in the country you live in, you can’t travel to look for him?
Asmatullah Sediqi, a 29-year-old asylum seeker, was in his asylum accommodation in Warrington, UK, when his brother’s travel companions informed him that 22-year-old Rahmatullah was likely dead.
Due to his status as an asylum seeker, the UK Home Office did not allow Asmatullah to return to Bulgaria, which he had also crossed on his journey, to look for his brother.
When a friend was able to go on his behalf, the Bulgarian police refused to give any information. And the morgue staff asked for 300 euros to let him see some bodies, Sediqi said in this investigation.
“In such a situation, a person should help a person,” he added. “They only know money. They are not interested in human life.”
He managed to borrow the amount they asked for. In July 2022, 55 days after his brother’s disappearance, the Burgas hospital confirmed that one of the bodies in the morgue belonged to Rahmatullah. With another 3,000 euros borrowed, a company repatriated the remains to their parents in Afghanistan.
But to this day, Sediqi is consumed by one thought: he doesn’t know how, he hasn’t been told why, his brother died.
The Bulgarian authorities have not given him the results of the autopsy “because I don’t have a visa to travel there,” he says. “I’m sure that when the police found him in the forest, they must have taken some photos. It’s very painful not knowing what happened to my brother. It’s devastating.”
“Not a single complaint”
As part of this investigation by Solomon, Lighthouse Reports, RFE/RL, inews, ARD και Der Spiegel, several relatives told us they had also been forced to bribe workers at the Burgas hospital’s morgue to find out if their family members were among the dead.
When we asked the hospital administration whether they were aware of such practices, Galina Mileva, head of the forensic medicine department at Burgas hospital, said that they had not received “a single report or complaint about such a case. The identification of the bodies is done only in the presence of a police officer conducting the investigation and a forensic expert.”
The administration also replied that there is no legal provision under which employees could claim money from relatives for this procedure.
“We appeal to these complaints to be addressed through official channels to us and to the investigating authorities. If such practices are found to exist, the workers will be held accountable,” they added.
“Money is requested at every step of the process”
Another relative, whose family also travelled to Bulgaria in late 2022 to search for a family member, told us that after they paid staff at the morgue 300 euros to be allowed to look at the dead bodies, they also had to pay border guards.
It was the only way they could be taken seriously, the relative explained.
When they asked the border guards to show them photos of people who had been found dead, the border guards said they didn’t have time, but when the family agreed to pay 20 euros for each photo shown to them, time was found.
Georgi Voynov, a lawyer for the Bulgarian Committee Helsinki Refugee and Migrant Programme, confirmed that families of deceased persons have approached the Committee about cases in which hospitals asked for large sums of money to confirm that the bodies of their loved ones were there.
“They complain that they are being asked for money at every step of the process,” he said.
International organisations, including the Bulgarian Red Cross, confirmed that they had such experiences from persons they had supported, who said they had been forced to pay money to hospitals and morgues.
A Bulgarian Red Cross official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, commented:
“We understand that these people are very overwhelmed and have to be paid extra for all the extra work they do. But this should be done in a legal way.”
▻https://wearesolomon.com/mag/focus-area/migration/dead-refugees-in-the-balkans
#Derman_Tamimou , décédé le 06.02.2019
Cadavere di un migrante trovato sulla strada del Monginevro : voleva andare in Francia
Un uomo di 29 anni proveniente dal Togo sepolto dalla neve.
ll cadavere di un migrante di 29 anni, proveniente dal Togo, è stato ritrovato questa mattina in mezzo alla strada nazionale 94 del colle del Monginevro. Da quanto si apprende da fonti italiane, sul posto è presente la polizia francese. Le abbondanti nevicate degli scorsi giorni e il freddo intenso hanno complicato ulteriormente l’attraversamento della frontiera per i migranti. Si tratta del primo cadavere trovato quest’anno sul confine italo-francese dell’alta Val Susa dopo che l’anno scorso erano stati rinvenuti tre corpi (►https://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2018/05/25/news/bardonecchia_il_corpo_di_un_migrante_affiora_tra_neve_e_detriti_su).
►https://torino.repubblica.it/cronaca/2019/02/07/news/cadavere_di_un_migrante_trovato_sulla_strada_del_monginevro_voleva
#décès #mort #mourir_aux_frontières #Tamimou
#frontière_sud-alpine #asile #migrations #réfugiés #morts_aux_frontières #Hautes-Alpes #mourir_aux_frontières #frontières #Italie #France #Briançonnais #Montgenèvre #La_Vachette
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ajouté au fil de discussion sur les morts à la frontière des Hautes-Alpes :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/800822
lui-même ajouté à la métaliste sur les morts aux frontières alpines :
►https://seenthis.net/messages/758646
Retrouvé inanimé le long de la RN 94, le jeune migrant décède
Un homme d’une vingtaine d’années a été découvert en arrêt cardio-respiratoire, cette nuit peu avant 3 heures du matin, sur la #RN_94, à #Val-des-Près. La police aux frontières, qui patrouillait à proximité, a vu un chauffeur routier arrêté en pleine voie, près de l’aire de chaînage. Celui-ci tentait de porter secours au jeune migrant, inanimé et en hypothermie. La victime a été prise en charge par les sapeurs-pompiers et un médecin du Samu. L’homme a ensuite été transporté à l’hôpital de Briançon, où il a été déclaré mort.
Une enquête a été ouverte pour « homicide involontaire et mise en danger de la vie d’autrui ».
Hautes-Alpes : un jeune migrant retrouvé mort au bord d’une route
Il a été découvert près d’une aire de chaînage en #hypothermie et en arrêt cardio-respiratoire.
Un migrant âgé d’une vingtaine d’années a été retrouvé mort dans la nuit de mercredi à ce jeudi dans les Hautes-Alpes au bord d’une route nationale reliant la frontière italienne à Briançon, a-t-on appris ce jeudi de source proche du dossier.
Le jeune homme a été découvert inconscient jeudi vers 3h du matin par un chauffeur routier à Val-des-Près, une petite commune située à la sortie de Briançon. Il gisait près d’une aire de chaînage nichée en bordure de la RN94 qui mène à Montgenèvre, près de la frontière italienne.
« Il n’a pas été renversé par un véhicule », a précisé une source proche du dossier, confirmant une information du Dauphiné Libéré.
Hypothermie
C’est une patrouille de la Police aux frontières (PAF) qui a prévenu les pompiers en découvrant le chauffeur routier tentant de porter secours à la victime.
Souffrant d’hypothermie et en arrêt cardio-respiratoire, le jeune homme a été pris en charge par les pompiers et un médecin du Samu, mais leurs tentatives pour le réanimer ont été vaines. Il a été déclaré mort à son arrivée à l’hôpital de Briançon.
Une enquête pour « homicide involontaire et mise en danger de la vie d’autrui » a été ouverte par le parquet de Gap. Elle a été confiée à la brigade de recherches de Briançon et à la gendarmerie de Saint Chaffrey. L’identité et la nationalité du jeune migrant n’ont pas été communiquées.
« Nous craignons d’autres disparitions »
En mai 2018, le parquet de Gap avait également ouvert une enquête pour identifier et connaître les circonstances du décès d’un jeune homme noir dont le corps avait été découvert par des promeneurs près de Montgenèvre.
En décembre, plusieurs associations caritatives, qui dénoncent « l’insuffisance de prise en charge » des migrants qui tentent de franchir la frontière franco-italienne vers Briançon, avaient dit leur crainte de nouveaux morts cet hiver.
« Plus de trente personnes ont dû être secourues depuis l’arrivée du froid, il y a un mois, et nous craignons des disparitions », avait affirmé l’association briançonnaise Tous Migrants dans un communiqué commun avec Amnesty, la Cimade, Médecins du monde, Médecins sans frontières, le Secours catholique et l’Anafé.
▻http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/hautes-alpes-un-jeune-migrant-retrouve-mort-au-bord-d-une-route-07-02-201
Commentaire sur twitter :
Le corps d’un jeune migrant mort de froid sur un bord de route retrouvé par la police aux frontières – celle-là même à laquelle il essayait d’échapper. Celle-là même dont la traque aux grands voyageurs accule ces derniers à risquer leur vie.
▻https://twitter.com/OlivierCyran/status/1093565530324303872
Deux des compagnons d’infortune de #Derman_Tamimou, décédé jeudi, se sont vu délivrer des OQTF après avoir témoigné à la BRI sur la difficulté à obtenir du secours cette nuit là.
Ils nous ont raconté les secours qui n’arrivent pas, les tentatives pour arrêter les voitures , les appels à l’aide le temps qui passe une heure deux heures à attendre.
Hautes-Alpes : l’autopsie du migrant découvert jeudi conclut à une probable mort par hypothermie
L’autopsie du jeune migrant togolais, découvert inanimé dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi sur le bord de la RN 94 à Val-des-Prés (Hautes-Alpes), a conclut "à l’absence de lésion traumatique externe et à une probable mort par hypothermie", selon le parquet de Gap. Le jeune homme âgé de 28 ans n’a pu atteindre Briançon, après avoir traversé la frontière entre la France et l’Italie à pied.
Le procureur de la République de Gap a communiqué les conclusions de l’autopsie du jeune migrant de 28 ans, découvert ce jeudi 7 février le long de la route nationale 94 à Val-des-Prés, entre Montgenèvre et Briançon.
Absence de lésion traumatique externe et à une probable mort par hypothermie
"Dans le cadre de l’enquête recherchant les causes et les circonstances du décès du migrant décédé le 7 février 2019, une autopsie a été pratiquée ce jour par l’institut médico légal de Grenoble qui conclut à l’absence de lésion traumatique externe et à une probable mort par hypothermie", détaille Raphaël Balland, dans son communiqué.
"Le parquet de Gap a levé l’obstacle médico légal et le corps a été rapatrié à Briançon, le temps de confirmer l’identité du défunt et de tenter de contacter des membres de sa famille", poursuit le magistrat de Gap.
Découvert par un chauffeur routier vers 2 h 30 du matin
Le corps du ressortissant togolais de 28 ans avait été repéré, jeudi, vers 2 h 30 du matin par un chauffeur routier italien qui circulait sur la RN94. Le jeune homme gisait inanimé sur un chemin forestier qui longe le torrent des Vallons, juste à côté de l’aire de chaînage de La Vachette, sur la commune de Val-des-Prés.
“A compter de 2 h 10, les secours et les forces de l’ordre étaient informés de la présence d’un groupe de présumés migrants qui était en difficulté entre Clavière (Italie) et Briançon. Des policiers de la police aux frontières (PAF) partaient alors en patrouille pour tenter de les localiser et retrouvaient vers 3 heures à Val-des-Prés, au bord de la RN94, un homme de type africain inconscient auprès duquel s’était arrêté un chauffeur routier italien”, relatait hier Raphaël Balland.
En arrêt cardio-respiratoire, inanimée, en hypothermie, la victime a été massée sur place. Mais les soins prodigués par le médecin du Samu et les sapeurs-pompiers n’ont pas permis de la ranimer. Le décès du jeune migrant a été officiellement constaté à 4 heures du matin ce jeudi au centre hospitalier des Escartons de Briançon, où il avait été transporté en ambulance.
Parti avec un groupe de Clavière, en Italie
"Les premiers éléments d’identification du jeune homme décédé permettent de s’orienter vers un Togolais âgé de 28 ans ayant précédemment résidé en Italie, détaillait encore Raphaël Balland hier soir. Selon des témoignages recueillis auprès d’autres migrants, il serait parti à pied de Clavière avec un groupe d’une dizaine d’hommes pour traverser la frontière pendant la nuit. Présentant des signes de grande fatigue, il était déposé auprès de la N94 par certains de ses compagnons de route qui semblent avoir été à l’origine de l’appel des secours."
Une enquête a été ouverte pour "homicide involontaire et non-assistance à personne en péril" et confiée à la brigade de recherche de gendarmerie de Briançon, qui "poursuit ses investigations" selon le procureur.
▻https://www.ledauphine.com/hautes-alpes/2019/02/08/hautes-alpes-briancon-val-des-pres-autopsie-migrant-decouvert-vendredi-p
Commentaire de Nos montagnes ne deviendront pas un cimetière :
Derman Tamimou n’est pas mort de froid il est mort de cette barbarie qui dresse des frontières , des murs infranchissables #ouvronslesfrontières l’autopsie du migrant découvert jeudi conclut à une probable mort par hypothermie
Briançon : ils ont rendu hommage au jeune migrant décédé
Il a été retrouvé mort au bord d’une route nationale, entre Montgenèvre et Briançon, dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi. Pour que personne n’oublie le jeune migrant togolais, et afin de dénoncer la politique d’immigration, plusieurs associations et collectifs ont appelé à se réunir, ce samedi après-midi, au Champ de Mars, à Briançon.
Plusieurs ONG nationales, Amnesty International, la Cimade, Médecins sans frontières, Médecins du monde, le Secours catholique, l’Association nationale d’assistance aux frontières pour les étrangers, ont voulu attirer l’attention sur ce nouveau drame.
Avec des associations et collectifs locaux, Tous Migrants, Refuges solidaires, la paroisse de Briançon, la Mappemonde et la MJC, l’Association nationale des villes et territoires accueillants... tous se sont réunis au Champ de Mars ce samedi après-midi pour rappeler « qu’il est inacceptable qu’un jeune homme meure au bord de la route dans ces conditions », explique l’un des soutiens de Tous migrants.
« Ce ne sont pas des pro ou anti-migrants, juste des personnes qui ont envie de protéger d’autres êtres humains »
Dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi, vers 2h30, un ressortissant togolais de 28 ans a été repéré par un chauffeur routier italien qui circulait sur la RN 94. La victime gisait inanimée, à côté de l’aire de chaînage de La Vachette, sur la commune de Val-des-Prés. Le décès a été officiellement constaté à 4 heures du matin au centre hospitalier des Escartons où il avait été transporté.
https://cdn-s-www.ledauphine.com/images/9E4E04CC-EA92-4AE7-B3B4-2F65B2598BAC/LDL_V0_12/les-soutiens-ont-installe-plusieurs-panneaux-dans-le-secteur-du-champ-de-mars-photo-le-dl-1549731037.jpg 
https://cdn-s-www.ledauphine.com/images/3ABE79F8-F57E-4418-8C54-01C034C896C8/LDL_v1_03/plusieurs-personnes-se-sont-arretees-pour-lire-les-panneaux-relatant-les-histoires-de-pierre-abou-lamine-photo-le-dl-1549731037.jpg 
https://cdn-s-www.ledauphine.com/images/75A0C869-FC82-43DE-AAC2-0E7441AECF67/LDL_v1_03/de-nombreux-collectifs-et-associations-etaient-presents-photo-le-dl-1549731037.jpg 
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Cerca di varcare confine: giovane migrante muore assiderato tra l’Italia e la Francia
L’immigrato, originario del Togo, aveva 29 anni: è morto assiderato sul colle Monginevro
Il cadavere di un migrante di 29 anni è stato ritrovato questa mattina in mezzo alla strada nazionale N94 del colle del Monginevro (che collega Piemonte e Alta Savoia), mentre cercava di varcare il confine tra l’Italia e la Francia.
L’extracomunitario, originario del Togo, è morto assiderato per la neve e le bassissime temperature.
A notarlo, sepolto dalla neve ai margini della strada, intorno alle tre di note, sarebbe stato un camionista. La Procura ha aperto un fascicolo per «omicidio involontario».
Le abbondanti nevicate dei giorni scorsi e il freddo rendono ancora più inaccessibili sentieri e stradine della zona e hanno complicato ulteriormente l’attraversamento della frontiera per i migranti.
Da quanto si apprende da fonti italiane, sul posto è presente la polizia francese: si tratta del primo cadavere trovato quest’anno sul confine italo-francese dell’alta Val Susa dopo che l’anno scorso erano stati rinvenuti tre corpi nelle medesima località di frontiera, un passaggio molto battuto dai migranti.
▻http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/cerca-varcare-confine-giovane-migrante-muore-assiderato-1641573.html
Man trying to enter France from Italy dies of hypothermia
Death of Derman Tamimou from Togo comes as Matteo Salvini ramps up border row.
French magistrates have opened an inquiry into “involuntary manslaughter” after a man trying to cross into France from Italy died of hypothermia.
A lorry driver found Derman Tamimou on Thursday morning unconscious on the side of a highway that links Hautes-Alpes with the northern Italian region of Piedmont. Tamimou, 29, from Togo, was taken to hospital in Briançon, but it is unclear whether he died there or was already dead at the scene.
“The second hypothesis is the most likely,” said Paolo Narcisi, president of the charity Rainbow for Africa. “He was probably among a group of 21 who left the evening before, despite all the warnings given to them by us and Red Cross volunteers about how dangerous the crossing is.”
Tamimou was found between Briançon and Montgenèvre, an Alpine village about 6 miles from the border.
Narcisi said his charity was working with colleagues in France to try and establish whether the rest of the group arrived safely. He said they most likely took a train to Oulx, one stop before the town of Bardonecchia, before travelling by bus to Claviere, the last Italian town before the border. From there, they began the mountain crossing into France.
“Every night is the same … we warn people not to go as it’s very dangerous, especially in winter, the snow is high and it’s extremely cold,” Narcisi said.
Tamimou is the first person known to have died while attempting the journey this winter. Three people died last year as they tried to reach France via the Col de l’Échelle mountain pass.
The movement of people across the border has been causing conflict between Italy and France since early 2011.
Matteo Salvini, the Italian interior minister, on Thursday accused France of sending more than 60,000 people, including women and children, back to Italy. He also accused French border police of holding up Italian trains with lengthy onboard immigration checks.
Last year, seven Italian charities accused French border police of falsifying the birth dates of children travelling alone in an attempt to pass them off as adults and return them to Italy.
While it is illegal to send back minors, France is not breaking the law by returning people whose first EU landing point was Italy.
“Some of the returns are illegal, such as children or people who hold Italian permits,” said Narcisi. “But there are also those who are legally sent back due to the Dublin agreement. So there is little to protest about – we need to work to change the Dublin agreement instead of arguing.”
►https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/man-dies-hypothermia-france-italy-derman-tamimou-togo
Message posté sur la page Facebook de Chez Jésus, 10.02.2019 :
Un altro morto.
Un’altra persona uccisa dalla frontiera e dai suoi sorvegliatori.
Un altro cadavere, che va ad aggiungersi a quelli delle migliaia di persone che hanno perso la vita al largo delle coste italiane, sui treni tra Ventimiglia e Menton, sui sentieri fra le Alpi che conducono in Francia.
Tamimou Derman, 28 anni, originario del Togo. Questo è tutto quello che sappiamo per ora del giovanissimo corpo trovato steso al lato della strada tra Claviere e Briancon. Tra Italia e Francia. È il quarto cadavere ritrovato tra queste montagne da quando la Francia ha chiuso le frontiere con l’Italia, nel 2015. Da quando la polizia passa al setaccio ogni pullman, ogni treno e ogni macchina alla ricerca sfrenata di stranieri. E quelli con una carnagione un po’ più scura, quelli con un accento un po’ diverso o uno zaino che sembra da viaggiatore, vengono fatti scendere, e controllati. Se non hai quel pezzo di carta considerato «valido», vieni rimandato in Italia. Spesso dopo minacce, maltrattamenti o furti da parte della polizia di frontiera.
Giovedì è stato trovato un altro morto. Un’altra persona uccisa dal controllo frontaliero, un’altra vita spezzata da quelle divise che pattugliano questa linea tracciata su una mappa chiamata frontiera, e dai politicanti schifosi che la vogliono protetta.
Un omicidio di stato, l’ennesimo.
Perché non è la neve, il freddo o la fatica a uccidere le persone tra queste montagne. I colpevoli sono ben altri. Sono gli sbirri, che ogni giorno cercano di impedire a decine di persone di perseguire il viaggio per autodeterminarsi la loro vita. Sono gli stati, e i loro governi, che di fatto sono i veri mandanti e i reali motivi dell’esistenza stessa dei confini.
Un altro cadavere. Il quarto, dopo blessing, mamadu e un altro ragazzo mai identificato.
Rabbia e dolore si mischiano all’odio. Dolore per un altro morto, per un’altra fine ingiusta. Rabbia e odio per coloro che sono le vere cause di questa morte: le frontiere, le varie polizie nazionali che le proteggono, e gli stati e i politici che le creano.
Contro tutti gli stati, contro tutti i confini, per la libertà di tutti e tutte di scegliere su che pezzo di terra vivere!
Abbattiamo le frontiere, organizziamoci insieme!
Un autre mort. Une autre personne tuée par la frontière et ses gardes. Un autre cadavre, qui s’ajoute aux milliers de personnes mortes au large des côtes italiennes, sous des trains entre Vintimille et Menton, sur les chemins alpins qui mènent en France.
Derman Tamimou, 28 ans, originaire du Togo. C’est tout ce qu’on sait pour le moment du très jeune corps retrouvé allongé sur le bord de la route vers Briançon entre l’Italie et la France. C’est le 4e corps trouvé dans cette vallée depuis que la France a fermé ses frontières avec l’Italie en 2015. Depuis que la police contrôle chaque bus, chaque train, chaque voiture, à la recherche acharnée d’étrangers. Et celleux qui ont la peau plus foncée, celleux qui ont un accent un peu différent, ou se trimballent un sac à dos de voyage, on les fait descendre et on les contrôle. Si tu n’as pas les papiers qu’ils considèrent valides, tu es ramené directement en Italie. Souvent, tu es victime de menaces et de vols de la part de la PAF (police aux frontières).
Le 7 février 2019, un corps a été retrouvé. Une autre personne tuée par le contrôle frontalier. Une autre vie brisée par ces uniformes qui patrouillent autour d’une ligne tracée sur une carte, appelée frontière. Tuée par des politiciens dégueulasses qui veulent protéger cette frontière. Encore un homicide d’État. Parce que ce n’est pas la neige, ni le froid, ni la fatigue qui a tué des personnes dans ces montagnes. Les coupables sont tout autres. Ce sont les flics, qui essaient tous les jours d’empêcher des dizaines de personnes de poursuivre leur voyage pour l’autodétermination de leur vie.
Ce sont les États et leurs gouvernements qui sont les vrais responsables et les vraies raisons de l’existence même des frontières. Un autre corps, le quatrième après Blessing, Mamadou, et Ibrahim. Rage et douleur se mêlent à la haine. Douleur pour une autre mort, pour une autre fin injuste. Rage et haine envers les véritables coupables de cette mort : les frontières, les différentes polices nationales qui les protègent, les États et les politiques qui les créent.
Contre tous les États, contre toutes les frontières, pour la liberté de toutes et tous de choisir sur quel bout de terre vivre.
Abattons les frontières, organisons-nous ensemble !
Immigration. Dans les Hautes-Alpes, la chasse aux étrangers fait un mort
Une enquête a été ouverte après le décès, jeudi, à proximité de Briançon, d’un jeune exilé qui venait de franchir la frontière franco-italienne. Les associations accusent les politiques ultrarépressives de l’État.
« C ’est la parfaite illustration d’une politique qu’on dénonce depuis deux ans ! » Michel Rousseau, membre du collectif Tous migrants dans les Hautes-Alpes, ne décolère pas depuis l’annonce, jeudi matin, de la mort de Taminou, un exilé africain, à moins de 10 kilomètres de la frontière franco-italienne. Le quatrième en moins de neuf mois... Découvert vers 3 heures du matin, sur une zone de chaînage de la route nationale reliant Briançon à Montgenèvre, le jeune homme aurait succombé au froid, après avoir tenté de passer la frontière. Évitant les patrouilles de police, il aurait pendant plusieurs heures arpenté les montagnes enneigées, avant d’y perdre ses bottes et de continuer en chaussettes.
« Les premiers éléments d’identification (...) permettent de s’orienter vers un Togolais âgé de 28 ans ayant précédemment résidé en Italie, indique la préfecture dans un communiqué. Il serait parti à pied de Clavières avec un groupe de plus d’une dizaine d’hommes pour traverser la frontière nuitamment. Présentant des signes de grande fatigue, il aurait été déposé auprès de la RN94 par certains de ses compagnons de route qui semblent avoir été à l’origine de l’appel des secours. »
Une politique ultrarépressive à l’égard des citoyens solidaires
Postés au milieu de la route, les amis de Taminou auraient tenté de stopper plusieurs voitures, sans qu’aucune s’arrête. Une patrouille de la police aux frontières serait arrivée sur le lieu du drame, deux heures après le premier appel au secours, y trouvant un camionneur en train de venir en aide au malheureux frappé d’hypothermie et en arrêt cardio-respiratoire. Pris en charge par le Samu, le jeune homme a finalement été déclaré mort à son arrivée à l’hôpital de Briançon.
Une enquête pour non-assistance à personne en danger et pour homicide involontaire a été ouverte par le parquet de Gap. « Les conducteurs des véhicules qui ne se sont pas arrêtés ne doivent pas dormir tranquille », acquiesce Michel, s’inquiétant cependant de savoir qui sera réellement visé par les investigations de la police. « La préfecture pointe régulièrement les maraudeurs solidaires qui tentent de venir en aide aux exilés égarés dans nos montagnes, explique-t-il. À l’image des accusations portées contre les bateaux de sauveteurs en mer, en Méditerranée, on les rend responsables d’un soi-disant appel d’air. »
En réalité, c’est suite au bouclage de la frontière à Menton et dans la vallée de la Roya que, depuis deux ans, cette route migratoire est de plus en plus empruntée. L’État y mène aujourd’hui une politique ultrarépressive à l’égard des citoyens solidaires et des exilés. En moins d’un an, dans le Briançonnais, 11 personnes ont été condamnées pour délit de solidarité, dont 9 à des peines de prison, et des violations régulières des droits des étrangers y sont régulièrement dénoncées par les associations. Plusieurs d’entre elles, dont Amnesty International, Médecins du monde et la Cimade, ont réuni, samedi, près de 200 personnes sur le champ de Mars de Briançon pour rendre hommage à Taminou, malgré l’interdiction de manifester émise par la préfecture au prétexte de l’ouverture de la saison hivernale.
Pour elles, c’est au contraire la chasse aux exilés et à leurs soutiens qu’il faut pointer, « les renvois systématiques en Italie au mépris du droit, les courses-poursuites, les refus de prise en charge, y compris des plus vulnérables : ces pratiques qui poussent les personnes migrantes à prendre toujours plus de risques, comme celui de traverser des sentiers enneigés, de nuit, en altitude, par des températures négatives, sans matériel adéquat », accusent les associations.
Ce mercredi soir, justement, la présence policière était particulièrement importante dans la zone. « Ce drame aurait pu être évité, s’indigne un habitant, qui préfère conserver l’anonymat. Les maraudeurs solidaires étaient sur le terrain. Ils ont vu passer toutes ces personnes et, s’ils ne les ont pas récupérées, c’est soit parce qu’ils se savaient surveillés par la PAF, qui les aurait interpellés, soit parce que les exilés eux-mêmes en ont eu peur, les prenant pour des policiers en civil. » Espérons que l’enquête pointera les véritables responsables de la mort de Taminou.
▻https://www.humanite.fr/immigration-dans-les-hautes-alpes-la-chasse-aux-etrangers-fait-un-mort-6677
Derman Tamimou e il tema di una bambina di nove anni
“Le persone che ho visto, tra i migranti, mi sembravano persone uguali a noi, non capisco perchè tutti pensano che siano diverse da noi. Secondo me aiutare le persone, in questo caso i migranti, è una cosa bella”.
Derman Tamimou aveva 29 anni, era arrivato in Italia dal Togo e, nella notte tra il 6 e il 7 febbraio, ha intrapreso il suo ultimo viaggio nel tentativo di varcare il confine. Un camionista ne ha scorto il corpo semiassiderato e rannicchiato tra la neve ai bordi della statale del colle di Monginevro. Nonostante l’immediato trasporto all’ospedale di Briancon, Derman è morto poco dopo.
E’ difficile immaginare cosa abbia pensato e provato Derman negli ultimi istanti della sua vita, prima di perdere conoscenza per il gelo invernale. Quali sogni, speranze, ricordi, … quanta fatica, rabbia, paura …
Potrebbe essere tranquillizzante pensare a questa morte come tragica fatalità e derubricarla a freddo numero da aggiungere alla lista di migranti morti nella ricerca di un futuro migliore in Europa. Eppure quell’interminabile lista parla a ognuno di noi. Racconta di vite interrotte che, anche quando non se ne conosce il nome, ci richiamano a una comune umanità da cui non possiamo prescindere per non smarrire noi stessi. A volte lo ricordiamo quando scopriamo, cucita nel giubbotto di un quattordicenne partito dal Mali e affogato in un tragico naufragio nel 2015, una pagella, un bene prezioso con cui presentarsi ai nuovi compagni di classe e di vita. Altre volte lo ricordano i versi di una poesia “Non ti allarmare fratello mio”, ritrovata nelle tasche di Tesfalidet Tesfon, un giovane migrante eritreo, morto subito dopo il suo sbarco a Pozzallo, nel 2018, a seguito delle sofferenze patite nelle carceri libiche e delle fatiche del viaggio: “È davvero così bello vivere da soli, se dimentichi tuo fratello al momento del bisogno?”. È davvero così bello?
L’estate scorsa, lungo la strada in cui ha perso la vita Derman Tamimou, si poteva ancora trovare un ultimo luogo di soccorso e sostegno per chi cercava di attraversare il confine. Un rifugio autogestito che è stato sgomberato in autunno, con l’approssimarsi dell’inverno, senza alcuna alternativa di soccorso locale per i migranti. Per chiunque fosse passato da quei luoghi non era difficile prevedere i rischi che questa chiusura avrebbe comportato. Bastava fermarsi, incontrare e ascoltare i migranti, i volontari e tutte le persone che cercavano di portare aiuto e solidarietà, nella convinzione che non voltare lo sguardo di fronte a sofferenze, rischi e fatiche altrui sia l’unica strada per restare umani.
Incontri che una bambina di nove anni, in quelle che avrebbe voluto fossero le sue “Montagne solidali”, ha voluto raccontare così: “Oggi da Bardonecchia, dove in stazione c’è un posto in cui aiutano i migranti che cercano di andare in Francia, siamo andati in altri due posti dove ci sono i migranti che si fermano e ricevono aiuto nel loro viaggio, uno a Claviere e uno a Briancon. In questi posti ci sono persone che li accolgono, gli danno da mangiare, un posto dove dormire, dei vestiti per ripararsi dal freddo, danno loro dei consigli su come evitare pericoli e non rischiare la loro vita nel difficile percorso di attraversamento del confine tra Italia e Francia tra i boschi e le montagne. I migranti, infatti, di notte cercano di attraversare i boschi e questo è difficile e pericoloso, perchè possono farsi male o rischiare la loro vita cadendo da un dirupo. I migranti scelgono di affrontare il loro viaggio di notte perchè è più difficile che la polizia li veda e li faccia tornare indietro. A volte, per sfuggire alla polizia si feriscono per nascondersi o scappare. Nel centro dove sono stata a Claviere, alcuni migranti avevano delle ferite, al volto e sulle gambe, causate durante i tentativi di traversata. Infatti i migranti provano tante volte ad attraversare le montagne, di solito solo dopo la quarta o quinta volta riescono a passare. La traversata è sempre molto pericolosa, perchè non conoscono le montagne e le strade da percorrere, ma soprattutto in inverno le cose sono più difficili perchè con la neve, il freddo, senza i giusti vestiti e scarpe, del cibo caldo e non conoscendo la strada tutto è più rischioso. Lo scorso inverno, sul Colle della Scala, sono morte diverse persone provando a fare questo viaggio. Anche le persone che li aiutano sono a rischio, perchè solo per aver dato loro da mangiare, da dormire e dei vestiti possono essere denunciate e arrestate. Oggi sette ragazzi sono in carcere per questo. Io penso che non è giusto essere arrestati quando si aiutano le persone. A Briancon, dove aiutano i migranti che hanno appena attraversato il confine, ho visto alcuni bambini e questa cosa mi ha colpito molto perchè vuol dire che sono riusciti a fare un viaggio così lungo e faticoso attraverso i boschi e le montagne. Qui ho conosciuto la signora Annie, una volontaria che aiuta i migranti appena arrivati in Francia, una signora gentile e molto forte, che è stata chiamata 8 volte ad andare dalla polizia per l’aiuto che sta dando ai migranti, ma lei sorride e continua a farlo, perchè pensa che non aiutarli sia un’ingiustizia. Le persone che ho visto, tra i migranti, mi sembravano persone uguali a noi, non capisco perchè tutti pensano che siano diverse da noi. Secondo me aiutare le persone, in questo caso i migranti, è una cosa bella”.
▻http://www.vita.it/it/article/2019/02/10/derman-tamimou-e-il-tema-di-una-bambina-di-nove-anni/150635
Reportage. In Togo a casa di #Tamimou, il migrante morto di freddo sulle Alpi
Da Agadez alla Libia, poi l’attesa in Italia. Il papà: «Non aveva i soldi per far curare la madre». Le ultime parole su Whatsapp: «Ho comprato il biglietto del treno e partirò domani per la Francia»
Il villaggio di #Madjaton si trova tra le verdi colline di Kpalimé, una tranquilla città nel sud-ovest del Togo. Un luogo dalla natura lussureggiante e il terreno fertile. È qui che è cresciuto Tamimou Derman, il migrante deceduto per il freddo il 7 febbraio mentre cercava di superare a piedi il confine tra l’Italia e la Francia. La sua famiglia è composta da padre, madre, tre fratelli, e una sorella. Sono tutti seduti all’ombra di un grande albero in attesa di visite e notizie.
«Salam aleikum, la pace sia con voi» dicono con un sorriso all’arrivo di ogni persona che passa a trovarli per le condoglianze. L’accoglienza è calorosa nonostante la triste atmosfera. «È stato un nostro parente che vive in Libia a darci per primo la notizia», dice Samoudini, il fratello maggiore di 35 anni. «All’inizio non potevamo crederci, ci aveva spedito un messaggio vocale due giorni prima della partenza per la Francia. Poi le voci si sono fatte sempre più insistenti – continua Samoudini – e le speranze sono piano piano svanite. Ora il nostro problema principale è trovare i soldi per far ritornare la salma».
Tamimou è la prima vittima dell’anno tra chi, come molti altri migranti africani, ha tentato di raggiungere la Francia dall’Italia attraverso le Alpi. Il giovane togolese era partito con un gruppo di altri venti ragazzi. Speravano di eludere gli agenti di polizia che pattugliano una zona sempre più militarizzata. «Diciamo a tutti i migranti di non incamminarsi per quei valichi in questa stagione – ha spiegato alla stampa Paolo Narcisi, medico e presidente della Onlus torinese, Rainbow for Africa – . È un passaggio troppo rischioso».
Prima di avventurarsi tra la neve e il gelo, Tamimou aveva appunto lasciato un messaggio alla famiglia. «Ho comprato il biglietto del treno e partirò domani per la Francia – si sente in un audio whatsapp di circa un minuto –. Pregate per me e se Dio vorrà ci parleremo dal territorio francese». Il padre e un amico, uno accanto all’altro, scoppiano a piangere. La mamma, seduta tra il gruppo delle donne, resta immobile con gli occhi rossi. La sorella pone invece il capo tra le ginocchia ed emette un leggero singhiozzo. Per alcuni secondi restiamo in un silenzio profondo, interrotto solamente dalle voci dei bambini del villaggio che rincorrono cani e galline. Ascoltare la voce di Tamimou riporta la famiglia al momento in cui è giunta la notizia del suo decesso, l’8 febbraio.
«Non volevamo che partisse per l’Europa», riprende Inoussa Derman, il papà, cercando di trattenere le lacrime. «Lui però era determinato. Si sentiva responsabile per le condizioni di salute di mia moglie che, tuttora – racconta il genitore – soffre di ipertensione e per diverso tempo è stata ricoverata in ospedale. Non avevamo i soldi per pagare le cure». La madre, Issaka, fissa il terreno senza parlare. Sembra avvertire il peso di una responsabilità legata alla partenza del figlio. Tamimou si era dato da fare subito dopo la scuola. Aveva lavorato a Kpalimé come muratore prima di trasferirsi in Ghana per due anni e continuare il mestiere. Non riuscendo a guadagnare abbastanza, aveva deciso di partire per l’Europa nel 2015. Con i suoi risparmi e un po’ di soldi chiesti a diversi conoscenti, ha raggiunto la città nigerina di Agadez, da decenni importante crocevia della rotta migratoria proveniente da tutta l’Africa occidentale e centrale. Dopo qualche mese il ragazzo ha contattato la famiglia dalla Libia. «Ci diceva quanto era pericoloso a causa dei continui spari e degli arresti indiscriminati – aggiunge Moussara, la sorella di 33 anni –. Gli abbiamo detto più volte di tornare, ma non ci ha voluto ascoltare».Tamimou ha trascorso almeno 18 mesi in Libia in attesa di trovare i soldi per continuare il viaggio.
«Ci sentivamo spesso anche quando ha oltrepassato il ’grande fiume’ per arrivare in Italia – racconta Satade, un amico d’infanzia, in riferimento al Mar Mediterraneo –. Con i nostri ex compagni di scuola avevamo infatti creato un gruppo su whatsapp per rimanere in contatto con lui».
Dopo più di 16 mesi in Italia, il migrante togolese raccontava alla famiglia di essere ancora disoccupato. «Non ho trovato niente – spiegava in un altro messaggio vocale –. In Italia ci vogliono i documenti per lavorare e io non riesco a ottenerli». La decisione di partire per la Francia era stata presa con grande sofferenza. Diversi amici avevano assicurato al migrante togolese che al di là del confine sarebbe stato molto più facile trovare un impiego. Ma di Tamimou, in Francia, è arrivato solo il cadavere. Da giorni è ospitato all’obitorio dell’ospedale di Briançon. La famiglia è in contatto con un cugino che vive da diversi anni in Italia e sta seguendo le pratiche. Parenti e amici vogliono riportare il corpo di Tamimou nel caldo di Madjaton, a casa, per seppellirlo secondo le usanze tradizionali. «Gli avevamo detto di non partire – insiste il padre –. Ma non si può fermare la determinazione di un giovane sognatore».
►https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/in-togo-a-casa-di-tamimou-migrante-morto-freddo-alpi
#ceux_qui_restent
Notre frontière tue : Tamimou Derman n’est plus — Récit d’une #maraude solidaire
Chaque nuit, des exilé·e·s tentent d’arriver en France par le col de Montgenèvre malgré le froid, la neige et l’omniprésence de la Police. En dépit des maraudes spontanées des habitant·e·s, certain·e·s y perdent la vie. Comme Tamimou Derman, retrouvé mort d’hypothermie la nuit du 6 au 7 février 2019. Cette semaine-là, une vingtaine de membres de la FSGT ont maraudé avec les locaux. Récit.
D’un mélèze à l’autre, quatre ombres noires glissent sur la neige blanche. Au cœur de la nuit, les ombres sont discrètes, elles marchent sans bruit. Elles traversent les pistes de ski et s’enfoncent vers les profondeurs de la forêt, malgré les pieds glacés, les mains froides et les nuages de leurs souffles courts.
Les ombres sont craintives comme des proies qui se savent épiées : elles nous fuient.
Nous les poursuivons sans courir, pour ne pas les effrayer davantage. Nous lançons plusieurs cris sur leur trace, et nous réussissons finalement à les rattraper. Leurs mains sont de glace : nous les serrons et nous disons aux ombres qu’elles ne craignent rien, que nous voulons les sortir du froid et de la neige, que nous sommes là pour les aider.
Les quatre ombres deviennent des hommes encore pétris de crainte. Leurs yeux hagards demandent : "Êtes-vous la Police ?". Malgré la peur, les ombres devenues hommes montent dans notre voiture. Nous dévalons la route qui serpente entre les montagnes. Les quatre hommes sont saufs.
Je me réveille en sursaut : ce n’était qu’un rêve.
Parce qu’hier soir, les quatre ombres se sont enfoncées dans la forêt. Parce qu’hier soir, nous n’avons pas pu les rattraper. Parce qu’hier soir, nous n’avons pas su les rattraper. Parce qu’hier soir, les quatre ombres ont cru voir en nous des officiers de Police venus pour les arrêter.
Quelques heures après ce réveil agité, la nouvelle tombe.
Cette nuit, une ombre est morte.
De la neige jusqu’aux hanches, l’ombre a senti ses frêles bottes se faire aspirer par l’eau glacée. Ses chaussures noyées au fond de la poudreuse, disparues. En chaussettes, l’ombre a continué à marcher entre les mélèzes. L’ombre n’avait pas le luxe de choisir. Épuisée, gelée jusqu’aux os, l’ombre a perdu connaissance. Ses frères de l’ombre l’ont portée jusqu’à la route pour tenter de la sauver, quitte à se faire attraper par la Police. Ils ont appelé les secours.
L’ambulance est arrivée près de deux heures plus tard.
L’ombre a été retrouvée sur un chemin forestier, au bord de la route nationale 94, reliant la frontière italienne et la ville de Briançon. L’autopsie confirmera ce que ses frères savaient déjà : décès par hypothermie.
L’ombre avait dit au revoir à sa famille, puis elle avait peut-être traversé le désert. Elle avait peut-être échappé aux geôles libyennes, aux tortures et aux trafics en tout genre. L’ombre s’était peut-être fait voler ses maigres économies par des passeurs. L’ombre avait peut-être bravé les tempêtes de la Méditerranée entassée avec cent autres ombres sur un canot pneumatique. Et tant d’autres mésaventures.
L’ombre avait jusque-là échappé aux polices européennes qui la traquaient uniquement parce que ce que l’ombre voulait, c’était arrêter d’être une ombre.
L’ombre avait traversé la moitié du globe mais son chemin s’est arrêté en France, à quelques kilomètres de la frontière, parce que l’ombre a eu peur de la Police française.
L’ombre, c’était Tamimou Derman. Tamimou Derman avait notre âge. Tamimou Derman n’était qu’un homme qui rêvait d’une vie meilleure.
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-- Contexte —
Dans la nuit du mercredi 6 au jeudi 7 février 2019, j’ai participé à une maraude solidaire dans la station de ski de Montgenèvre avec des amis de la FSGT (Fédération Sportive et Gymnique du Travail), dans le cadre d’un séjour organisé et patronné par cette fédération.
Ce séjour annuel se concentre habituellement sur les seules activités de loisir de montagne. Cette année, il a été décidé d’organiser cette sortie dans la région de Briançon, à quelques kilomètres de la frontière franco-italienne, afin de montrer notre solidarité envers les locaux qui portent assistance aux personnes qui arrivent en France, au niveau du col de Montgenèvre, situé à 1800m d’altitude.
Chaque soir, quelques uns et quelques unes de la vingtaine de participants à ce séjour partaient en maraude pour accompagner les gens de la vallée qui eux, toute l’année, sauvent des vies là-haut. La loi ne peut nous considérer comme des passeurs : nous n’avons fait passer la frontière à personne. Nous étions uniquement là pour porter assistance aux personnes en danger de mort sur le territoire français. S’il fallait encore une preuve, Tamimou Derman est mort d’hypothermie, la nuit où j’ai maraudé.
Bien que légales, ces maraudes semblent être considérées de facto comme illégale par les forces de l’ordre : elles tentent de les entraver par tous les moyens, surtout par l’intimidation. C’est aussi pour cela que j’ai voulu partager ce récit.
-- #Chasse_à_l'homme —
Dès que les pistes de ski de Montgenèvre ferment, que le soleil se couche et que les vacanciers se reposent, un obscur jeu du chat et de la souris se noue sous les fenêtres de leurs résidences. Une véritable chasse à l’homme.
Tous les soirs ou presque, des hommes et des femmes tentent de gagner notre pays depuis le village italien de Clavière. À 500 mètres à peine de ce village, de l’autre côté de la frontière, la rutilante station de ski de Montgenèvre. Pour parcourir cette distance ridicule, ils mettent plus de trois heures. Parce qu’ils passent par la forêt, traversent des torrents glacés, parce qu’ils marchent dans le froid et la neige. Enfin, ils tentent enfin de se fondre dans les ombres de Montgenèvre avant d’entamer les 10 kilomètres de chemins enneigés qui les séparent de Briançon.
« Des témoignages parlent de poursuites en motoneige, en pleine nuit »
Côté français, par tous les moyens ou presque, la police et la gendarmerie les guettent pour les arrêter : des témoignages parlent de poursuites en motoneige, en pleine nuit, forçant ces hommes et ces femmes à fuir pour tenter se cacher par tous les moyens au risque de tomber dans des réserves d’eau glacées ou des précipices. Des récits parlent de séquestration dans des containers sans eau, ni nourriture, ni chauffage, ni toilettes, ni rien ; tout ça pour les renvoyer quelques heures plus tard en Italie, encore congelés. D’autres attestent que la police et la gendarmerie bafouent les droits élémentaires de la demande d’asile. Toujours d’après des témoignages, la police et la gendarmerie se déguiseraient en civils pour mieux amadouer et alpaguer celles et ceux qui tentent la traversée. À plusieurs reprises, la police et la gendarmerie auraient été aidées par les nazillons du groupuscule fachiste "Génération Identitaire" qui patrouillent eux aussi dans les montagnes. Certains de ceux qui tenteraient le passage se seraient vus déchirer leurs papiers d’identité attestant leur minorité par la police et la gendarmerie, et donc se voir déchirer le devoir qu’a la France de les protéger. Et bien d’autres infamies.
Tous les soirs ou presque, enfin, des habitants de la région de Briançon sont là pour essayer de secourir ces personnes qui tentent de passer la frontière, même quand il fait -20°c, même quand il neige, même quand la police est en ébullition, partout dans la ville.
Sur place, impossible de ne pas entendre l’écho de l’histoire des Justes dans le vent glacial.
-- Ce que j’ai vu —
Dans la nuit du mercredi 6 au jeudi 7 février, il faisait environ -10°c à Montgenèvre. Plus d’un mètre de neige fraiche recouvrait la forêt. Une vingtaine de personne étaient a priori descendues d’un bus, côté Italien de la frontière. Supposément pour tenter la traversée. Mes compagnons maraudeurs et moi-même attendions dans Montgenèvre, pour essayer d’aller à la rencontre d’un maximum d’entre eux.
À l’aide de jumelles, des maraudeurs ont alors vu une quinzaine d’ombres se faufiler entre les arbres qui bordent les pistes de ski. Quatre d’entre eux ont été accueillis de justesse par deux maraudeurs.
Cela faisait vraisemblablement trois heures qu’ils marchaient dans la neige. Ils n’étaient clairement pas équipés pour ces conditions. L’un des quatre avait un centimètre de glace sur chaque main et les pieds congelés. Il était tombé dans un torrent qui avait emporté le reste de ses affaires.
Les deux maraudeurs lui ont donné des chaussettes de rechange, des gants, du thé chaud et à manger.
Les maraudeurs racontent qu’à ce moment-là, alors qu’ils les avaient hydraté, réchauffé, nourri et donné des vêtements chauds, les quatre hommes pensaient encore s’être fait attrapés par la police. La peur irradiait le fond de leurs yeux.
« Nous leur avons crié que nous n’étions pas la Police, que nous étions là pour les aider »
Précisément à cet instant-là, j’étais ailleurs dans Montgenèvre, avec d’autres maraudeurs. Avec nos jumelles, nous avons vu quatre autres ombres se faufiler entre les mélèzes et traverser les pistes de ski discrètement. Nous savions qu’ils craignaient de se faire attraper par la Police. La nuit, ici, n’importe quel groupe de personnes ressemble à une patrouille de policiers.
Nous avons décidé de les attendre, un peu dans la lumière, en espérant qu’ils nous voient et qu’ils ne prennent pas peur. Derrière nous, à travers les fenêtres éclairées des résidences, nous voyions les vacanciers regarder la télévision, manger leur repas. C’était surréaliste. Nous avions peur, sans doute moins qu’eux qui marchaient depuis des heures, mais nous aussi nous avions peur de la Police.
Nous avons choisi de ne pas les aborder de loin, pour éviter qu’ils ne nous prenne pour des flics et qu’ils s’enfuient. Est-ce la bonne solution ? Qu’est-ce qui est le mieux à faire ? Vont-ils courir ? Une dizaine de questions d’angoisse nous frappaient.
Nous avons attendu qu’ils arrivent non loin de nous. Ils ne nous avaient pas vu. Nous avons attendu trop longtemps.
Nous avons finalement avancé en leur criant (mais pas trop fort, pour ne pas alerter tout le voisinage — et les forces de l’ordre) que nous n’étions pas la Police, que nous étions là pour les aider, que nous avions du thé chaud et de quoi manger. Les trois premiers n’ont même pas tourné la tête, ils ont accéléré. Nous leur avons crié les mêmes choses. Le dernier de la file s’est retourné, tout en continuant de marcher très vite, et il nous a semblé l’entendre demander : "Quoi ? Qu’est-ce que vous dites ?" Nous avons répété ce qu’on leur avait déjà dit. Mais il était tiraillé entre ses amis qui ne se retournaient pas et notre proposition. Si tant est qu’il l’ait entendue, notre proposition, avec le bruit de la neige qui couvrait très probablement nos voix. Il a préféré suivre ses amis, ils se sont enfoncés dans la forêt en direction de Briançon et nous n’avons pas pu ni su les rattraper.
Un sentiment d’horreur nous prend. Nous imaginons déjà la suite. Je me sens pire qu’inutile, méprisable.
Malgré mes deux paires de chaussettes, mes collants, pantalon de ski, t-shirt technique, polaire, doudoune, énorme manteau, gants, bonnet, grosses chaussures, un frisson glacial m’a parcouru le corps. Eux marchaient depuis plus de trois heures.
« J’étais là pour éviter qu’ils crèvent de froid »
Nous ne pouvions plus les rejoindre : nous devions rapidement descendre les quatre que les autres maraudeurs avaient commencé réconforter. Nous sommes retournés à notre voiture, le cœur prêt à exploser, des "putain", des "c’est horrible" et d’autres jurons incompréhensibles qui sortait en torrents continus de notre bouche. Mais il fallait agir vite.
B. et C. sont montés dans la voiture que nous conduisions et nous les avons amenés à Briançon via la seule et unique route qui serpente entre les montagnes. Je n’ai jamais autant souhaité ne pas croiser la Police.
B. et C. n’ont pas beaucoup parlé, je ne leur ai pas non plus posé beaucoup de question. Que dire, que demander ?
Quand j’ai raconté cette histoire à d’autres, on m’a demandé : "Ils venaient d’où ?" "Pourquoi ils voulaient venir en France ?" Dans cette situation, ces questions me semblaient plus qu’absurdes : elles étaient obscènes. J’étais là pour éviter qu’ils crèvent de froid et je n’avais pas à leur demander quoi que ce soit, à part s’ils voulaient que je monte le chauffage et les rassurer en leur disant qu’on arrivait en lieu sûr d’ici peu.
Sur cette même route, un autre soir de la semaine, d’autres maraudeurs ont eux aussi transporté des personnes qui avaient traversé la frontière. Persuadés de s’être fait attraper par la Police, résignés, ces hommes d’une vingtaine d’années ont pleuré durant les 25 minutes du trajet.
« Les ombres avaient toutes été avalées par la noirceur de la montagne blanche »
Nous avons déposé les quatre au Refuge Solidaire, dans Briançon. Un lieu géré par des locaux et des gens de passage qui permet aux personnes qui ont traversé de se reposer quelques jours avant de continuer leur route. En arrivant, C. a cru faire un infarctus : c’était finalement une violente crise d’angoisse, une décompensation.
À peine quelques minutes plus tard, nous sommes repartis vers Montgenèvre pour essayer de retrouver la dizaine d’autres ombres qui étaient encore dans la montagne et que nous n’avions pas vu passer. Alors qu’avant, nous n’avions pas vu un seul signe de la Police, une ou deux voitures tournait constamment dans la station. Vers minuit ou une heure du matin, nous nous sommes rendus à l’évidence : nous n’en verrons plus, cette nuit-là. Les ombres avaient toutes été avalées par la noirceur de la montagne blanche. Frustration indicible. Sentiment de ne pas avoir fait tout ce qu’on pouvait.
Nous sommes repartis vers Briançon. Nous sommes passés juste à côté de l’endroit où Tamimou Derman était en train d’agoniser, mais nous ne le savions alors pas. À quelques minutes près, nous aurions pu le voir, l’amener aux urgences et peut-être le sauver.
« La nuit du mercredi 6 au jeudi 7 février 2019, une vingtaine de personnes auraient tenté de traverser la frontière franco-italienne »
En partant de Montgenèvre, une voiture était arrêtée avec les pleins phares allumés, en plein milieu de la petite route de montagne. Nous avons presque dû nous arrêter pour passer à côté. C’était la Police qui surveillait les voitures qui descendaient vers Briançon. Nous sommes passés, notre voiture s’est faite ausculter à la recherche de "migrants".
Les "migrants", ils étaient dans la montagne, de la neige jusqu’aux hanches et en chaussettes, en train de mourir pour éviter précisément ce contrôle.
La nuit du mercredi 6 au jeudi 7 février 2019, une vingtaine de personnes auraient tenté de traverser la frontière franco-italienne. Nous en avons accompagné quatre à Briançon. Quatre autres ont eu peur de nous, pensant que nous étions la Police. Ils seraient a priori bel bien arrivé au Refuge Solidaire, à pied. D’autres ont été interceptés par la police et renvoyés en Italie, à l’exception de deux jeunes mineurs confiés au Département. Tamimou Derman, lui, a été retrouvé sur le bord de la route, mort d’hypothermie.
Le 15 mars prochain, une maraude géante est organisé à Montgenèvre. Pour médiatiser ce qui se passe là-bas. Pour que les chasses à l’homme cessent. Pour que les droits des personnes exilées soient enfin respectés. Et pour que plus personne ne meurt dans nos montagnes.
Avec d’autres membres de la FSGT, nous y serons.
▻https://blogs.mediapart.fr/maraudeurs-solidaires-fsgt/blog/200219/notre-frontiere-tue-tamimou-derman-nest-plus-recit-dune-maraude-soli
Hautes-Alpes : un nouveau décès, conséquence tragique des politiques migratoires [Alerte inter-associative]
Dans la nuit du 6 au 7 février, un jeune homme est mort entre Montgenèvre et Briançon. Il avait rejoint la France depuis l’Italie après avoir passé plusieurs heures dans la montagne.
Un drame qui alerte nos associations (Anafé, Amnesty International France, La Cimade, Médecins du Monde, Médecins sans Monde, Secours Catholique-Caritas France, Tous Migrants) qui, depuis plus de deux ans, ne cessent de constater et de dénoncer les violations des droits de la part des autorités françaises à la frontière : renvois systématiques en Italie au mépris du droit, courses-poursuites, refus de prise en charge y compris des plus vulnérables. Ces pratiques poussent les personnes migrantes à prendre toujours plus de risques, comme celui de traverser par des sentiers enneigés, de nuit, en altitude, par des températures négatives, sans matériel adéquat.
En dépit d’alertes répétées, ces violations perdurent. Dans le même temps, les personnes leur portant assistance sont de plus en plus inquiétées et poursuivies en justice.
Alors que les ministres de l’intérieur de l’Union européenne se sont réunis à Bucarest pour définir une réforme du régime de l’asile et des politiques migratoires, nos associations demandent le respect des droits fondamentaux des personnes réfugiés et migrantes pour que cessent, entre autres, les drames aux frontières.
Un rassemblement citoyen à Briançon est prévu
Ce samedi 9 février 2019 à 15h
Au Champ de Mars
Des représentants des associations locales seront disponibles pour témoigner
« C’est pas la montagne qui tue. C’est les flics et les frontières »
Source : #Murs-Mures_aux_frontières, mars 2019
▻http://ici-grenoble.org/infos/la-une.php?id=3284
REPORTAGE - Hautes-Alpes : une frontière au-dessus des lois
Humiliés et pourchassés, des migrants voient leurs droits bafoués dans les Hautes-Alpes.
Un mort de froid, une bavure et des maraudeurs : le reportage d’Anna Ravix à la frontière avec l’Italie.
▻https://www.facebook.com/konbinifr/videos/639237329867456/?v=639237329867456
#vidéo #mourir_aux_frontières
Témoignage d’un migrant qui a fait la route avec #Tamimou, trouvé mort en février 2019 :
« Au milieu des montagnes, on était perdus, totalement. On s’est dit : On ne va pas s’en sortir, on va mourir là. Tamimou, il ne pouvait plus avancer, il avait perdu ses deux bottes. En chaussettes, il marchait dans la neige. Ses pieds étaient congelés, ils sont devenus durs, même le sang ne passait plus. Et puis je l’ai porté, il me remerciait, il me remerciait... Il disait : ’Dieu va te bénir, Dieu va te bénir, aide-moi. En descendant, on a vu une voiture, un monsieur qui quittait la ville. On lui a expliqué le problème. Il a pris son téléphone et il a appelé le 112. Il a dit : ’Si vous ne venez pas vite, il va perdre la vie.’ C’est là qu’ils ont dit qu’ils seraient là dans 30 minutes. Il était 1 heure du matin, ils ne sont pas arrivés avant 3 heures du matin. »
Tamimou est mort à l’hôpital à 4 heures du matin.
« La mort du jeune », continue le témoin, « sincèrement, je peux dire que c’est le problème de la police. Le fait qu’on a appelé la police. Si ils étaient arrivés à temps, le jeune serait encore en vie ».
–-> Le témoin a été interrogé par la police. Et ils ont reçu un OQTF.
–-----------------
Témoignage d’un maraudeur :
Il n’y a pas de RV, on est là. Peut-être il n’y a personne aujourd’hui, je ne sais pas...
Ce qui n’est pas évident, parce que quand ils nous voient, ils ont tendance à nous prendre pour les forces de l’ordre. ça, c’est quelque chose qu’ils ont mis en place l’été dernier. On a commencé à voir descendre des fourgons de la gendarmerie des personnes en shorts et en baskets. Les migrants, quand ils croisent ces personnes, ils les prenaient pour des randonneurs, ils demandaient des renseignements, et ils tombaient dans le panneau, quoi.
–-----------------
Témoignage d’un migrant (mineur au moment des faits), il revient sur des événements ayant eu lieu une année auparavant :
« On est parti dans la forêt et c’est là que la police nous a attrapés. Ils nous ont obligés à retourner à la frontière de Clavière.
Après, j’ai fouillé tous mes bagages et je trouvais plus mon argent, plus de 700 EUR. »
Du coup, il va à la police et il enregistre la conversation. C’était le 04.08.2018
–> cette conversation avec la police a été recensée ailleurs (sur seenthis aussi). Un policier avait dit :
« Tu accuses la police de vol, ce soir tu es en garde à vue ici, demain t’es dans un avion »
Voir aussi le témoignage de #Marie_Dorléans de Tous Migrants :
Au-delà de ces personnes qui ont survécu et échappé au pire, on voulait absolument rappeler aussi aujourd’hui celles qui n’ont pas eu cette chance et notamment parce qu’il faut pas s’habituer, parce qu’il ne faut pas que ces gens tombent dans l’anonymat. Le 7 février 2019, Tamimou, un jeune togolais de 28 ans, est mort d’épuisement et de froid au bord de la route nationale que la plupart d’entre vous viennent de monter. »
Et de #Pâquerette_Forest de SOS Alpes solidaires :
« Ils marchent quelques fois avec google maps sur le portable, si le portable fonctionne, parce que si il fait trop froid ils n’ont plus de batterie, et au bout d’un moment ça marche plus. Après il y a un peu des traces de gens qui se promènent et du passage quand il y a des gens qui passent tous les jours, donc ça peut aussi les aider. Après ils se repèrent aux lumières des villages. #Tamimou qui est décédé, il a perdu ses bottes au-dessus de La Vachette. Ils ont coupé, et on a bien compris qu’au début ils étaient sur une espèce de piste et puis à un moment ils ont coupé la piste et ils avaient de la neige jusque là [elle montre la hauteur de la neige avec ses mains sur les jambes, on ne voit pas sur la vidéo]. Lui il a perdu ses bottes, après ils ont essayé de le porter, et puis il était épuisé et puis il est mort »
Extrait du livre de Maurzio Pagliassotti,
Ancora dodici chilometri
:
« Trovato da una camionista lungo la statale, come un cane abbandonato. Si muore così, lungo la rotta apina : si muore sempre così, solo che, a volte,capita che il cadavere finisca come una pietra d’inciampo nel cammino di qualcuno che non può evitarlo, che non può non vederlo. Noi, non vediamo cosa succede in questi boschi la notte, e la natura provvede a nascondere le nostre vergogne, a far sparire le prove della nostra miseria.
Morto. Nella buia e gelida notte di questo febbraio, mentre l’Italia gioca a far la guerra alla Francia e questa richiama l’ambasciatore a Parigi. Si muore così, lungo la rotta alpina, nel tentativo di una fuga sempre più assurda, e disperata.
Ventinove anni, dal Togo, si chiamava #Derman_Teminou. Aveva superato il campo da golf, la frontiera presidiata dalla gendarmeria, il paese del Monginevro silenzioso, le piste da sci e gli ultimi nottambuli che uscivano dalle discoteche. Ma non è riuscito a superare il freddo polare che piano piano lo ha stroncato, portandolo ad accucciarsi come un animale ferito in un cantuccio. Chissà cosa ha pensato in quelle ore di marcia da solo, forse da solo, se ha visto lontano il fondovalle da raggiungere, le luci delle città sempre più fioche negli occhi che si spengono, stroncati dal sonno.
Molta neve è caduta questi giorni, e le montagne si sono trasformate in un mare bianco in cui nuotare. Una distesa farinosa in cui i migranti affondano passo dopo passo, con la coltre bianca che carpisce fino alle ascelle. Si vedono così, in questi giorni : come se fossero caduti nel Mediterraneo, annaspare con le braccia larghe e il collo teso, le bocche spalancate, naufraghi a 2000 metri di quota. I volontari tentano di recuperarli, di avvertirli, le raccomandazioni minacciose di questi bianchi sconosciuti devono suonare vagamente ridicole per chi arriva dai campi di sterminio della Libia.
La procura di Gap apre un fascicolo per omicidio involontario : chissà cosa vuole dire. Chi sarebbe l’omicida involontario da trovare ? Qualcuno che lo ha abbandonato ? Un militare ? Un governo ? Sui quotidiani esce qualche sparuto articoletto che parla di ‘migrante morto’. Ma l’uomo trovato, ridotto ad essere un pezzo di ghiaccio, non è un ‘migrante’. L’uomo morto questa note, e tutti gli altri che non vengono nemmeno trovati perché dispersi in qualche dirupo o divorati dagli animali di queste foreste, sono fuggiaschi. Uomini, donne e bambini che scappano dall’Italia, che percepiscono, e vivono , come un paese pericoloso e ostile, da attraversare il più velocemente possibile o da abbandonare dopo anni di vita.
Lo hanno portato all’ospedale di Briançon ancora in vita : ma il freddo gli aveva ormai ghiacciato il sangue e il cuore. Si muore così, lungo la rotta alpina. Lontani da ogni pietà, con i gendarmi che danno la caccia ai fuggiaschi e volontari : gli mancavano nove chilometri di strata lungo la statale. Non poteva farcela, in quelle condizioni, da solo, senza un amico, qualcuno a cui dire l’ultima parola della sua vita.
Passa qualche giorno, finisco in una cena dove mi raccontano cosa è accaduto realmente la note in cui quell’uomo di ventinove anni è caduto. Uno dei tanti, delle decine di cui non sappiamo nulla dato che valgono solo qualche trafiletto nelle ultime pagine dei settimanali locali.
Derman Tamimou arriva a Claviere insieme ad altri ‘migranti’ come sempre accade: con l’autobus serale che parte da Oulx e li scarica di fronte alla chiesetta. Sono ventuno : un gruppo imponente. Ma l’ordine di grandezza di questi plotoni che quotidianamente si arrendono e scappano è stabile. Partono e seguono la pista da sci di fondo : dopo circa mezz’ora vengono intercettati dai gendarmi, che ne prendono tredici. Otto riescono a fuggire nei boschi. Superano il piccolo villaggio del Monginevro e si dividono ulteriormente : cinque si gettano lungo la statale, tre rimangono lungo i sentieri che attraversano il ripido pendio che conduce a Monginevro.
Tra questi tre c’è Darman che, a circa quattro chilometri dalla sua meta, si arrende e si sveste. E’ completamente bagnato, perché la neve da subito si è fatta strada nelle scarpe e nei vestiti. La neve nei piedi che dà un delirio e provoca l’illusione di un senso di calore che uccide passo dopo passo la percezione stessa della morte, che sale dai piedi fino al cuore.
Si fermano e accendono un fuoco con i pochi legni secchi che trovano nei boschi. Impresa non semplice. Derman si spoglia ed espone al calore delle fiamme i suoi vestiti e il suo corpo. I suoi compagni intanto si gettano lungo la statale alla ricerca di aiuto : e qui accade qualcosa di incredibile. Qualcuno si ferma, ma dato che si tratta di due africani che chiedono aiuto per un loro amico che sta per morire, tutti decidono di proseguire.
Una letale miscellanea di paura, buio, uominii neri e morte spinge in avanti il tempo senza che nulla accada. Le ore della notte diventano ore dell’alba, e i primi raggi di sole altro non sono che mezze illusioni. Derman si attorciglia su se stesso, ormai lasciato solo a morire nel suo buco. Le fiamme spente, i vestiti ghiacciati e rigidi che pendono da una croce di rami come un Cristo senza dignità. Lo trova un camionista, la corsa all’ospedale, la morte.
Passano i giorni, si scopre che i suoi compagni vengono intercettati dai gendarmi che mostrano loro le foto di alcuni italiani : ‘Diteci chi vi ha aiutato a passare il confine’, questa la richiesta, che spiega la singlare accusa di ‘omicidio involntario’. Scorrono le foto dei volontari che sul fronte italiano di questa guerra ‘aiutano’ : colpa suprema, peccato totale da cui redenzione non può esistere ».
(Pagliassotti, 2019 : 172-175)
Man trying to enter France from Italy dies of hypothermia
Death of Derman Tamimou from Togo comes as Matteo Salvini ramps up border row
►https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/08/man-dies-hypothermia-france-italy-derman-tamimou-togo
Migranti. L’ultimo viaggio di Tamimou
Il corpo del giovane morto di freddo sulle Alpi è tornato in Togo. L’articolo che «Avvenire» gli aveva dedicato, facendo visita alla sua famiglia, è stato ripubblicato da un giornale togolese
Sono le 2:07 di giovedì mattina all’aeroporto internazionale Gnassingbé Eyadema di Lomé. L’aereo della Royal Air Maroc è appena atterrato. All’interno c’è la bara di Tamimou Derman, il migrante togolese morto assiderato tra le Alpi mentre cercava di attraversare a piedi il confine dall’Italia verso la Francia: ▻https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/migrante-morte-assiderato-tra-italia-e-francia.
Da oltre tre ore, un gruppo formato da una decina di familiari e amici attende paziente ai bordi della strada. Le guardie dell’aeroporto gli hanno detto di aspettare fuori dalla struttura. Sono solo uomini: padre, fratelli, cugini, zii e qualche amico d’infanzia. Hanno percorso tre ore di strada da Madjaton, il villaggio dove è cresciuto Tamimou. Il furgone bianco noleggiato per il viaggio avrà il compito di riportare indietro il corpo del ragazzo morto a 29 anni. Dopo essersi seduti al tavolo dell’unico bar ancora aperto, il gruppo spiega cosa è successo in queste settimane. «Un nostro cugino che vive in Italia ci ha dato la notizia settimana scorsa», racconta ad Avvenire Samoudine Derman, il fratello maggiore. «Ha raccolto i soldi per rimpatriare Tamimou. Siamo molto contenti – continua Samoudine –, finalmente potremo seppellirlo».
Il migrante togolese era ancora vivo quando è stato trovato da un camionista lo scorso 7 febbraio sul ciglio della strada statale 94 del Colle del Monginevro. Come altri suoi compagni, Tamimou ha rischiato la vita per raggiungere clandestinamente la Francia dall’Italia. L’ambulanza l’ha trasportato nell’ospedale di Briançon dove il giovane ha però esalato il suo ultimo respiro. «Ringraziamo molto la stampa italiana per aver parlato di Tamimou – afferma Sadate Boutcho, un amico d’infanzia –. Dopo aver recuperato la bara torneremo subito al villaggio per il funerale». La cerimonia è stata annunciata su una radio locale. «Siamo musulmani, abituati a interrare il corpo il prima possibile e a ricevere per giorni le persone che vogliono dare l’ultimo saluto – afferma con un tiepido sorriso Isak, un altro amico e coetaneo della vittima –. Nel caso di Tamimou abbiamo però aspettato quasi due mesi».
Il 19 febbraio Avvenire aveva pubblicato la storia del migrante intitolata ’Il sogno spezzato di mio figlio’: ►https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/in-togo-a-casa-di-tamimou-migrante-morto-freddo-alpi. Lo stesso articolo è stato ripubblicato sul giornale togolese L’Alternative il 22 febbraio. «È preoccupante che a parlare della morte di un nostro fratello sia stata prima la stampa italiana rispetto a quella togolese», ha ammesso Ferdinand Mensah Ayite, direttore della rivista. Nei giorni seguenti, per volere della famiglia Derman, due buste con dentro entrambi gli articoli e una lettera di richiesta di aiuto per il rimpatrio del cadavere sono state consegnate alla presidenza e al ministero degli Affari esteri togolesi. Nel mentre, Ganiou, il cugino di Tamimou residente in Italia, si è occupato delle formalità in Francia. «Abbiamo raccolto almeno 3.500 euro per le spese del trasporto – spiega Ganiou, arrivato a Lomé in anticipo per assicurarsi che tutto andasse a buon fine –. Ho ricevuto sostegno da un’organizzazione francese di cui preferisco non rivelare il nome». Il bar chiude e ci ritroviamo in strada. Ganiou è andato a seguire le ultime formalità. Il tempo continua a passare.
Nessuno sa cosa stia succedendo con esattezza. Alle 4 e mezza di mattina, il padre di Tamimou, Inoussa Derman, si siede sul marciapiede vicino a un parente. Samoudine e gli altri si addormentano. Solo verso le 10 di mattina viene spedito ad Avvenire un messaggio con la foto della bara nel furgone. «Finalmente abbiamo recuperato il corpo – scrive Sadate –, il funerale è stato spostato quindi alle 3 del pomeriggio». La folla osserva la bara mentre viene calata in una buca scavata nella terra rossa di Madjaton. Il villaggio sprofonda nel silenzio. Potrà la morte di Tamimou arrestare la migrazione dei togolesi verso l’Europa? «Qui non c’è lavoro – aveva spiegato Isak durante l’attesa fuori dall’aeroporto –. Ho studiato da meccanico e, nonostante la drammatica fine di Tamimou, sono pronto a partire verso l’Italia o la Francia».
▻https://www.avvenire.it/attualita/pagine/lultimo-viaggio-di-taminou
Derman Tamimou e il tema di una bambina di nove anni
“Le persone che ho visto, tra i migranti, mi sembravano persone uguali a noi, non capisco perchè tutti pensano che siano diverse da noi. Secondo me aiutare le persone, in questo caso i migranti, è una cosa bella”
Derman Tamimou aveva 29 anni, era arrivato in Italia dal Togo e, nella notte tra il 6 e il 7 febbraio, ha intrapreso il suo ultimo viaggio nel tentativo di varcare il confine. Un camionista ne ha scorto il corpo semiassiderato e rannicchiato tra la neve ai bordi della statale del colle di Monginevro. Nonostante l’immediato trasporto all’ospedale di Briancon, Derman è morto poco dopo.
E’ difficile immaginare cosa abbia pensato e provato Derman negli ultimi istanti della sua vita, prima di perdere conoscenza per il gelo invernale. Quali sogni, speranze, ricordi, … quanta fatica, rabbia, paura …
Potrebbe essere tranquillizzante pensare a questa morte come tragica fatalità e derubricarla a freddo numero da aggiungere alla lista di migranti morti nella ricerca di un futuro migliore in Europa. Eppure quell’interminabile lista parla a ognuno di noi. Racconta di vite interrotte che, anche quando non se ne conosce il nome, ci richiamano a una comune umanità da cui non possiamo prescindere per non smarrire noi stessi. A volte lo ricordiamo quando scopriamo, cucita nel giubbotto di un quattordicenne partito dal Mali e affogato in un tragico naufragio nel 2015, una pagella, un bene prezioso con cui presentarsi ai nuovi compagni di classe e di vita. Altre volte lo ricordano i versi di una poesia “Non ti allarmare fratello mio”, ritrovata nelle tasche di Tesfalidet Tesfon, un giovane migrante eritreo, morto subito dopo il suo sbarco a Pozzallo, nel 2018, a seguito delle sofferenze patite nelle carceri libiche e delle fatiche del viaggio: “È davvero così bello vivere da soli, se dimentichi tuo fratello al momento del bisogno?”. È davvero così bello?
L’estate scorsa, lungo la strada in cui ha perso la vita Derman Tamimou, si poteva ancora trovare un ultimo luogo di soccorso e sostegno per chi cercava di attraversare il confine. Un rifugio autogestito che è stato sgomberato in autunno, con l’approssimarsi dell’inverno, senza alcuna alternativa di soccorso locale per i migranti. Per chiunque fosse passato da quei luoghi non era difficile prevedere i rischi che questa chiusura avrebbe comportato. Bastava fermarsi, incontrare e ascoltare i migranti, i volontari e tutte le persone che cercavano di portare aiuto e solidarietà, nella convinzione che non voltare lo sguardo di fronte a sofferenze, rischi e fatiche altrui sia l’unica strada per restare umani.
Incontri che una bambina di nove anni, in quelle che avrebbe voluto fossero le sue “Montagne solidali”, ha voluto raccontare così: “Oggi da Bardonecchia, dove in stazione c’è un posto in cui aiutano i migranti che cercano di andare in Francia, siamo andati in altri due posti dove ci sono i migranti che si fermano e ricevono aiuto nel loro viaggio, uno a Claviere e uno a Briancon. In questi posti ci sono persone che li accolgono, gli danno da mangiare, un posto dove dormire, dei vestiti per ripararsi dal freddo, danno loro dei consigli su come evitare pericoli e non rischiare la loro vita nel difficile percorso di attraversamento del confine tra Italia e Francia tra i boschi e le montagne. I migranti, infatti, di notte cercano di attraversare i boschi e questo è difficile e pericoloso, perchè possono farsi male o rischiare la loro vita cadendo da un dirupo. I migranti scelgono di affrontare il loro viaggio di notte perchè è più difficile che la polizia li veda e li faccia tornare indietro. A volte, per sfuggire alla polizia si feriscono per nascondersi o scappare. Nel centro dove sono stata a Claviere, alcuni migranti avevano delle ferite, al volto e sulle gambe, causate durante i tentativi di traversata. Infatti i migranti provano tante volte ad attraversare le montagne, di solito solo dopo la quarta o quinta volta riescono a passare. La traversata è sempre molto pericolosa, perchè non conoscono le montagne e le strade da percorrere, ma soprattutto in inverno le cose sono più difficili perchè con la neve, il freddo, senza i giusti vestiti e scarpe, del cibo caldo e non conoscendo la strada tutto è più rischioso. Lo scorso inverno, sul Colle della Scala, sono morte diverse persone provando a fare questo viaggio. Anche le persone che li aiutano sono a rischio, perchè solo per aver dato loro da mangiare, da dormire e dei vestiti possono essere denunciate e arrestate. Oggi sette ragazzi sono in carcere per questo. Io penso che non è giusto essere arrestati quando si aiutano le persone. A Briancon, dove aiutano i migranti che hanno appena attraversato il confine, ho visto alcuni bambini e questa cosa mi ha colpito molto perchè vuol dire che sono riusciti a fare un viaggio così lungo e faticoso attraverso i boschi e le montagne. Qui ho conosciuto la signora Annie, una volontaria che aiuta i migranti appena arrivati in Francia, una signora gentile e molto forte, che è stata chiamata 8 volte ad andare dalla polizia per l’aiuto che sta dando ai migranti, ma lei sorride e continua a farlo, perchè pensa che non aiutarli sia un’ingiustizia. Le persone che ho visto, tra i migranti, mi sembravano persone uguali a noi, non capisco perchè tutti pensano che siano diverse da noi. Secondo me aiutare le persone, in questo caso i migranti, è una cosa bella”.
▻https://www.vita.it/derman-tamimou-e-il-tema-di-una-bambina-di-nove-anni
Ex-Mann wählte Notruf : Deutsche verirrt sich im Dschungel in Taiwan – Berliner Polizei hilft bei Rettung
▻https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/ex-mann-wahlte-notruf-deutsche-verirrt-sich-im-dschungel-in-taiwan--ber
Vive le progrès ! En Taiwan, République de Chine, le réseau 5G couvre la surface des forêts vierges. C’est ce qui a sauvé la vie á une touriste berlinoise qui s’est aventurée dans la nature sans prendre les précautions nécessaires.
L’histoire ne manque pas d’ironie car elle est un cas de détournement créatif des fonctions d’un systëme informatique. Au lieu d’envoyer un appel de secours avec ses coordonnées en Allemagne et occuper le temps de travail de quelques douzaines de policiers et secouristes dans les deux pays la touriste aurait pu se servir du compas électronique de son smartphone et rentrer tranquillement à l’hôtel.
L’article en fait une histoire de couple sans poser la question des réseaux de communication dana les jungles du pays ou du monde. C’est typique pour la presse bourgeoise d’attirer l’attention sur le côté « humain » des histoires au lieu de s’intéresser aux questions essentielles des événements.
Taiwan subtropical evergreen forests
▻https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan_subtropical_evergreen_forests
Die Berliner Polizei hat bei der Rettung einer deutschen Frau aus einem Dschungel in Taiwan geholfen. Der Ex-Mann der 37-jährigen Berlinerin hatte am vergangenen Sonntag den Notruf 110 gewählt, wie eine Polizeisprecherin am Dienstag sagte.
Demnach gab er an, dass er eine Textnachricht von der Frau erhalten habe. Sie hatte sich den Angaben zufolge im Dschungel verlaufen und auch ihre Koordinaten gesendet. Laut der Sprecherin nahm der 40 Jahre alte Berliner die Nachricht sehr ernst und machte sich große Sorgen.
Die Kriminalpolizei gab den Fall an das Bundeskriminalamt in Wiesbaden weiter, das wiederum die Behörden in Taiwan in Kenntnis setzte. Ein Suchteam machte sich dort auf den Weg und konnte die verirrte Frau schließlich finden. Nach Angaben der Berliner Polizei ist die 37-Jährige wohlauf. Sie wurde auf eigenen Wunsch in ihr Hotel gebracht. Zuvor hatte die „Bild“-Zeitung über den Fall berichtet.
#Chine #Taiwan #5G #télephone_portable #internet #forêt_vierge
Tai-Luc, le chanteur de La Souris déglinguée, est mort
►https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2023/12/04/mort-de-tai-luc-le-chanteur-de-la-souris-deglinguee_6203810_3382.html
Je dois avoir tous les disques (studios) de LSD. J’étais vraiment fan. Je me rappelle avoir pogoté comme un malade à la MJC d’Hérouville...
« On fera n’importe quoi, on fera comme les copains
On fera n’importe quoi par solidarité »
« Combien y a-t-il de faux espoirs/Au fond du cœur de la jeunesse ?/Combien y a-t-il de lundis matins/Pour la main-d’œuvre bon marché ?/Combien y a-t-il de lundis matins/Pour les rockeurs manutentionnaires ? » La chanson de Tai-Luc, le leader de La Souris déglinguée (LSD), groupe phare de la scène punk rock parisienne des années 1980, a pris des airs d’oraison funèbre. Avec la mort de son auteur, survenue vendredi 1er décembre, à l’âge de 65 ans, d’une infection pulmonaire, c’est un pan de l’histoire du rock français qui disparaît.
La première fois qu’on l’a rencontré, c’était en 1983, dans la nuit de l’hiver. Aux « Frigos », ces anciens frigidaires du côté du pont de Tolbiac, à Paris, recyclés alors en lieux de répétition et en ateliers d’artistes. Il venait, avec ses comparses, de sortir son deuxième 33-tours – c’était encore l’âge du vinyle, autant dire la Préhistoire –, il jouait les durs à cuire et tirait avec allégresse le diable par la queue. « M. Assedic, c’est un ami à moi », racontait-il, crâneur, dans son blouson noir. Il avait 25 ans.
On avait retrouvé, trente-cinq ans plus tard, son sourire narquois sous les platanes du quai de Gesvres, à Paris. Un krama cambodgien noué sur le crâne désormais chauve de l’ancien skinhead, une fesse posée sur un tabouret, devant ses quatre boîtes de bouquiniste : quelque huit mètres linéaires de livres d’occasion, denrées rares et d’autant plus recherchées. Il avait ce même air faussement absent, réellement attentif, la même parole diserte derrière la façade impavide.
Lire le portrait (en 2020) : Article réservé à nos abonnés Regarder Paname avec les yeux d’un bouquiniste
Côté maternel, des origines ch’tis et bretonnes, une famille communiste. Le père, lui, est un titi parisien débarqué de Cochinchine en 1939. Elle est sténodactylo, lui a été représentant en vins, vigile dans une usine d’armement, et tient une salle de sport dans le Quartier latin. Il a même été vedette de cinéma – dans un film vietnamien tourné en Camargue, que le fiston découvrira soixante ans plus tard : Vi dau nen noi, de Pham Van Nhan (La Justice des hommes, 1954). « Mon père ? Une sorte d’Alain Delon », confiait son fils unique, et tardif. A l’observer, lui, on se disait que c’était sans doute vrai.
Quatorze albums studio
Nguyen Tan Tai-Luc naît donc le 10 août 1958, à Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine). Il a 14 ans lorsque ses parents se séparent. Il va moult fois déménager, écumant les banlieues au fil des changements de domicile. « Suivant mes interlocuteurs, quand je veux rassurer, je parle du lycée Hoche, à Versailles, où j’ai passé mon bac, ou sinon, de Sarcelles [Val-d’Oise], dont je connais tous les codes », racontait-il sans vergogne.
C’est au lycée Hoche qu’il crée La Souris déglinguée. Rue des Lombards, il a découvert l’effervescence et l’énergie du rock dans les bacs de la mythique boutique parisienne de disques de Marc Zermati (1945-2020). Avec ses potes, il fait le voyage initiatique de Londres, monte sur la scène du Golf Drouot, multiplie les concerts (qui tournent en baston) et enregistre quatorze albums studio sur trois décennies. Misère et grandeur du rock’n’roll. De ses années Souris déglinguée, il disait modestement : « On a eu des instantanés professionnels. » Le 9 mai 2015, ces vétérans de la scène punk française donnent leur dernier concert à l’Olympia, entourés des stars de cette vague rageuse aujourd’hui emportée par le vent : Parabellum, Warum Joe, Swingo Porkies, RAS, Les Olivensteins… Toute une époque.
Mais déjà Tai-Luc a accroché une autre corde à son arc. L’enfant cherche ses racines. Perpétuellement en mouvement, il s’est mis à étudier le viet, le chinois, le lao, le thaï… Il lit beaucoup, entasse les livres et, dès 1996, commence à enseigner à l’Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) où, dernièrement encore, il continuait de donner des cours de linguistique comparée et d’« écriture des pagodes » (un alphabet à part).
A l’Inalco, il n’a d’ailleurs pas seulement écrit une demi-douzaine de thèses (Parlons lü : la langue taï des douze mille rivières du Yunnan ou Etude comparative du tai sipsong panna et du laotien…), il aura aussi rencontré sa « fiancée », avec qui il a eu une fille. Les punks ne sont jamais comme on les imagine.
Grand collectionneur, ce petit-fils d’une pucière de Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis) est donc finalement, en 2018, devenu bouquiniste (« Je ne suis rien d’autre qu’un biffin de luxe », confiait-il avec une touchante – fausse – modestie, expliquant : « La vérité des bouquinistes, c’est que la Mairie de Paris a besoin de figurants pour donner une image de Paris telle qu’elle était avant. »). Son dernier combat aura d’ailleurs été de lever haut l’étendard de la révolte face à la demande des autorités d’enlever des quais les boîtes chargées de livres, le temps des Jeux olympiques.
Lire aussi le récit : Article réservé à nos abonnés JO 2024 : à Paris, le déplacement des bouquinistes prend une tournure politique
On imagine la colère de ce calme nerveux (ou le contraire) et on revoit son ombre, cette nuit-là, il y a presque quarante ans, au pont de Tolbiac, s’effaçant dans un brouillard de riffs : « Est-ce une tendance négative/Que d’avoir confiance en moi ?/Est-ce une tendance négative/Que d’avoir confiance en toi ? »
Tai-Luc en quelques dates
10 août 1958 Naissance à Suresnes (Hauts-de-Seine).
1976 Formation de La Souris déglinguée.
1981 Premier album.
2014 « Les Toits du palace », dernier album.
2018 Obtention d’une concession de bouquiniste.
1er décembre 2023 Décès.
Laurent Carpentier
#José_Vieira : « La #mémoire des résistances face à l’accaparement des terres a été peu transmise »
Dans « #Territórios_ocupados », José Vieira revient sur l’#expropriation en #1941 des paysans portugais de leurs #terres_communales pour y planter des #forêts. Cet épisode explique les #mégafeux qui ravagent le pays et résonne avec les #luttes pour la défense des #biens_communs.
Né au Portugal en 1957 et arrivé enfant en France à l’âge de 7 ans, José Vieira réalise depuis plus de trente ans des documentaires qui racontent une histoire populaire de l’immigration portugaise.
Bien loin du mythe des Portugais·es qui se seraient « intégré·es » sans le moindre problème en France a contrario d’autres populations, José Vieira s’est attaché à démontrer comment l’#immigration_portugaise a été un #exode violent – voir notamment La Photo déchirée (2001) ou Souvenirs d’un futur radieux (2014) –, synonyme d’un impossible retour.
Dans son nouveau documentaire, Territórios ocupados, diffusé sur Mediapart, José Vieira a posé sa caméra dans les #montagnes du #Caramulo, au centre du #Portugal, afin de déterrer une histoire oubliée de la #mémoire_collective rurale du pays. Celle de l’expropriation en 1941, par l’État salazariste, de milliers de paysans et de paysannes de leurs terres communales – #baldios en portugais.
Cette #violence étatique a été opérée au nom d’un vaste #projet_industriel : planter des forêts pour développer économiquement ces #territoires_ruraux et, par le même geste, « civiliser » les villageois et villageoises des #montagnes, encore rétifs au #salariat et à l’ordre social réactionnaire de #Salazar. Un épisode qui résonne aujourd’hui avec les politiques libérales des États qui aident les intérêts privés à accaparer les biens communs.
Mediapart : Comment avez-vous découvert cette histoire oubliée de l’expropriation des terres communales ou « baldios » au Portugal ?
José Vieira : Complètement par hasard. J’étais en train de filmer Le pain que le diable a pétri (2012, Zeugma Films) sur les habitants des montagnes au Portugal qui sont partis après-guerre travailler dans les usines à Lisbonne.
Je demandais à un vieux qui est resté au village, António, quelle était la définition d’un baldio – on voit cet extrait dans le documentaire, où il parle d’un lieu où tout le monde peut aller pour récolter du bois, faire pâturer ses bêtes, etc. Puis il me sort soudain : « Sauf que l’État a occupé tous les baldios, c’était juste avant que je parte au service militaire. »
J’étais estomaqué, je voulais en savoir plus mais impossible, car dans la foulée, il m’a envoyé baladé en râlant : « De toute façon, je ne te supporte pas aujourd’hui. »
Qu’avez-vous fait alors ?
J’ai commencé à fouiller sur Internet et j’ai eu la chance de tomber sur une étude parue dans la revue de sociologie portugaise Análise Social, qui raconte comment dans les années 1940 l’État salazariste avait pour projet initial de boiser 500 000 hectares de biens communaux en expropriant les usagers de ces terres.
Je devais ensuite trouver des éléments d’histoire locale, dans la Serra do Caramulo, dont je suis originaire. J’ai passé un temps fou le nez dans les archives du journal local, qui était bien sûr à l’époque entièrement dévoué au régime.
Après la publication de l’avis à la population que les baldios seront expropriés au profit de la plantation de forêts, plus aucune mention des communaux n’apparaît dans la presse. Mais rapidement, des correspondants locaux et des éditorialistes vont s’apercevoir qu’il existe dans ce territoire un malaise, qu’Untel abandonne sa ferme faute de pâturage ou que d’autres partent en ville. En somme, que sans les baldios, les gens ne s’en sortent plus.
Comment sont perçus les communaux par les tenants du salazarisme ?
Les ingénieurs forestiers décrivent les paysans de ces territoires comme des « primitifs » qu’il faut « civiliser ». Ils se voient comme des missionnaires du progrès et dénoncent l’oisiveté de ces montagnards peu enclins au salariat.
À Lisbonne, j’ai trouvé aussi une archive qui parle des baldios comme étant une source de perversion, de mœurs légères qui conduisent à des enfants illégitimes dans des coins où « les familles vivent presque sans travailler ». Un crime dans un régime où le travail est élevé au rang de valeur suprême.
On retrouve tous ces différents motifs dans le fameux Portrait du colonisé d’Albert Memmi (1957). Car il y a de la part du régime un vrai discours de colonisateur vis-à-vis de ces régions montagneuses où l’État et la religion ont encore peu de prise sur les habitants.
En somme, l’État salazariste veut faire entrer ces Portugais reculés dans la modernité.
Il y a eu des résistances face à ces expropriations ?
Les villageois vont être embauchés pour boiser les baldios. Sauf qu’après avoir semé les pins, il faut attendre vingt ans pour que la forêt pousse.
Il y a eu alors quelques histoires d’arrachage clandestin d’arbres. Et je raconte dans le film comment une incartade avec un garde forestier a failli virer au drame à cause d’une balle perdue – je rappelle qu’on est alors sous la chape de plomb du salazarisme. D’autres habitants ont aussi tabassé deux gardes forestiers à la sortie d’un bar et leur ont piqué leurs flingues.
Mais la mémoire de ces résistances a peu été transmise. Aujourd’hui, avec l’émigration, il ne reste plus rien de cette mémoire collective, la plupart des vieux et vieilles que j’ai filmés dans ce documentaire sont déjà morts.
Comment justement avez-vous travaillé pour ce documentaire ?
Quand António me raconte cette histoire d’expropriation des baldios par l’État, c’était en 2010 et je tournais un documentaire, Souvenirs d’un futur radieux. Puis lorsqu’en 2014 un premier incendie a calciné le paysage forestier, je me suis dit qu’il fallait que je m’y mette.
J’ai travaillé doucement, pendant trois ans, sans savoir où j’allais réellement. J’ai filmé un village situé à 15 kilomètres de là où je suis né. J’ai fait le choix d’y suivre des gens qui subsistent encore en pratiquant une agriculture traditionnelle, avec des outils de travail séculaires, comme la roue celte. Ils ont les mêmes pratiques que dans les années 1940, et qui sont respectueuses de l’écosystème, de la ressource en eau, de la terre.
Vous vous êtes aussi attaché à retracer tel un historien cet épisode de boisement à marche forcée...
Cette utopie industrialiste date du XIXe siècle, des ingénieurs forestiers parlant déjà de vouloir récupérer ces « terres de personne ». Puis sous Salazar, dans les années 1930, il y a eu un débat intense au sein du régime entre agrairistes et industrialistes. Pour les premiers, boiser ne va pas être rentable et les baldios sont vitaux aux paysans. Pour les seconds, le pays a besoin de l’industrie du bois pour décoller économiquement, et il manque de bras dans les villes pour travailler dans les usines.
Le pouvoir central a alors même créé un organisme étatique, la Junte de colonisation interne, qui va recenser les baldios et proposer d’installer des personnes en leur donnant à cultiver des terres communales – des colonies de repeuplement pour résumer.
Finalement, l’industrie du bois et de la cellulose l’a emporté. La loi de boisement des baldios est votée en 1938 et c’est en novembre 1941 que ça va commencer à se mettre en place sur le terrain.
Une enquête publique a été réalisée, où tout le monde localement s’est prononcé contre. Et comme pour les enquêtes aujourd’hui en France, ils se sont arrangés pour dire que les habitants étaient d’accord.
Qu’en est-il aujourd’hui de ces forêts ? Subsiste-t-il encore des « baldios » ?
Les pinèdes sont exploitées par des boîtes privées qui font travailler des prolos qui galèrent en bossant dur. Mais beaucoup de ces forêts ont brûlé ces dernière décennies, notamment lors de la grande vague d’incendies au Portugal de 2017, où des gens du village où je filmais ont failli périr.
Les feux ont dévoilé les paysages de pierre qu’on voyait auparavant sur les photos d’archives du territoire, avant que des pins de 30 mètres de haut ne bouchent le paysage.
Quant aux baldios restants, ils sont loués à des entreprises de cellulose qui y plantent de l’eucalyptus. D’autres servent à faire des parcs d’éoliennes. Toutes les lois promues par les différents gouvernements à travers l’histoire du Portugal vont dans le même sens : privatiser les baldios alors que ces gens ont géré pendant des siècles ces espaces de façon collective et très intelligente.
J’ai fait ce film avec en tête les forêts au Brésil gérées par les peuples autochtones depuis des siècles, TotalEnergies en Ouganda qui déplace 100 000 personnes de leurs terres pour du pétrole ou encore Sainte-Soline, où l’État aide les intérêts privés à accaparer un autre bien commun : l’eau.
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/021223/jose-vieira-la-memoire-des-resistances-face-l-accaparement-des-terres-ete-
#accaparement_de_terres #terre #terres #dictature #histoire #paysannerie #Serra_do_Caramulo #communaux #salazarisme #progrès #colonisation #colonialisme #rural #modernité #résistance #incendie #boisement #utopie_industrialiste #ingénieurs #ingénieurs_forestiers #propriété #industrie_du_bois #Junte_de_colonisation_interne #colonies_de_repeuplement #cellulose #pinèdes #feux #paysage #privatisation #eucalyptus #éoliennes #loi #foncier
Territórios Ocupados
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=m2igqiT00Tc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fkin
Os Cantos dos Baldios é a história de uma espoliação contada pelo povo das serras do Caramulo. As pessoas falam da sua vida após a violenta ocupação e florestação dos seus terrenos comunitários pelo Estado em 1941. Falam de miséria e de emigração, das rupturas e das feridas impostas pelo curso violento da história, contam as suas resistências a essa expropriação. Elas têm ainda a memória de um tempo onde as comunidades se construíam numa percepção colectiva do território que as envolvia.
▻https://kintop.pt/territorios-ocupados
#film #film_documentaire #documentaire
#baldio #baldios #Portugal #dictature #forêt #communs #boisement #histoire #mémoire #privatisation #peuplement_forestier #administration_forestière #terres #emprisonnement #incendie #feux #feux_de_forêt #terres_incultes #terrains_communautaires #pâturages #émigration #Etat #élevage #montagne #occupation #services_forestiers #1940s #loi #pâturages #pins #terres_communautaires #guerres_des_baldios #15_juin_1938 #loi_de_boisement_des_baldios #réquisition #loi_de_peuplement_forestier #culture_forestière #ministère_de_l'agriculture #régime_forestier #résistance #occupation_illégitime #Vouzela #progrès #modernité #travail #économie_nationale #rendement #rentabilité #préjugés #rural #oisiveté #taux_de_natalité #vie_primitive #Penoita #spoliation #ingénieurs #civilisation_agro-pastorale #auto-suffisance #terres_de_personne #expropriation #pauvreté #misère #géographie_du_vide #propriété_privée #propriété_imparfaite #plantation #arbres_productifs #résistance #révoltes #luttes #PIDE #Salazar #gardes_forestiers #colonisation #travail_salarial #entraide #paysage #faciès_géographique #discipline #soumission #faim #routes #infrastructure #Vasconha #Ventosa #émigration #Alentejo #saisonniers #latifundia #travail_saisonnier #exode_rural #dépossession #industrialisation #énergie #commerce_extérieur #propagande #industrie_du_bois #cellulose #bois #destruction #richesse_nationale #abandon #érosion #censure #catastrophe #métayage #fumier #sécheresse #bêcher #pinède #répression #Caramulo #engrais #engrais_chimiques #agriculture #expulsion #développement_industriel #industrialisation #Cuf #empoisonnement #eau #Adsamo #amendes #accaparement_de_terres #appropriation #exploitation #restitution #morcellement #extorsion #libéralisme
« #Terres_occupées » au Portugal : retracer l’accaparement des biens communs
Depuis les montagnes du centre du Portugal, « Territórios ocupados » de José Vieira revient sur une histoire méconnue du régime salazariste durant les années 1940, celle de l’expropriation de paysans de leurs terres communales pour y planter des forêts. Une violence opérée au nom des intérêts des industriels et qui résonne avec les combats actuels contre l’accaparement des biens communs.
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/studio/documentaires/culture-et-idees/terres-occupees-au-portugal-retracer-l-accaparement-des-biens-communs
à mettre en lien avec cette autre forêt et cet autre film, en #Israël :
Le #village_sous_la_forêt, de #Heidi_GRUNEBAUM et #Mark_KAPLAN
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/1029869
Quand hurlent les loups
Tout à la fois roman de moeurs, satire socio-politique et récit d’aventures, ce livre picaresque raconte l’histoire d’une révolte paysanne contre la politique de reboisement des terres communales instaurée par la dictature de Salazar au pouvoir dans les années 30. Autour de Manuel Louvadeus, ancien chercheur de diamants au Brésil, magnifique personnage d’insoumis, les rebelles vont s’unir, « hurlant comme des loups affamés », pour garder les maigres terres que l’Etat veut leur confisquer. La répression sera sans pitié.
▻https://www.albin-michel.fr/quand-hurlent-les-loups-9782226190635
Ricardo Lange: Horrortrip mit dem ICE nach Berlin – wie ich wegen der Deutschen Bahn Stress mit der Polizei bekam.
▻https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/mensch-metropole/ricardo-lange-mein-horrortrip-mit-dem-ice-wie-ich-wegen-der-deutsch
Spoiler: Taxi als letzte Rettung, wenn die Bahn versagt.
1.12.2023 von Ricardo Lange - Der Intensivpfleger Ricardo Lange wollte mit dem Zug nach Berlin fahren. Die Fahrt wurde zum eiskalten Horrortrip. Was geschah unterwegs? Hier sein Bericht.
Nimm den Zug, Ricardo, haben sie gesagt. Das ist viel entspannter und besser für die Umwelt, haben sie gesagt. Was sie mir nicht gesagt haben, ist, dass ich an diesem Abend fast nicht nach Hause kommen werde und mit der Bundespolizei aneinander gerate.
Aber der Reihe nach: Für ein neues Projekt im medizinischen Bereich war ich auf dem Weg nach Aachen. Erst mit der U-Bahn zum Hauptbahnhof, dann mit dem ICE weiter nach Köln. Die Fahrt dauerte knapp fünf Stunden und ich war positiv überrascht – vielleicht könnte ich mir doch vorstellen, in Zukunft mein Auto mal stehen zu lassen. Das waren meine Gedanken – noch.
Kurz nach dem „ich liebe dich“ lag er im Koma: Ricardo Lange über Handys im Verkehr
Ricardo Lange: Darum sterben regelmäßig Alkoholiker auf der Intensivstation
Den Termin erfolgreich hinter mich gebracht, machte ich mich auf den Weg nach Hause und freute mich schon auf den entspannten Heimweg. Was jedoch folgte, glich einem regelrechten Spießrutenlauf.
Die Durchsage: „Die Weiterfahrt verzögert sich um 45 Minuten“ riss mich schon bald aus dem Halbschlaf. Irgendeine Oberleitungsstörung, mehr habe ich nicht mitbekommen. Wir waren in Hamm. Ziemlich genau eine Stunde später wurden wir aufgefordert, in den ICE auf dem gegenüberliegenden Gleis umzusteigen – nur um diesen wiederum eine halbe Stunde später verlassen zu müssen, weil kein Zug mehr nach Berlin fahren würde.
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Mit der Regionalbahn nach Bielefeld
Mittlerweile völlig genervt, stieg ich wieder aus und wandte mich – wie viele andere auch – hilfesuchend an das Bahnpersonal mit der Frage, wie ich denn nun nach Hause käme. Die gute Nachricht war, dass Busse bestellt waren, die uns nach Berlin bringen sollten. Die schlechte: Das Servicepersonal in der Haupthalle, an das wir verwiesen wurden, wusste davon leider nichts. Sie schickten uns mit der Regionalbahn nach Bielefeld, mit der Aussicht auf einen Gutschein für eine Hotelübernachtung oder ein Taxi.
Also Kommando zurück. Gepäck die Treppe hochschleppen und eine weitere Stunde Zugfahrt – wohlgemerkt ohne eine einzige funktionierende Toilette an Bord. Mit voller Blase in Bielefeld angekommen, mussten mehrere Fahrgäste – darunter ich – feststellen, dass auch die Bahnhofstoilette gesperrt war. Immerhin wurde uns der Tipp gegeben, dass wir ja im Hotel gegenüber fragen könnten, ob wir dort pinkeln dürfen.
Die Auskunft des Servicepersonals im Bahnhof: „Laut Anweisung des Chefs“ sei man hier falsch, es gebe kein Hotel- oder Taxigutscheine. Das brachte das Fass zum Überlaufen. Alle diplomatischen Versuche meiner Mitstreiter, der Sache eine positive Wendung zu geben, hatten nicht zum Erfolg geführt. Wir waren in Bielefeld gestrandet. Niemand wollte uns helfen. Ich fühlte mich verarscht und klopfte an die Tür des Servicehäuschens, hinter der die Mitarbeiter einfach verschwunden waren. Ein junger Mann öffnete und wollte mich des Platzes verweisen, ich wiederum forderte ihn mehrfach auf, seinen Chef anzurufen und mir den Hörer zu geben, mit dem Argument, so gehe man nicht mit Menschen um. Was dann folgte, kann man sich nicht ausdenken.
Servicepersonal holt die Polizei: Bedrohung durch „glatzköpfigen Bodybuilder“
Statt den Chef an die Strippe bekam ich die Order von der Bundespolizei, die plötzlich vor mir auftauchte, heranzutreten. Ich sollte mich aus dem Sicherheitsbereich entfernen und es unterlassen, an die Tür zu klopfen. Sie waren vom besagten Servicepersonal gerufen worden, weil sie angeblich von einem glatzköpfigen Bodybuilder bedroht wurden. Wahrscheinlich hat niemand an meinem Gesichtsausdruck gemerkt, wie verblüfft ich in dem Moment über diese Aussage war, aber wer mich kennt, weiß, dass es eines bei mir nicht gibt: mich abwimmeln zu lassen.
Es war inzwischen Nacht und saukalt, viele hatten Hunger und Durst oder mussten immer noch auf die Toilette. Unter uns waren auch einige ältere Leute, denen man die Strapazen bereits deutlich ansah. Also habe ich auch der Polizei zu verstehen gegeben, dass ich hier nicht weggehen würde, bis wir eine Lösung für uns alle gefunden hätten und dass es jetzt nur noch zwei Möglichkeiten gebe: Entweder sie nehmen mich mit oder sie helfen uns aus dieser Notlage. Ein Wort gab das andere, bis sich schließlich einer der Polizisten einen Ruck gab, ins Servicehäuschen ging und mit einer tollen Nachricht wieder herauskam: Taxigutscheine für alle!
Fettes Dankeschön an die Polizei Bielefeld
Eine ältere Dame scherzte noch: „Hätten sie dich mitgenommen, hätte wenigstens einer von uns ein warmes Dach über dem Kopf gehabt.“ Am Ende verabschiedete ich mich mit einem freundlichen Handschlag von den Polizisten. Sie bestätigten mir auch im Gespräch, dass über die Überwachungskamera im Vorfeld keine Bedrohung durch mich erkennbar war.
An dieser Stelle noch einmal ein fettes Dankeschön an die Blaulichtkollegen in Bielefeld, dass sie letztendlich so cool reagiert und uns den Abend gerettet haben.
Wir waren froh, nach einer Odyssee endlich, nach Hause zu kommen. Sechs Stunden länger als geplant hat die Tour von Köln nach Berlin gedauert. Das Taxi kostete die Deutsche Bahn knapp 1100 Euro.
–---
Zur Person : Ricardo Lange, 42, wuchs in Berlin-Hellersdorf auf. Um sich gegen Übergriffe behaupten zu können, betrieb er Kampfsport und Bodybuilding. Er arbeitete als Fitnesstrainer und bei der Polizei, bevor er sich zum Intensivpfleger ausbilden ließ und in diesem Beruf seine Berufung fand.
Für eine Zeitarbeitsfirma springt Lange in Berliner Krankenhäusern ein, in denen die Personalnot am größten ist. 2022 veröffentlichte er ein Buch über den Pflegenotstand: „Intensiv: Wenn der Ausnahmezustand Alltag ist – Ein Notruf“ (dtv). Ricardo Lange ist Kolumnist der Berliner Zeitung.
#Carte_interactive pour naviguer au cœur des enquêtes sur les violations de #droits_humains & les atteintes à l’#environnement liées aux projets #Tilenga et EACOP de #Total
#Ouganda #RDC #République_démocratique_du_Congo #Afrique #pétrole #industrie_pétrolière #énergie #énergies_fossiles #Kingfisher #Tanga #oléoduc
#cartographie #visualisation
ping @visionscarto
En finir avec la #taxe #copie_privée
▻https://framablog.org/2023/11/29/en-finir-avec-la-taxe-copie-privee
Inspiré par le récent débat auquel il a participé dans la dernière édition d’Au café libre dans l’émission Libre à vous ! de l’April, Gee nous propose cette semaine un point sur la fameuse « taxe copie privée ». En finir avec la … Lire la suite
#Communs_culturels #Lecture #Hadopi #Partage #piratage #sacem
La CEDU condanna l’Italia per detenzione illegale di minori stranieri nell’hotspot di Taranto
▻https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/11/la-cedu-condanna-litalia-per-detenzione-illegale-di-minori-stranieri-nel
Nuova condanna all’Italia dalla Corte europea per i Diritti umani. Oggi nell’hotspot permangono ancora 185 minori. L’ASGI chiede l’immediato collocamento in strutture adeguate e la supervisione dell’attuazione delle precedenti sentenze che, come dimostra la situazione nell’hotspot di Taranto, non hanno fatto modificare le prassi illegittime. La Corte Europea dei Diritti Umani, con la decisione del 23 novembre 2023 resa nel procedimento n. 47287/17 (caso A.T. ed altri c. Italia), ha condannato l’Italia per avere detenuto illegalmente nell’ hotspot di Taranto diversi minori stranieri non accompagnati (art. 5, parr. 1, 2 e 4 della Convenzione europea dei diritti dell’uomo), per avere utilizzato trattamenti (...)
#Giurisprudenza_europea #Guida_legislativa #Speciale_Hotspot
Hintergründe zur Auftragsvermittlung an LDS-Taxis
►https://www.taxi-berlin.de
Weiter unten spricht einer, der am liebsten gar nichts sagen und in aller Ruhe seinen eigenen Interessen nachgehen würde. Es gibt nämlich einen harten Gegensatz zwischen den Interessen des „marktbeherrschenden Unternehmens in der Berliner Taxivermittlung“ und den Berliner Taxifahrern. Der, sagen wir es deutlich, Monopolist will seinen Anrufern und App-Bestellern immer und überall so viele Fahrzeuge wie möglich anbieten, und die Berliner Taxifahrer wollen das Gegenteil, also nur so viele Taxis im System haben, dass die Konkurrenz unter ihnen nicht mehr zu Mini-Umsätzen und Hungerlöhnen führt.
Dieser Interessengegensatz verschwindet bei Hermann Waldners Stellungnahme hinter einem Wust aus Geschwafel. Niemand soll auf die Idee kommen, Maßnahmen zur Durchsetzung der Interessen der Berliner Taxifahrer gegen ihn in Stellung zu bringen.
In der Freien Marktwirtschaft schaden private Monopole immer den Kleinen. Wir kennen den Monopolisten Uber. Hermann Waldners Taxi Berlin ist für Berlin und Umgebung das Gleiche in klein. Der Uber-Investor Peter Thiel hat das Prinzip als Titel eines Grundsatzartikels formuliert: Competition Is for Losers . Darin schreibt Thiel: Wer auf Dauer Werte schaffen und sich aneignen will, muss ein Monopol aufbauen .
Darin liegt die verborgene Bedeutung des Rundschreibens von Hermann Waldner an alle bei ihm angeschlossenen Fahrer und Taxiunternehmen.
27.11.2023 - Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,
aufgrund von Bedenken und Irritationen zum Thema Auftragsvermittlung an Taxis aus dem Landkreis Dahme-Spreewald (LDS) in Berlin möchten wir Ihnen heute gern die Gründe für unsere Entscheidung, Aufträge auch an LDS-Taxis zu vermitteln, darlegen.
Es gibt die Regelung des LABO Berlin, dass LDS-Taxis in Berlin Aufträge am Taxi-Halteplatz und damit auch Funkaufträge am Halteplatz annehmen dürfen. Diese Vereinbarung wurde im Rahmen der Zulassung von Berliner Taxis am BER zwischen den Berliner und den LDS-Behörden getroffen.
Als marktbeherrschendes Unternehmen in der Berliner Taxivermittlung ist es uns daher aus rechtlichen Gründen gar nicht möglich, die Vermittlung von Fahraufträgen an LDS-Taxis zu verweigern.
Es war überdies auch der ausdrückliche Wunsch von Herrn Brumme, Amtsleiter des Straßenverkehrsamts in LDS, und diese Forderung wurde auch vom LABO Berlin unterstützt. Da wir mit dem LDS-Straßenverkehrsamt auch zukünftig über Verbesserungen für das Berliner Taxigewerbe am BER verhandeln müssen, sollten wir es nicht auf einen Rechtsstreit ankommen lassen.
Rechtlich gesehen ist Berlin leider gar nicht in der Lage, Forderungen zu stellen, und daher sind wir immer auf das wohlwollende Entgegenkommen der LDS-Behörden in den BER-Angelegenheiten angewiesen. Neue Verhärtungen in der Beziehung zwischen Berlin und LDS wären nicht im Interesse des Berliner Taxigewerbes und wären für weitere Verhandlungen nicht hilfreich.
Unser Entgegenkommen in der Frage der Auftragsvermittlung bedeutet nicht, dass wir uns mit den derzeitigen Regelungen am BER für Berliner Taxis zufriedengeben möchten, im Gegenteil.
Lasst uns die neuen Signale der Entspannung für zukünftige gute Kooperationen und für das Erreichen weiterer Verbesserungen nutzen.
Wir werden uns niemals mit der geringen Anzahl von zugelassenen Berliner Taxis am BER zufriedengeben und fordern mit Nachdruck, dass die Zahl der BER-Taxi-Zulassungen deutlich erweitert wird.
Unsere Forderung bleibt, dass alle Berliner Taxis, die die qualitativen Voraussetzungen erfüllen, eine Zulassung für den BER erhalten sollen. Über moderne Software für Flottensteuerungen wäre es schon heute möglich, die Zahl der am BER wartenden Taxis rein elektronisch zu steuern und sinnvoll zu begrenzen, sodass alle Berliner Taxis die Chance hätten, mit einer BER-Tour nach Berlin zurückzufahren.
Bei Fragen dazu wenden Sie sich bitte an die Kollegen der Fahrer- und Unternehmerbetreuung, gern per E-Mail an fub@taxi-berlin.de.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Ihr Hermann Waldner
und das Team von Taxi Berlin
#Berlin #Taxi #LDS #Taxivermittlung #Monopol
Comment le Hamas est devenu le visage violent de la résistance palestinienne | Entretien avec #Tareq_Baconi
▻https://aurdip.org/comment-le-hamas-est-devenu-le-visage-violent-de-la-resistance-palestinienne
les Palestiniens n’ont pas été récompensés de leurs concessions par la moindre forme d’autodétermination. À la place, leur concession a été utilisée pour étouffer toute voix palestinienne effectivement capable d’obtenir des concessions d’#Israël. La leçon durable acquise par le #Hamas auprès de l’#OLP, c’est qu’on ne peut pas concéder, qu’on ne peut assurément pas engager quelque forme de négociation que ce soit, à partir d’une position de faiblesse.
Et nous voyons cet enseignement revenir avec le Hamas dans les années ultérieures lorsqu’il envisage réellement des négociations avec Israël, mais continue à dire qu’il ne déposera pas ses armes tant que les négociations ne seront pas terminées. À la différence de l’OLP, qui a fait des concessions puis s’est attendue à en être récompensée, le Hamas a vraiment compris que ces parties n’étaient pas de bonne foi dans la négociation et qu’aucune concession n’est possible à partir d’une position de faiblesse. Les concessions ou les négociations doivent partir d’une position de résistance armée.
Quant à la tactique spécifique de l’attentat-suicide, c’est une pratique acquise auprès du #Hezbollah. En 1994, le gouvernement israélien a raflé des centaines de responsables et de membres du Hamas et les a déportés au Liban. C’était en fait un déplacement forcé de Palestiniens sous souveraineté israélienne hors des limites de l’État. Le résultat a été l’inverse de ce qui était attendu car, au lieu de chasser le Hamas et de le repousser dans l’ombre, l’opération a braqué un projecteur sur la situation difficile des Palestiniens et a permis au Hamas de commencer réellement à s’organiser et à entrer en relation avec le Hezbollah au Liban.
C’est là que le mouvement a rencontré pour la première fois la tactique de l’attentat-suicide. Quand le mouvement a adopté cette tactique dans les années 90, il se centrait sur un élément. Sa priorité était d’entraver les discussions d’Oslo, parce qu’il était convaincu, à juste titre, que ces négociations ne feraient pas progresser les droits des Palestiniens, qu’elles consolideraient les défaites palestiniennes. Le recours aux attentats-suicides servait très précisément à compromettre les négociations, à gêner pour ainsi dire l’OLP qui s’appuyait, pour négocier, sur l’idée qu’elle sécurisait les territoires palestiniens et assurait la sécurité des Juifs israéliens, et à exercer une pression sur le gouvernement israélien pour l’éloigner des négociations, d’une manière ou d’une autre.
C’était donc en grande partie une tactique de sabotage, ce n’était pas une tactique franche. Elle suscitait des questionnements moraux et stratégiques colossaux à l’intérieur du mouvement pour savoir s’il devait, ou pas, adopter cette politique. Mais, rétrospectivement, cette politique — là encore, en mettant de côté les aspects éthiques — est réellement parvenue à entraver les négociations.
le texte de Baconi vaut pour l’histoire du Hamas, du moins n’ai-je rien lu de si détaillé et analytique. mais il est pas dépourvu d’affirmations discutables et souffre d’un angle mort bien trop conventionnel. il affirme deux fois que le génocide est inscrit dans la nature de l’état colonial israélien (là où Sambar, par exemple soulignait que la politique d’expulsion n’était pas une politique d’extermination et sans que la propension aux crimes, de guerre, contre l’humanité, du colonialisme ne démontre une "nécessité" du génocide d’"inférieurs" qui sont aussi une main d’oeuvre et une clientèle), et n’évoque qu’une fois l’antisémitisme (de manière banale, il n’en parle qu’en terme de "chantage à", la chose même ne le concerne en rien, il se refuse à la penser).
or, avant même l’invention allemande au XIXe de l’antisémtisme, à l’instar de la judéophobie chrétienne, la judéophobie est inscrite dans la tradition musulmane (dhima), un archaïsme qui reste présent et depuis lequel on fait de part et d’autre bouillir les marmites de l’avenir.
on pourra lire en regard, cet entretien de Laurens, historien de la Palestine, qui conclue lucidement sur un retour de la « question juive »
►https://seenthis.net/messages/1028271
À Paris, l’emprise d’Airbnb dépasse désormais le périph’
Des chercheurs viennent de publier un site qui cartographie l’emprise d’Airbnb à Paris et en #Île-de-France. Résultat : le nombre d’annonces a explosé, et les #tarifs ont bondi.
C’est une synthèse inédite sur la croissance d’Airbnb à Paris et en Île-de-France. Une équipe de chercheuses et chercheurs de l’université Paris Cité et du CNRS ont mis en ligne en septembre dernier un site internet dressant un état des lieux très précis de l’ampleur prise par le géant étasunien de la location de courte durée.
Premier constat : au-delà de Paris, Airbnb a étendu son empire locatif aux villes de petite et de grande couronne. La capitale, qui représentait 81 % des nuitées réservées en Île-de-France en 2016, n’en pèse plus que 54 % en 2022, chiffrent les chercheurs.
En #Seine-Saint-Denis, la progression est impressionnante : le nombre d’annonces est passé de 1 311 en 2015, à 9 341 en 2022. De même, dans les Hauts-de-Seine, on passe de 2 668 annonces actives en 2015, à 12 498 en 2022.
Des prix en hausse de 36 % en six ans
« Le Covid n’a été qu’une parenthèse dans cette progression. Certaines zones autour de Roissy ou d’Orly ont des pressions aussi importantes que dans des villes très touristiques », explique Marianne Guérois, maîtresse de conférences en géographie à l’université Paris-Diderot et membre de Géographie-cités, qui a travaillé sur le projet de recherche.
Et certains secteurs avaient déjà bien résisté pendant la crise sanitaire : sans surprise, les communes à proximité de grandes forêts comme #Fontainebleau, #Rambouillet, le parc naturel de la #vallée_de_Chevreuse ou encore les alentours du parc #Disneyland.
Autre phénomène : les loueurs ne sont plus des individus lambda qui mettent leur résidence principale en location le temps de leurs vacances. Il s’agit désormais de professionnels multipropriétaires. Les #annonces_commerciales ont en effet représenté 42 % de l’offre en 2022, contre 24 % en 2016.
Les tarifs ont aussi augmenté : toujours en 2022, une nuit réservée en Île-de-France a coûté en moyenne 40 dollars (environ 37 euros), ce qui représente une hausse de 36 % depuis 2016. L’#inflation la plus forte s’est faite à Paris (+63 %).
Faciliter la surveillance d’Airbnb
Pour réaliser cette étude, les chercheurs ont acheté des données à #AirDNA, une entreprise privée étasunienne qui aide les investisseurs à choisir le meilleur endroit où acquérir un appartement afin de rentabiliser au maximum leur achat.
« Il faudrait mutualiser toutes ces #données qui sont aujourd’hui payantes, car c’est un gaspillage d’argent public de les acheter. Avec ce travail, nous aimerions promouvoir une démarche de sciences ouvertes et participatives », explique Ronan Ysebaert, ingénieur en sciences de l’information géographique de l’université Paris Cité.
En 2019, l’Institut Paris Région avait déjà publié un état des lieux avant la crise du Covid-19. Et une autre plateforme open source, #Inside_Airbnb, a été lancée en 2016 par l’activiste new-yorkais anti-Airbnb Murray Cox. Mais ses données concernent uniquement la capitale, occultant la croissance exponentielle de la plateforme de l’autre côté du périphérique.
Dans le futur, les chercheurs de l’université Paris Cité et du CNRS aimeraient comparer l’évolution des prix sur Airbnb avec celle du parc locatif classique et mesurer son impact sur la hausse de l’immobilier.
Leur but est aussi d’aider à mieux encadrer l’essor de la plateforme étasunienne : « Nous voulons donner des outils pour faciliter la surveillance d’Airbnb aux communes qui manquent de moyen pour le faire », conclut Ronan Ysebaert. Actuellement, seule Paris possède une brigade de contrôle des annonces illégales, qui a infligé 6,5 millions d’euros d’amende depuis 2021.
▻https://reporterre.net/A-Paris-l-emprise-d-Airbnb-depasse-desormais-le-periph
#urbanisme #AirBnB #Paris #France #prix #cartographie #visualisation
ping @visionscarto
#Géovisualisation multi-échelles des locations Airbnb en région parisienne (2016-2022)
Issu d’un projet de recherche en géographie porté par le RIATE en collaboration avec les laboratoires Prodig et Géographie-cités, ce site vise à documenter la diffusion spatio-temporelle des locations de courte durée Airbnb dans la région parisienne, entre 2016 et 2022.
La Corte europea condanna l’Italia a pagare per i maltrattamenti ai migranti : costretti a denudarsi, privati della libertà e malnutriti
La causa avviata da quattro esuli sudanesi: dovranno ricevere in tutto 36 mila euro dallo Stato
VENTIMIGLIA. Spogliati «senza alcuna ragione convincente». Maltrattati e «arbitrariamente privati della libertà». Ecco perché, la Corte Europea per i Diritti dell’Uomo ha condannato l’Italia a risarcire quattro migranti sudanesi con cifre che vanno dagli 8 ai diecimila euro ciascuno. La sentenza della prima sezione della Corte (presieduta da Marko Bošnjak) è datata 16 novembre, ma riguarda episodi accaduti nell’estate del 2016. Dopo aver avviato le pratiche per far attribuire ai loro clienti lo status di rifugiato, nel febbraio 2017 gli avvocati (Nicoletta Masuelli, Gianluca Vitale e Donatella Bava, tutti di Torino) avevano deciso di rivolgersi alla Corte di Strasburgo.
I quattro erano arrivati in Italia in momenti diversi: due «in un giorno imprecisato di luglio» del 2016 a Cagliari, un altro il 14 luglio a Reggio Calabria, uno il 6 agosto sempre a Reggio Calabria e l’ultimo l’8 agosto «in un luogo imprecisato della costa siciliana». Il più giovane ha 30 anni, il più vecchio 43.
In comune, i quattro hanno che sono stati tutti trasferiti nello stesso centro di accoglienza gestito dalla Croce Rossa a Ventimiglia. Sono stati «costretti a salire su un furgone della polizia», trasportati in una caserma dove sono stati «perquisiti», obbligati a consegnare «i telefoni, i lacci delle scarpe e le cinture» e poi «è stato chiesto loro di spogliarsi». Sono rimasti nudi dieci minuti, in attesa che gli agenti rilevassero le loro impronte digitali.
Concluse le procedure, la polizia ha fatto salire i quattro (assieme a una ventina di connazionali) su un pullman. Destinazione: l’hotspot di Taranto. Secondo quanto ricostruito nella sentenza, i migranti sono stati «costretti a rimanere seduti per l’intero viaggio» e potevano andare in bagno soltanto scortati e lasciando la porta spalancata, rimanendo «esposti alla vista degli agenti e degli altri migranti».
Il 23 agosto, i quattro (con un gruppo di compatrioti) sono risaliti su un pullman diretti a Ventimiglia, dove hanno incontrato un rappresentante del governo sudanese che li ha riconosciuti come cittadini del suo Paese. A quel punto, è stata avviata la procedura per il rimpatrio. In aereo, dall’aeroporto di Torino Caselle. Ma sul velivolo c’era posto soltanto per sette migranti, così il questore aveva firmato un provvedimento di trattenimento e i quattro sono stati accompagnati al Centro di identificazione ed espulsione di Torino.
Uno, però, è stato prelevato pochi giorni dopo dalla polizia. Per lui, era pronto un posto sull’aereo per il rimpatrio. Lui non voleva, arrivato a bordo ha incominciato a dare in escandescenze assieme a un altro migrante finché il comandante del velivolo ha deciso di chiedere alla polizia di farli sbarcare entrambi, per problemi di sicurezza. Appena rientrato al Cie, l’uomo ha ribadito la sua intenzione di ottenere la protezione internazionale. Lo stesso hanno fatto gli altri tre. Tutti hanno ottenuto lo status di rifugiato.
La sentenza della Corte condanna l’Italia a pagare per varie violazioni. Una riguarda «la procedura di spogliazione forzata da parte della polizia», che «può costituire una misura talmente invasiva e potenzialmente degradante da non poter essere applicata senza un motivo imperativo». E per i giudici di Strasburgo «il governo non ha fornito alcuna ragione convincente» per giustificare quel comportamento. Poi, ci sono le accuse dei quattro di essere rimasti senz’acqua e cibo nel trasferimento Ventimiglia-Taranto e ritorno. Il governo aveva ribattuto fornendo «le copie delle richieste della questura di Imperia a una società di catering», che però «riguardavano altri migranti». Per la Corte, quella situazione «esaminata nel contesto generale degli eventi era chiaramente di natura tale da provocare stress mentale». E ancora, le condizioni vissute in quei giorni «hanno causato ai ricorrenti un notevole disagio e un sentimento di umiliazione a un livello tale da equivalere a un trattamento degradante», vietato dalla legge. I giudici di Strasburgo ritengono, poi, che i quattro siano «stati arbitrariamente privati della libertà», pur se in una situazione di «vuoto legislativo dovuto alla mancanza di una normativa specifica in materia di hotspot», già denunciata nel 2016 dal garante nazionale dei detenuti.
Per la Corte, ce n’è abbastanza per condannate l’Italia a risarcire i quattro: uno dovrà ricevere 8 mila euro, un altro 9 mila e altri due diecimila «a titolo di danno morale».
▻https://www.lastampa.it/cronaca/2023/11/18/news/litalia_condannata_a_pagare_per_i_maltrattamenti_ai_migranti-13871399
Le périple des 4 Soudanais en résumé :
– 4 personnes concernées, ressortissants soudanais
– 2 arrivés à Cagliari en juillet 2016, un le 14 juillet à Reggio Calabria, un le 16 août 2016
– Transfert des 4 au centre d’accueil de la Croix-Rouge à Vintimille avec un fourgon de la police —> dénudés, humiliés
– Transfert (avec 20 autres) vers l’hotspot de Taranto
– 23 août —> transfert à Vintimille par bus, RV avec un représentant du gouvernement soudanais qui a reconnu leur nationalité soudanaise, début procédure de renvoi vers Soudan en avion
– Transfert à l’aéroport de Torino Caselle, mais pas de place pour les 4 dans l’avion
– Transfert au centre de rétention de Turin
– Personne ne part, les 4 arrivent à demander l’asile et obtenir le statut de réfugié
– Novembre 2023 : Italie condamnée par la Cour européenne des droits de l’homme
#justice #condamnation #Italie #frontières #frontière_sud-alpine #CEDH #cour_européenne_des_droits_de_l'homme #mauvais_traitements #privation_de_liberté #nudité #violences_policières #Taranto #hotspot #CPR #rétention #détention_administrative #réfugiés_soudanais #Turin #migrerrance #humiliation
voir aussi ce fil de discussion sur les transferts frontière_sud-alpine - hotspot de Taranto :
Migranti come (costosi) pacchi postali
Denudati, maltrattati e privati della libertà: la CEDU condanna nuovamente l’Italia
Le persone migranti denunciarono i rastrellamenti avvenuti a Ventimiglia nell’estate 2016
La Corte Europea per i Diritti dell’Uomo (CEDU) ha nuovamente condannato l’Italia a risarcire con un totale di 27mila euro (più 4.000 euro di costi e spese legali) quattro cittadini sudanesi per averli denudati, maltrattati e privati della libertà nell’estate 2016 durante le cosiddette operazioni per “alleggerire la pressione alla frontiera” di Ventimiglia, quando centinaia di persone migranti venivano coattivamente trasferite negli hotspot del sud Italia 1 e, in alcuni casi, trasferiti nei CIE e quindi rimpatriati nel paese di origine 2.
C’è da dire che la Corte avrebbe potuto condannare l’Italia con maggiore severità, soprattutto per quanto riguarda le deportazioni in un paese non sicuro come il Sudan. Tuttavia, si tratta dell’ennesima conferma che l’Italia nega i diritti fondamentali alle persone migranti e che i governi portano avanti operazioni nei quali gli abusi e i maltrattamenti delle forze dell’ordine non sono delle eccezioni o degli eccessi di un singolo agente, ma qualcosa di strutturale e quindi sistemico. E quando queste violazioni sono denunciate, nemmeno vengono condotte indagini per fare luce sulle responsabilità e indagare i colpevoli.
La sentenza della CEDU pubblicata il 16 novembre 3 riguarda nove cittadini sudanesi arrivati in Italia nell’estate del 2016 i quali hanno denunciato diversi abusi subiti dalle autorità italiane, un tentativo di rimpatrio forzato e uno portato a termine.
Nel primo caso i ricorrenti hanno avanzato denunce in merito al loro arresto, trasporto e detenzione in Italia, uno di loro ha anche affermato di essere stato maltrattato.
I quattro ricorrenti del primo caso hanno ottenuto la protezione internazionale, mentre i cinque ricorrenti del secondo caso hanno affermato di aver fatto parte di un gruppo di 40 persone migranti che erano state espulse subito dopo il loro arrivo in Italia.
Le persone sono state difese dall’avv. Gianluca Vitale e dell’avv.te Nicoletta Masuelli e Donatella Bava, tutte del foro di Torino.
I fatti riportati nella sintesi
I quattro ricorrenti nel primo caso sono nati tra il 1980 e il 1994. Vivono tutti a Torino, tranne uno che vive in Germania. I ricorrenti nel secondo caso sono nati tra il 1989 e il 1996. Uno vive in Egitto, uno in Niger e tre in Sudan.
Tutti e nove i richiedenti sono arrivati in Italia nell’estate del 2016. I primi quattro hanno raggiunto le coste italiane in barca, mentre gli altri cinque sono stati salvati in mare dalla Marina italiana. Alcuni sono transitati attraverso vari hotspot e tutti sono finiti a Ventimiglia presso il centro della Croce Rossa.
Secondo i ricorrenti nel primo caso, il 17 e il 19 agosto 2016 sono stati arrestati, costretti a salire su un furgone della polizia e portati in quella che hanno capito essere una stazione di polizia. Sono stati perquisiti, è stato chiesto loro di spogliarsi e sono stati lasciati nudi per circa dieci minuti prima che venissero prese le loro impronte digitali.
Sono stati poi costretti a salire su un autobus, scortati da numerosi agenti di polizia, senza conoscere la loro destinazione e senza ricevere alcun documento sulle ragioni del loro trasferimento o della loro privazione di libertà. In seguito hanno scoperto di essere stati trasferiti da Ventimiglia all’hotspot di Taranto.
Nell’hotspot di Taranto, dal quale non avrebbero potuto uscire, sostengono di aver ricevuto un provvedimento di respingimento il 22 agosto 2016. Il giorno successivo sono stati riportati a Ventimiglia in autobus.
Secondo i ricorrenti, le condizioni all’hotspot erano difficili come lo erano durante ciascuno dei trasferimenti in autobus durati 15 ore. Erano sotto il costante controllo della polizia, in un clima di violenza e minacce, senza cibo o acqua sufficienti in piena estate.
Sostengono di non aver incontrato un avvocato o un giudice durante quel periodo e di non aver capito cosa stesse succedendo. Il 24 agosto 2016 sono stati trasferiti da Ventimiglia all’aeroporto di Torino per essere imbarcati su un volo per il Sudan. Poiché non c’erano abbastanza posti sull’aereo, il loro trasferimento è stato posticipato. Sono stati quindi trasferiti al CIE (Centro di identificazione ed espulsione) di Torino e il Questore ha emesso per ciascuno di loro un provvedimento di trattenimento.
Uno dei ricorrenti (T.B.) sostiene che le autorità hanno tentato di espellerlo nuovamente il 1° settembre 2016. Ha protestato e la polizia lo ha colpito al volto e allo stomaco. Lo hanno poi costretto a salire sull’aereo e lo hanno legato. Tuttavia, il pilota si è rifiutato di decollare a causa del suo stato di agitazione. È stato riportato al CIE di Torino.
Tutti e quattro i richiedenti hanno ottenuto la protezione internazionale, essenzialmente sulla base della loro storia personale in Sudan e del conseguente rischio di vita in caso di rimpatrio.
Secondo i ricorrenti del secondo caso, invece, non sono mai stati informati in nessun momento della possibilità di chiedere protezione internazionale. Sostengono inoltre di aver fatto parte di un gruppo di circa 40 migranti per i quali è stato trovato posto sul volo in partenza il 24 agosto 2016 e di essere stati rimpatriati a Khartoum lo stesso giorno.
Il governo italiano ha contestato tale affermazione, sostenendo che i ricorrenti non sono mai stati sul territorio italiano. Hanno fornito alla Corte le fotografie identificative delle persone rimpatriate in Sudan il 24 agosto 2016, sostenendo che non presentavano una stretta somiglianza con i ricorrenti. Ha sostenuto inoltre che i nomi delle persone allontanate non corrispondevano a quelli dei ricorrenti. In considerazione del disaccordo delle parti, la Corte ha nominato un esperto di comparazione facciale della polizia belga (articolo A1, paragrafi 1 e 2, del Regolamento della Corte – atti istruttori) che, il 5 ottobre 2022, ha presentato una relazione per valutare se le persone rappresentate nelle fotografie e nei filmati forniti dai rappresentanti dei ricorrenti corrispondessero a quelle raffigurate nelle fotografie identificative presentate dal Governo.
Il rapporto ha concluso, per quanto riguarda uno dei ricorrenti nel caso, W.A., che i due individui raffigurati in tali fonti corrispondevano al massimo livello di affidabilità. Per quanto riguarda gli altri quattro richiedenti, non vi era alcuna corrispondenza affidabile.
La decisione della Corte
Le sentenze sono state emesse da una Camera di sette giudici, composta da: Marko Bošnjak (Slovenia), Presidente, Alena Poláčková (Slovacchia), Krzysztof Wojtyczek (Polonia), Péter Paczolay (Ungheria), Ivana Jelić (Montenegro), Erik Wennerström (Svezia), Raffaele Sabato (Italia), e anche Liv Tigerstedt, Vice Cancelliere di Sezione.
La Corte, ha ritenuto, all’unanimità, che vi è stata:
1) una violazione dell’articolo 3 per quanto riguarda l’assenza di una ragione sufficientemente convincente per giustificare il fatto che i ricorrenti siano stati lasciati nudi insieme a molti altri migranti, senza privacy e sorvegliati dalla polizia e le condizioni dei loro successivi trasferimenti in autobus da e verso un hotspot, sotto il costante controllo della polizia, senza sapere dove stessero andando;
2) una violazione dell’articolo 3, in quanto non è stata svolta alcuna indagine in merito alle accuse del ricorrente di essere stato picchiato da agenti di polizia durante un tentativo di rimpatrio;
3) la violazione dell’articolo 5, paragrafi 1, 2 e 4 (diritto alla libertà e alla sicurezza) per quanto riguarda tre dei quattro ricorrenti in relazione al loro fermo, trasporto e detenzione arbitrari.
La Corte ha stabilito che l’Italia deve pagare ai ricorrenti nel caso A.E. e T.B. contro Italia 27.000 euro per danni morali e 4.000 euro, congiuntamente, per costi e spese.
In particolare:
Per quanto riguarda i restanti reclami dei ricorrenti in A.E. e T.B. contro l’Italia, la Corte ha riscontrato che le condizioni del loro arresto e del trasferimento in autobus, considerate nel loro insieme, devono aver causato un notevole disagio e umiliazione, equivalenti a un trattamento degradante, in violazione dell’Articolo 3.
Inoltre, i successivi lunghi trasferimenti in autobus dei ricorrenti sono avvenuti in un breve lasso di tempo e in un periodo dell’anno molto caldo, senza cibo o acqua sufficienti e senza che sapessero dove erano diretti o perché. Erano sotto il costante controllo della polizia, in un clima di violenza e di minacce. Queste condizioni, nel complesso, devono essere state fonte di angoscia.
Infine, la Corte ha riscontrato una violazione dell’Articolo 3 per quanto riguarda il richiedente (T.B.) che ha affermato di essere stato picchiato durante un altro tentativo di allontanamento. Due degli altri richiedenti hanno confermato il suo racconto durante i colloqui relativi alle loro richieste di protezione internazionale; uno ha dichiarato in particolare di aver visto un altro migrante che veniva riportato dalla polizia dall’aeroporto con il volto tumefatto. Anche se T.B. aveva detto, durante un colloquio con le autorità, di essere in grado di identificare i tre agenti di polizia responsabili dei suoi maltrattamenti, non è stata condotta alcuna indagine.
La Corte ha notato che il Governo le aveva fornito una copia di un’ordinanza di refusal-of-entry nei confronti di uno dei richiedenti, A.E., datata 1 agosto 2016, e la Corte ha quindi dichiarato inammissibile il suo reclamo sulla sua detenzione. D’altra parte, ha rilevato che gli altri tre ricorrenti nel caso, ai quali non erano stati notificati ordini di refusal-of-entry fino al 22 agosto 2016, erano stati arrestati e trasferiti senza alcuna documentazione e senza che potessero lasciare l’hotspot di Taranto. Ciò ha comportato una privazione arbitraria della loro libertà, in violazione dell’Articolo 5 § 1.
Inoltre, era assente una legislazione chiara e accessibile relativa agli hotspot e la Corte non ha avuto alcuna prova di come le autorità avrebbero potuto informare i richiedenti delle ragioni legali della loro privazione di libertà o dare loro l’opportunità di contestare in tribunale i motivi della loro detenzione de facto.
La Corte ha però respinto come inammissibili tutti i reclami dei nove ricorrenti, tranne uno, in merito al fatto che le autorità italiane non avevano preso in considerazione il rischio di trattamenti inumani se fossero stati rimpatriati in Sudan. In A.E. e T.B. contro Italia, i richiedenti, che avevano ottenuto la protezione internazionale, non erano più a rischio di deportazione e non potevano quindi affermare di essere vittime di una violazione dell’Articolo 3. In W.A. e altri c. Italia, la Corte ha ritenuto che quattro dei cinque ricorrenti, per i quali il rapporto della polizia belga del 2022 non aveva stabilito una corrispondenza affidabile tra le fotografie fornite dalle parti, non avessero sufficientemente motivato i loro reclami.
La Corte ha dichiarato ammissibile il reclamo del ricorrente, W.A.. Ha osservato che i documenti disponibili erano sufficienti per concludere che si trattava di una delle persone indicate nelle fotografie identificative fornite dal Governo. Ha quindi ritenuto che fosse tra i cittadini sudanesi allontanati in Sudan il 24 agosto 2016. Tuttavia, la Corte ha continuato a ritenere che non vi fosse stata alcuna violazione dell’Articolo 3 nel caso di W.A. .
In particolare, ha notato che c’erano state delle imprecisioni nel suo modulo di richiesta alla Corte e che, sebbene fosse stato assistito da un avvocato in diversi momenti della procedura di espulsione, aveva esplicitamente dichiarato di non voler chiedere la protezione internazionale e di essere semplicemente in transito in Italia. Inoltre, a differenza dei richiedenti nel caso A.E. e T.B. contro l’Italia, che avevano ottenuto la protezione internazionale sulla base delle loro esperienze personali, W.A. aveva sostenuto di appartenere a una tribù perseguitata dal Governo sudanese solo dopo aver presentato la domanda alla Corte europea. Questa informazione non era quindi disponibile per le autorità italiane al momento rilevante e la Corte ha concluso che il Governo italiano non ha violato il suo dovere di fornire garanzie effettive per proteggere W.A. dal respingimento arbitrario nel suo Paese d’origine.
– Guerra al desiderio migrante. Deportazioni da Ventimiglia e Como verso gli hotspot, di Francesco Ferri (►https://www.meltingpot.org/2016/08/guerra-al-desiderio-migrante-deportazioni-da-ventimiglia-e-como-verso-gl) – 17 agosto 2026
– Rimpatrio forzato dei cittadini sudanesi: l’Italia ha violato i diritti. Rapporto giuridico sul memorandum d’intesa Italia-Sudan a cura della Clinica Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza di Torino (▻https://www.meltingpot.org/2017/10/rimpatrio-forzato-dei-cittadini-sudanesi-litalia-ha-violato-i-diritti-um) – 31 ottobre 2017.
- The cases of A.E. and T.B. v. Italy (application nos. 18911/17, 18941/17, and 18959/17, ▻https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-228836) and W.A. and Others v. Italy (no. 18787/17, ▻https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-228835)
►https://www.meltingpot.org/2023/11/denudati-maltrattati-e-privati-della-liberta-la-cedu-condanna-nuovamente
« En sociologie, la prise en compte du ressenti peut aider à identifier les inégalités les plus critiques », Nicolas Duvoux
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2023/11/20/en-sociologie-la-prise-en-compte-du-ressenti-peut-aider-a-identifier-les-ine
La sociologie ne peut prétendre à la neutralité, puisqu’elle est une science étudiant la société au sein de laquelle elle émerge. Elle est prise dans les divisions et conflits sociaux, elle met au jour des formes de contrainte et de domination auxquelles elle ne peut rester indifférente. De quel côté penchons-nous ?, demandait à ses pairs le sociologue américain Howard Becker, dans un texte majeur (« Whose Side Are We on ? », Social Problems, 1967). Cependant, cette discipline n’a pas vocation à se substituer à la politique et aux choix collectifs qui relèvent du débat public. La contribution qu’elle peut apporter est de formuler un diagnostic aussi précis que possible sur les dynamiques sociales et la différenciation de leurs effets selon les groupes sociaux.
L’inflation et la hausse des prix alimentaires très forte depuis l’année 2022 affectent beaucoup plus durement les ménages modestes. Ceux-ci consacrent en effet une part plus importante de leurs revenus à ce poste de consommation. Le relever revient à formuler un constat objectif. De même, la hausse des taux d’intérêt immobiliers exclut davantage de l’accès à la propriété les ménages sans apport (plutôt jeunes et de milieux populaires) que les autres. Il y va ainsi des évolutions de courte durée, mais aussi de celles de longue durée : le chômage touche plus fortement les moins qualifiés, les ouvriers et employés, même s’il n’épargne pas les cadres, notamment vieillissants ; la pauvreté touche davantage les jeunes, même si elle n’épargne pas les retraités.
Formuler un diagnostic suppose d’éviter deux écueils qui se répondent et saturent un débat public fait d’oppositions, voire de polarisation, au détriment d’une compréhension de l’état de la société. La littérature du XIXe siècle – comme les sciences sociales avec lesquelles elle a alors partie liée – a souvent oscillé entre d’un côté une représentation misérabiliste du peuple, en soulignant la proximité des classes laborieuses et des classes dangereuses, et de l’autre une vision populiste qui exalte les vertus des classes populaires. Claude Grignon et Jean-Claude Passeron l’ont montré dans un livre qui a fait date (Le Savant et le Populaire, Gallimard, 1989). De la même manière, le débat public semble aujourd’hui osciller entre un optimisme propre aux populations favorisées économiquement et un catastrophisme des élites culturelles.
Cruel paradoxe
Pouvoir envisager l’avenir de manière conquérante vous place du côté des classes aisées ou en ascension. Cette thèse a un enjeu politique évident : le rapport subjectif à l’avenir nous informe sur la position sociale occupée par un individu et non sur sa représentation de la société. Pour ne prendre qu’un exemple, sur la fracture entre les groupes d’âge, on n’est guère surpris qu’en pleine période inflationniste le regain de confiance en son avenir individuel soit le privilège quasi exclusif [d’un %] des seniors. Il faut être déjà âgé pour penser que l’on a un avenir, cruel paradoxe d’une société qui fait porter à sa jeunesse le poids de la pauvreté et de la précarité de l’emploi, au risque de susciter une révolte de masse.
Peut-être est-ce un signe de l’intensité des tensions sociales, nombre d’essais soulignent le décalage entre la réalité d’une société où les inégalités sont relativement contenues et le pessimisme de la population. Les dépenses de protection sociale sont parmi les plus élevées du monde, sinon les plus élevées. En conséquence de ces dépenses, les Français jouissent d’un niveau d’éducation, d’égalité et d’une sécurité sociale presque sans équivalent. Ces faits sont avérés.
Mais le diagnostic ne se borne pas à ce rappel : les données objectives qui dressent le portrait d’une France en « paradis » sont, dans un second temps, confrontées à l’enfer du « ressenti », du mal-être, du pessimisme radical exprimé par les Français, souvent dans des sondages. Ainsi, dans « L’état de la France vu par les Français 2023 » de l’institut Ipsos, il apparaît que « 70 % des Français se déclarent pessimistes quant à l’avenir de la France ». Les tenants de la vision « optimiste », qui se fondent sur une critique du ressenti, tendent à disqualifier les revendications de redistribution et d’égalité.
Or l’écart entre le « ressenti » et la réalité objective des inégalités peut être interprété de manière moins triviale et surtout moins conservatrice. Cet écart peut être travaillé et mis au service d’un diagnostic affiné de la situation sociale, un diagnostic qui conserve l’objectivité de la mesure tout en se rapprochant du ressenti.
Une autre mesure de la pauvreté
La notion de « dépenses contraintes » en porte la marque : ce sont les dépenses préengagées, qui plombent les capacités d’arbitrage des ménages, notamment populaires, du fait de la charge du logement. Entre 2001 et 2017, ces dépenses préengagées occupent une part croissante du budget, passant de 27 % à 32 %, selon France Stratégie. « Le poids des dépenses préengagées dans la dépense totale dépend d’abord du niveau de vie. Il est plus lourd dans la dépense totale des ménages pauvres que dans celle des ménages aisés, et l’écart a beaucoup augmenté entre 2001 (6 points d’écart) et 2017 (13 points d’écart). »
Cette évolution et le renforcement des écarts placent de nombreux ménages – même s’ils ne sont pas statistiquement pauvres – en difficulté. La volonté de rapprocher « mesure objective » et « ressenti » permet de prendre une tout autre mesure de la pauvreté, qui double si l’on prend en compte le niveau de vie « arbitrable » , soit le revenu disponible après prise en compte des dépenses préengagées.
De ce point de vue, l’équivalent du taux de pauvreté, c’est-à-dire la part des personnes dont le revenu arbitrable par unité de consommation est inférieur à 60 % du niveau de vie arbitrable médian, s’établissait à 23 % en 2011, selon des travaux réalisés par Michèle Lelièvre et Nathan Rémila pour la direction de la recherche, des études, de l’évaluation et des statistiques. Ce chiffre atteint même 27 % si l’on prend en compte les dépenses peu compressibles, comme l’alimentation. Comparativement, le taux de pauvreté tel qu’on le définit traditionnellement se fixait en 2011 à 14,3 %. L’augmentation de la fréquentation des structures d’aide alimentaire témoigne des difficultés croissantes d’une part conséquente de la population.
Le parti du catastrophisme
L’optimisme empêche de penser les réalités dans toute leur violence et d’identifier les remèdes qui conviennent le mieux à ces maux. Le catastrophisme doit également être évité. Il a tendance à accuser exclusivement les super-riches dans la genèse des maux sociaux, en mettant en avant une explosion des inégalités démentie par les faits, si l’on exclut le patrimoine et la forte augmentation de la pauvreté dans la période post-Covid-19. En prenant le parti du catastrophisme, la sociologie, et avec elle la société, s’exonérerait d’un travail de fond.
Un certain nombre de points soulignés par ceux qui critiquent le pessimisme restent vrais. La société française a connu une relative mais réelle démocratisation de l’accès à des positions privilégiées. Les postes d’encadrement n’ont cessé d’augmenter en proportion de la structure des emplois, une partie non négligeable de la population – y compris au sein des catégories populaires – a pu avoir accès à la propriété de sa résidence principale, a pu bénéficier ou anticipe une augmentation de son patrimoine. Les discours sur la précarisation ou l’appauvrissement généralisés masquent la pénalité spécifique subie par les groupes (jeunes, non ou peu qualifiés, membres des minorités discriminées, femmes soumises à des temps partiels subis, familles monoparentales) qui sont les plus affectés et qui servent, de fait, de variable d’ajustement au monde économique. Le catastrophisme ignore ou feint d’ignorer les ressources que les classes moyennes tirent du système éducatif public par exemple.
Le catastrophisme nourrit, comme l’optimisme, une vision du monde social homogène, inapte à saisir les inégalités les plus critiques et les points de tension les plus saillants, ceux-là mêmes sur lesquels il faudrait, en priorité, porter l’action. La prise en compte du ressenti peut aider à les identifier et à guider le débat et les décideurs publics, à condition de ne pas entretenir de confusion sur le statut des informations produites, qui ne se substituent pas aux mesures objectives, mais peuvent aider à les rapprocher du sens vécu par les populations et ainsi à faire de la science un instrument de l’action.
Nicolas Duvoux est professeur de sociologie à l’université Paris-VIII, auteur de L’Avenir confisqué. Inégalités de temps vécu, classes sociales et patrimoine (PUF, 272 pages, 23 euros).
voir cette lecture des ressorts du vote populaire RN depuis les années 2000
►https://seenthis.net/messages/1027569
#sociologie #inflation #alimentation #aide_alimentaire #dépenses_contraintes #revenu_arbitrable #revenu #pauvreté #chômage #jeunesse #femmes #mères_isolées #précarité #taux_de_pauvreté #patrimoine #inégalités #riches #classes_populaires
« Les inégalités sont perçues comme une agression, une forme de mépris », François Dubet - Propos recueillis par Gérard Courtois, publié le 12 mars 2019
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/03/12/francois-dubet-les-inegalites-sont-percues-comme-une-agression-une-forme-de-
Entretien. Le sociologue François Dubet, professeur émérite à l’université Bordeaux-II et directeur d’études à l’Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), vient de publier Le Temps des passions tristes. Inégalités et populisme (Seuil, 112 p., 11,80 €).
Reprenant l’expression de Spinoza, vous estimez que la société est dominée par les « passions tristes ». Quelles sont-elles et comment se sont-elles imposées ?
Comme beaucoup, je suis sensible à un air du temps porté sur la dénonciation, la haine, le #ressentiment, le sentiment d’être méprisé et la capacité de mépriser à son tour. Ce ne sont pas là seulement des #émotions personnelles : il s’agit aussi d’un #style_politique qui semble se répandre un peu partout. On peut sans doute expliquer ce climat dangereux de plusieurs manières, mais il me semble que la question des #inégalités y joue un rôle essentiel.
Voulez-vous parler du creusement des inégalités ?
Bien sûr. On observe une croissance des inégalités sociales, notamment une envolée des hyper riches qui pose des problèmes de maîtrise économique et fiscale essentiels. Mais je ne pense pas que l’ampleur des inégalités explique tout : je fais plutôt l’hypothèse que l’expérience des inégalités a profondément changé de nature. Pour le dire vite, tant que nous vivions dans une société industrielle relativement intégrée, les inégalités semblaient structurées par les #classes sociales : celles-ci offraient une représentation stable des inégalités, elles forgeaient des identités collectives et elles aspiraient à une réduction des écarts entre les classes [et, gare à la revanche ! à leur suppression]– c’est ce qu’on appelait le progrès social. Ce système organisait aussi les mouvements sociaux et plus encore la vie politique : la #gauche et la #droite représentaient grossièrement les classes sociales.
Aujourd’hui, avec les mutations du capitalisme, les inégalités se transforment et se multiplient : chacun de nous est traversé par plusieurs inégalités qui ne se recouvrent pas forcément. Nous sommes inégaux « en tant que » – salariés ou précaires, diplômés ou non diplômés, femmes ou hommes, vivant en ville ou ailleurs, seul ou en famille, en fonction de nos origines… Alors que les plus riches et les plus pauvres concentrent et agrègent toutes les inégalités, la plupart des individus articulent des inégalités plus ou moins cohérentes et convergentes. Le thème de l’#exploitation de classe cède d’ailleurs progressivement le pas devant celui des #discriminations, qui ciblent des inégalités spécifiques.
Pourquoi les inégalités multiples et individualisées sont-elles vécues plus difficilement que les inégalités de classes ?
Dans les inégalités de classes, l’appartenance collective protégeait les individus d’un sentiment de mépris et leur donnait même une forme de fierté. Mais, surtout, ces inégalités étaient politiquement représentées autour d’un conflit social et de multiples organisations et mouvements sociaux. Dans une certaine mesure, aussi injustes soient-elles, ces inégalités ne menaçaient pas la dignité des individus. Mais quand les inégalités se multiplient et s’individualisent, quand elles cessent d’être politiquement interprétées et représentées, elles mettent en cause les individus eux-mêmes : ils se sentent abandonnés et méprisés de mille manières – par le prince, bien sûr, par les médias, évidemment, mais aussi par le regard des autres.
Ce n’est donc pas simplement l’ampleur des inégalités sociales qui aurait changé, mais leur nature et leur perception ?
Les inégalités multiples et individualisées deviennent une expérience intime qui est souvent vécue comme une remise en cause de soi, de sa valeur et de son identité : elles sont perçues comme une agression, une forme de #mépris. Dans une société qui fait de l’#égalité_des_chances et de l’#autonomie_individuelles ses valeurs cardinales, elles peuvent être vécues comme des échecs scolaires, professionnels, familiaux, dont on peut se sentir plus ou moins responsable.
Dans ce régime des inégalités multiples, nous sommes conduits à nous comparer au plus près de nous, dans la consommation, le système scolaire, l’accès aux services… Ces jeux de comparaison invitent alors à accuser les plus riches, bien sûr, mais aussi les plus pauvres ou les étrangers qui « abuseraient » des aides sociales et ne « mériteraient » pas l’égalité. L’électorat de Donald Trump et de quelques autres ne pense pas autre chose.
Internet favorise, dites-vous, ces passions tristes. De quelle manière ?
Parce qu’Internet élargit l’accès à la parole publique, il constitue un progrès démocratique. Mais Internet transforme chacun d’entre nous en un mouvement social, qui est capable de témoigner pour lui-même de ses souffrances et de ses colères. Alors que les syndicats et les mouvements sociaux « refroidissaient » les colères pour les transformer en actions collectives organisées, #Internet abolit ces médiations. Les émotions et les opinions deviennent directement publiques : les colères, les solidarités, les haines et les paranoïas se déploient de la même manière. Les #indignations peuvent donc rester des indignations et ne jamais se transformer en revendications et en programmes politiques.
La démultiplication des inégalités devrait renforcer les partis favorables à l’égalité sociale, qui sont historiquement les partis de gauche. Or, en France comme ailleurs, ce sont les populismes qui ont le vent en poupe. Comment expliquez-vous ce « transfert » ?
La force de ce qu’on appelle les populismes consiste à construire des « banques de colères », agrégeant des problèmes et des expériences multiples derrière un appel nostalgique au #peuple unique, aux travailleurs, à la nation et à la souveraineté démocratique. Chacun peut y retrouver ses indignations. Mais il y a loin de cette capacité symbolique à une offre politique, car, une fois débarrassé de « l’oligarchie », le peuple n’est ni composé d’égaux ni dénué de conflits. D’ailleurs, aujourd’hui, les politiques populistes se déploient sur tout l’éventail des politiques économiques.
Vous avez terminé « Le Temps des passions tristes » au moment où émergeait le mouvement des « gilets jaunes ». En quoi confirme-t-il ou modifie-t-il votre analyse ?
Si j’ai anticipé la tonalité de ce mouvement, je n’en avais prévu ni la forme ni la durée. Il montre, pour l’essentiel, que les inégalités multiples engendrent une somme de colères individuelles et de sentiments de mépris qui ne trouvent pas d’expression #politique homogène, en dépit de beaucoup de démagogie. Dire que les « gilets jaunes » sont une nouvelle classe sociale ou qu’ils sont le peuple à eux tout seuls ne nous aide guère. Il faudra du temps, en France et ailleurs, pour qu’une offre idéologique et politique réponde à ces demandes de justice dispersées. Il faudra aussi beaucoup de courage et de constance pour comprendre les passions tristes sans se laisser envahir par elles.
Réaction de @Moby_MicroDick sur mastodon par rapport à l’article sur les #assistants_sexuels publié par @lesjours (Assistants sexuels, plaisir en huis clos : ►https://lesjours.fr/obsessions/les-jours-a-l-oeil-saison-2/ep8-matthieu-zellweger-amour-inconditionnel) :
Vous n’avez apparemment aucune idée avec ces innombrables marronniers depuis une décennie à propos de la soi-disant « assistance sexuelle » comment vous permettez à toute une population valide de se complaire dans le #validisme, et de pourrir des morceaux de vie de personnes handies. Bordel 😤 mais foutez nous la paix à propos de nos sexualités handies.
(Votre article est évidemment bourré des pires clichés exotico-charitables. Zéro remise en question.)
▻https://piaille.fr/@Moby_MicroDick/111432614887313673
voir aussi :
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1626930048660905986#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1538115343956180992#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1535930660191277056#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1391365532373426176#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1309111588092293121#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1300079384229969922#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1292756796516511744#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1282601376338661378#m
▻https://nitter.net/Moby_MicroDick/status/1175514865185824769#m
#handicap #sexualité #préjugés #clichés #exotisme #victimisation #tabou
Harriet de G., du collectif handi-féministe Les Dévalideuses .
►https://www.harrietdegouge.fr
Partage de bouts de réflexions, ressources et questionnements, souvent depuis une perspective anti-validiste et intersectionnelle.
Femmes et handicap : si l’amour n’a pas de prix, le couple a un coût
▻https://cqfd-journal.org/Femmes-et-handicap-si-l-amour-n-a
Parkraumbewirtschaftung - Berlin.de
▻https://www.berlin.de/sen/uvk/mobilitaet-und-verkehr/verkehrsplanung/strassen-und-kfz-verkehr/parkraumbewirtschaftung
Wer Pause machen will muss zahlen, fast überall. Auf Taxenhalteplätzen dürfen aus gutem Grund nur betriebsbereite Taxen stehen, so dass dort keine Pausen verbracht werden können. Wir brauchen deshalb reservierte Taxi-Pausen-Parkplätze. Da auch so gut wie alle Flächen mit wilder Natur in der Stadt verschwunden sind, benötigen wir weitere Infrastruktur wie Toiletten, Fitness-Geräte und überdachte Sitzplätze zum Einnehmen unserer Mahlzeiten.
Die Übersichtskarte zeigt den aktuellen Stand der Parkraumbewirtschaftung in Berlin
▻https://gdi.berlin.de/viewer/main/?Map/layerIds=basemap_raster_grau,k_alkis_bezirke:1,parkraumbewirt:0&visibility=true,true,true&transparency=0,0,30&Map/center=%5b393077.7,5817624.249999998%5d&Map/zoomLevel=0
Shefika Gasprinska (1886-1975), figure du féminisme tatar
Shefika Gasprinska est l’une des initiatrices du mouvement des femmes tatares de Crimée au tournant du 20e siècle, devenu un phénomène unique dans le monde islamique. Militante politique et sociale, rédactrice en chef du premier magazine féminin musulman Alem-i Nisvan, dont les archives sont actuellement conservées dans divers pays du monde, notamment en Turquie, en Azerbaïdjan et en Égypte. En raison de son activité, Shefika Gasprinska est autant connue que les dirigeants du mouvement national des Tatars de Crimée, Noman Chelebidjihan, Jafer Seydamet et Seitjelil Hattatov.
▻https://entreleslignesentrelesmots.wordpress.com/2023/11/11/shefika-gasprinska-1886-1975-figure-du-feminis
Landkreis Dahme-Spreewald vor Stichwahl: Angst vor AfD-Landrat in Brandenburg
▻https://taz.de/Landkreis-Dahme-Spreewald-vor-Stichwahl/!5972091
Demnächst ein AfD-Fascho als Verhandlungspartner für das Berliner Taxigewerbe? Böcke als Gärtner ist die LABO-Devise, wieso soll es in LDS besser sein?
9.11.2024 von Gareth Joswig - Lokale Unternehmen warnen vor der Wahl eines Rechtsextremen zum Landrat. Im ersten Wahlgang hatte der völkische AfD-Kandidat Steffen Kotré gewonnen.
Ein Spreewald-Kahn mit Touristen an Bord
BERLIN taz | Acht Jahre lang könnte dem Landkreis Dahme-Spreewald ein rechtsextremer Landrat drohen: Am Sonntag steht in Brandenburg der AfD-Kandidat Steffen Kotré in einer Stichwahl mit dem amtierenden parteilosen Zeuthener Bürgermeister Sven Herzberger. Wohl auch nach dem Schock, dass der rechtsradikale Bundestagsabgeordnete aus dem völkisch-nationalistischen Flügel der AfD den ersten Urnengang am 8. Oktober gewonnen hatte, haben kurz vor der Stichwahl lokale Unternehmen, Forschungs- und Bildungsstätten aus Dahme-Spreewald vor den wirtschaftlichen Folgen der Wahl von Extremisten gewarnt.
In einem gemeinsamen Aufruf heißt es: „Weltoffenheit, gegenseitiges Verständnis und Respekt sind Werte, auf denen der Wohlstand unserer Region aufgebaut ist – gerade in Zeiten des Fachkräftemangels ist das wichtiger denn je. Auch unser Tourismus kann nur florieren, wenn wir Weltoffenheit leben und Extremismus eine klare Absage erteilen.“ Man rufe Wähler dazu auf, für einen weltoffenen Landkreis aufzustehen und „Extremismus und rechten Parolen eine Absage“ zu erteilen.
Die Unternehmen haben sich auf Initiative der Kampagnen-Plattform Campact vernetzt und wollen offenkundig einen zweiten AfD-Landrat nach dem thüringischen Sonneberg verhindern. Am Samstag soll es zudem um 17 Uhr eine zivilgesellschaftliche Demonstration unter dem Motto „Kein brauner Landrat im bunten LDS“ am Bahnhof von Königs Wusterhausen geben.
Tatsächlich waren nicht wenige im Landkreis geschockt, als im ersten Wahlgang AfD-Kandidat Kotré 35,3 Prozent holte und damit hauchdünn vor dem parteilosen Bürgermeister Herzberger lag, der auf 34,8 Prozent kam. Die AfD profitiert derzeit vor allem vom Bundestrend und den multiplen Krisen der Gegenwart. Für den Osten gilt das umso mehr, wobei Dahme-Spreewald kein abgehängtes und strukturschwaches Flächenland ist, sondern wirtschaftlich boomt als Speckgürtel Berlins, BER-Standort und Touristenregion. Das Land hat eine der niedrigsten Arbeitslosenquoten in Ostdeutschland, gilt eigentlich als SPD-Stammland.
Im ersten Wahlgang hat dabei aber auch das Desinteresse in den bevölkerungsreicheren Kommunen mit Berlin-Nähe der AfD in die Karten gespielt – zwar lag Kotré dort hinten, aber dort blieb auch die Wahlbeteiligung unter dem Kreis-Durchschnitt von 50,8 Prozent: In Schönefeld, wo in den letzten Jahren Tausende zuzogen, nahmen etwa nur 31 Prozent an der Wahl teil. Auf der anderen Seite profitierte Kotré auch von gewachsenen rechtsextremen Strukturen wie dem in Zützen ansässigen rechtsextremen Verein „Zukunft Heimat“, wo der AfD-Kandidat 60,2 Prozent bekam.
Gegenkandidat ist Bürgermeister in Zeuthen
Sein Gegenkandidat Sven Herzberger wird nun von der CDU, FDP und SPD, aber auch Linken und Grünen unterstützt. Er setze im Wahlkampf aber weniger auf „Blockbildung“, sondern vor allem auf verbindenden Pragmatismus, wie er dem rbb sagte: „Es geht darum, jemanden, der Verwaltung kennt, der im Landkreis lebt und der vor allen Dingen aus der demokratischen Mitte der Gesellschaft kommt, zum Landrat zu wählen.“ Er wolle eine Verwaltung führen, und politisch verbinden und nicht spalten, wie er sagt.
Kotré, der selbst nicht im Landkreis lebt, war im Wahlkampf vor allem durch Hetze gegen Flüchtlinge, Leugnung der menschengemachten Klimakrise und auf Landkreisebene uneinlösbaren bundespolitischen Forderungen aufgefallen. Eine biografische Konstante im Leben Kotrés ist eine große Nähe zu Rechtsextremen und Holocaustleugnern: Sein Name tauchte bereits vor rund 20 Jahren auf einer Unterstützerliste des notorischen Holocaust-Leugners und ehemaligen RAF-Anwalts Horst Mahler auf, ebenso dürfte Kotré in der gleichen Zeit der Urheber von Blut-und-Boden-Gedichten auf Neonazi-Websites sein.
Innerhalb der AfD trieb Kotré zunächst im Lager des mittlerweile wegen seiner rechtsextremen Vergangenheit aus der Partei geflogenen Andreas Kalbitz die Radikalisierung voran und ist einer der Erstunterzeichner der Erfurter Resolution von 2015, einer Art Gründungsurkunde des völkischen AfD-Flügels. Zuletzt unterzeichnete er 2022 mit rechtsextremen Politikern aus der Slowakei und Polen zusammen mit rechtsextremen Antisemiten ein „Manifest gegen Globalismus“ – darunter wiederum solche, die den Holocaust infrage stellen.
Berüchtigt ist Kotré selbst innerhalb der AfD für seine notorische Russlandnähe. Im Bundestag sprach er von angeblichen amerikanischen Biowaffenlaboren in der Ukraine – selbst vermeintlich Parteifreunde nannten das danach „widerliche Putin-Propaganda“. Zahlreich sind auch seine Auftritte in russischen Propaganda-Shows. Wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit und Rassismus gehört natürlich auch zum Rundum-Paket: Die Erderwähnung und Klimakatastrophe leugnet Kotré, als Landrat will er für Abschiebungen sorgen, obwohl er nicht dafür zuständig wäre.
#LDSb#BER #Taxi #Schönefeld
Dix idées reçues autour de la cigarette (Franceinfo/allodocteur.fr)
▻https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/drogue-addictions/lutte-contre-le-tabagisme/dix-idees-recues-autour-de-la-cigarette_1957273.html?at_adid=5296159%25
Je suis un petit fumeur, ce n’est pas grave : FAUX Les fumeurs n’ont pas de volonté : FAUX La cigarette légère ou fine est moins nocive : FAUX Le tabac à rouler est plus naturel : FAUX Si on fume depuis trop longtemps, ça ne sert plus à rien de s’arrêter : FAUX Je fais du sport pour éliminer le tabac : FAUX La nicotine est toxique : FAUX Je vais prendre dix kilos si j’arrête : FAUX La cigarette me déstresse : FAUX Je m’arrêterai quand je serai plus vieux : FAUX
-- Permalien
Cigarette électronique : vapoter est-il sans danger ? • Test-Achats.be
▻https://www.test-achats.be/sante/sante-au-quotidien/bien-etre/reponse-dexpert/vapoter-mauvais-pour-la-sante
"Le vapotage n’est pas sans risque : il vous fait inhaler toutes sortes de produits chimiques dont nous ne connaissons pas (bien) les effets sur la santé. Si vous ne fumez pas, il est donc préférable de ne pas commencer. Mais si vous êtes fumeur, sachez que le vapotage constitue une alternative moins nocive au #tabagisme et qu’il peut vous aider à arrêter."
-- Permalien
Los estibadores de Barcelona deciden “no permitir la actividad” de barcos que envíen armas a Palestina e Israel
Los estibadores del puerto de Barcelona han decidido “no permitir la actividad de barcos que contengan material bélico”. Así lo han explicado en un comunicado que se ha hecho público tras una asamblea del comité de empresa.
La Organización de #Estibadores_Portuarios_de_Barcelona (#OEPB), el sindicato mayoritario entre los 1.200 estibadores barceloneses, apunta que han tomado esta decisión para “proteger a la población civil, sea del territorio que sea”.
Con todo, los trabajadores aseguran un “rechazo absoluto a cualquier forma de violencia” y ven como una “obligación y un compromiso” defender “con vehemencia” la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos. Unos derechos, dicen, que están siendo “violados” en Ucrania, Israel o en el territorio palestino.
De esta manera, los trabajadores se comprometen a no cargar, descargar ni facilitar las tareas de cualquier buque que contenga armas. Ahora bien, los estibadores no tienen “capacidad para saber de facto que hay en los contenedores”, han afirmado a este diario.
Los trabajadores se ponen en manos de ONG y entidades de ayuda humanitaria que sí puedan tener conocimiento sobre envíos de armas desde el puerto barcelonés. En esta línea, recuerdan el boicot que ya llevaron a cabo en 2011 en el marco de la guerra de Libia, durante la cual colaboraron con diversas entidades para entorpecer el envío de material bélico y, a su vez, se facilitó el envió de agua y alimentos.
A pesar de que el Gobierno ha asegurado que no prevé exportar a Israel armas letales que se puedan usar en Gaza, los estibadores son conscientes de que, sólo en 2023, España ha comprado material militar a Israel por valor de 300 millones de euros, unido a otros 700 millones comprometidos en adquisición de armamento para los próximos años.
Los trabajadores insisten en que con este comunicado no se están posicionado políticamente en el conflicto, simplemente abogan por el alto al fuego y la distribución de ayuda humanitaria. “No es un comunicado político, sólo queremos que se agoten todas las vías de diálogo antes de usar la violencia”.
Este argumento fue el mismo que estos trabajadores portuarios usaron para negarse a dar servicio a los cruceros en los que la Policía Nacional se alojó durante los días previos al 1 de Octubre. En aquella ocasión también aseguraron que tomaban la decisión “en defensa de los derechos civiles”.
Con este gesto, los estibadores se suman a otros colectivos de trabajadores portuarios, como los belgas, que también han anunciado que no permitirán el envío de material militar a Israel o Palestina. La del boicot es una estrategia que no es nueva: estibadores de diversos lugares del mundo ya la han llevado a cabo en momentos crudos del conflicto durante los últimos años. Por ejemplo durante el conflicto en la Franja de Gaza de 2008 y 2009, estibadores de Italia, Sudáfrica y Estados Unidos ya se negaron a a manipular cargamentos provenientes de Israel.
▻https://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/estibadores-barcelona-deciden-no-permitir-actividad-barcos-envien-armas-pal
#Barcelone #résistance #armes #armement #Israël #Palestine
Espagne : les #dockers du #port de Barcelone refusent de charger les #navires transportant des armes à destination d’Israël
- « Aucune cause ne justifie la mort de civils », déclare le syndicat des dockers OEPB dans un #communiqué
Les dockers du port espagnol de Barcelone ont annoncé qu’ils refuseraient de charger ou de décharger des navires transportant des armes à destination d’Israël, à la lumière des attaques de ce pays contre Gaza.
« En tant que collectif de travailleurs, nous avons l’obligation et l’engagement de respecter et de défendre avec véhémence la Déclaration universelle des droits de l’homme », a déclaré l’OEPB, le seul syndicat représentant quelque 1 200 dockers du port, dans un communiqué.
« C’est pourquoi nous avons décidé en assemblée de ne pas autoriser les navires contenant du matériel de guerre à opérer dans notre port, dans le seul but de protéger toute population civile », a ajouté le communiqué, notant qu’"aucune cause ne justifie la mort de civils".
L’OEPB appelle à un cessez-le-feu immédiat et à un règlement pacifique des conflits en cours dans le monde, et notamment du conflit israélo-palestinien.
Les Nations unies devraient abandonner leur position de complicité, due à l’inaction ou à leur renoncement dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions, a ajouté le communiqué.
Israël mène, depuis un mois, une offensive aérienne et terrestre contre la Bande de Gaza, à la suite de l’attaque transfrontalière menée par le mouvement de résistance palestinien Hamas le 7 octobre dernier.
Le ministère palestinien de la Santé a déclaré, mardi, que le bilan des victimes de l’intensification des attaques israéliennes sur la Bande de Gaza depuis le 7 octobre s’élevait à 10 328 morts.
Quelque 4 237 enfants et 2 719 femmes figurent parmi les victimes de l’agression israélienne, a précisé le porte-parole du ministère, Ashraf al-Qudra, lors d’une conférence de presse.
Plus de 25 956 autres personnes ont été blessées à la suite des attaques des forces israéliennes sur Gaza, a-t-il ajouté.
Le nombre de morts israéliens s’élève quant à lui à près de 1 600, selon les chiffres officiels.
Outre le grand nombre de victimes et les déplacements massifs, les approvisionnements en produits essentiels viennent à manquer pour les 2,3 millions d’habitants de la Bande de Gaza, en raison du siège israélien, qui s’ajoute au blocus imposé par Israël à l’enclave côtière palestinienne.
▻https://www.aa.com.tr/fr/monde/espagne-les-dockers-du-port-de-barcelone-refusent-de-charger-les-navires-transportant-des-armes-%C3%A0-destination-disra%C3%ABl/3046909
#Genova, Barcellona, #Sidney. I lavoratori portuali si rifiutano di caricare le navi con le armi per Israele
Diverse organizzazioni di lavoratori portuali hanno indetto mobilitazioni e iniziative per protestare contro i bombardamenti della striscia di #Gaza. Venerdì prossimo a Genova si svolgerà il presidio indetto dai portuali del capoluogo ligure. La mobilitazione raccoglie l’appello lanciato lo scorso 16 ottobre dai sindacati palestinesi per “smettere di armare Israele”. I lavoratori dello scalo genovese si rifiutano di gestire l’imbarco di carichi di armi diretti in Israele (e non solo). Un’iniziativa simile è in atto nel porto di Sidney, in Australia, dove si protesta contro l’attracco di una nave della compagnia israeliana #Zim. All’appello dei colleghi palestinesi hanno aderito ieri anche i lavoratori dello scalo di Barcellona, annunciando che impediranno “le attività delle navi che portano materiale bellico”. Come lavoratori, si legge nel comunicato degli spagnoli, “difendiamo con veemenza la Dichiarazione universale dei diritti dell’uomo“, aggiungendo che “nessuna causa giustifica il sacrificio dei civili”. In Belgio a rifiutarsi di caricare armi sono da alcune settimane gli addetti aeroportuali che nel comunicato spiegano “caricare e scaricare ordigni bellici contribuisce all’uccisione di innocenti“. Solidarietà con i lavoratori palestinesi è arrivata inoltre dal sindacato francese Cgt, così come è molto attivo il coordinamento dei sindacati greci #Pame.
Negli Stati Uniti, nei pressi di Seattle, sono invece stati un centinaio di attivisti a bloccare il porto di #Tacoma, mossi dal sospetto che la #Cape_Orlando, nave statunitense alla fonda, trasportasse munizioni ed armamenti per Israele. La nave era già stata fermata alcuni giorni prima nello scalo di #Oakland, nella baia di San Francisco. Iniziative di questo genere si stanno moltiplicando. Nei giorni scorsi gli attivisti avevano bloccato tutte le entrate di un impianto della statunitense #Boeing destinato alla fabbricazione di armamenti nei pressi di St Louis. Manifestazioni si sono svolte alla sede londinese di #Leonardo, gruppo italiano che ad Israele fornisce gli elicotteri Apache. Il 26 ottobre scorso un centinaio di persone avevano invece bloccato l’accesso alla filiale britannica dell’azienda di armi israeliana #Elbit_Systems.
▻https://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2023/11/07/genova-barcellona-sidney-i-lavoratori-portuali-si-rifiutano-di-caricare-le-navi-con-le-armi-per-israele/7345757
#Gênes
La logistica di guerra
Venerdì 10 novembre i lavoratori del porto di Genova hanno lanciato un blocco della logistica di guerra. I porti sono uno snodo fondamentale della circolazione delle armi impiegate in ogni dove.
A Genova è stato osservato un carico di pannelli per pagode militari che verrà destinato ad una delle navi della compagnia saudita Bahri.
Dal terminal dei traghetti nelle scorse settimane sono stati caricati camion militari dell’Iveco destinati alla Tunisia, con ogni probabilità destinati alla repressione dei migranti.
Le organizzazioni operaie palestinesi hanno fatto appello alla solidarietà internazionalista, alla lotta degli sfruttati contro tutti i padroni a partire da quelli direttamente coinvolti nel conflitto.
Nel porto di Genova opera una compagnia merci, l’israeliana ZIM, che il 10 novembre gli antimilitaristi puntano a bloccare.
Inceppare il meccanismo è un obiettivo concreto che salda l’opposizione alla guerra con la lotta alla produzione e circolazione delle armi.
L’appuntamento per il presidio/picchetto è alle 6 del mattino al varco San Benigno.
Ne abbiamo parlato con Christian, un lavoratore del porto dell’assemblea contro la guerra e la repressione.
▻https://www.rivoluzioneanarchica.it/genova-fermare-la-logistica-di-guerra
#logistique
En 2021, à Gênes:
I #camalli genovesi in lotta contro le navi della morte
Porti bloccati contro l’invio di armi a Israele
Genova, Barcellona, #Oackland, #Tacoma, Sidney. I lavoratori portuali si rifiutano di caricare le navi con le armi per Israele
L’appello lanciato lo scorso 16 ottobre dai sindacati palestinesi per “smettere di armare Israele” è stato raccolto dai sindacati in diversi paesi.
Diverse organizzazioni di lavoratori portuali hanno indetto mobilitazioni e iniziative per protestare contro i bombardamenti della striscia di Gaza. Venerdì prossimo a Genova si svolgerà il presidio indetto dai portuali del capoluogo ligure. La mobilitazione raccoglie l’appello lanciato lo scorso 16 ottobre dai sindacati palestinesi per “smettere di armare Israele”. I lavoratori dello scalo genovese si rifiutano di gestire l’imbarco di carichi di armi diretti in Israele (e non solo).
“Mentre da quasi due anni in Ucraina si combatte una guerra fra blocchi di paesi capitalisti, mentre lo stato d’Israele massacra i palestinesi, mentre la guerra nucleare è dietro l’angolo, il Porto di Genova continua a caratterizzarsi come snodo della logistica di guerra: imbarchi di camion militari diretti alla Tunisia per il contrasto dei flussi migratori, passaggio di navi della ZIM, principale compagnia navale israeliana, nuovi materiali militari per l’aeronautica Saudita pronti per la prossima Bahri. Questo è quello che sta dietro ai varchi del porto di Genova. Basta traffici di armi in porto. Solidarietà internazionalista agli oppressi/e palestinesi. Il nemico è in casa nostra. Guerra alla Guerra” si legge nel comunicato che invita alla partecipazione.
Anche i lavoratori del porto australiano di Sidney, stanno protestando contro l’attracco di una nave della compagnia israeliana Zim. All’appello dei sindacati palestinesi. E’ di ieri la dichiarazione della Organización de Estibadores Portuarios di Barcellona (OEPB) i cui aderenti si rifiuteranno di caricare armi destinate al conflitto israelo-palestinese dal porto catalano. E’ la risposta all’appello lanciato dai sindacati palestinesi per fermare «i crimini di guerra di Israele» sin dall’inizio dell’invasione di Gaza
In Belgio già da alcune settimane a rifiutarsi di caricare armi sono i lavoratori aeroportuali che nel comunicato spiegano “caricare e scaricare ordigni bellici contribuisce all’uccisione di innocenti“. Solidarietà con i lavoratori palestinesi è arrivata inoltre dal sindacato francese Cgt, così dal sindacato greco Pame che il 2 novembre ha bloccato l’aeroporto di Atene per protesta contro i bombardamenti israeliani.
Negli Stati Uniti, nei pressi di Seattle, sono invece stati un centinaio di attivisti a bloccare il porto di Tacoma, mossi dal sospetto che la Cape Orlando, nave statunitense alla fonda, trasportasse munizioni ed armamenti per Israele. La nave era già stata fermata alcuni giorni prima nello scalo di Oakland, nella baia di San Francisco. Iniziative di questo genere si stanno moltiplicando. Nei giorni scorsi gli attivisti avevano bloccato tutte le entrate di un impianto della statunitense Boeing destinato alla fabbricazione di armamenti nei pressi di St Louis.
Manifestazioni si sono svolte alla sede londinese di Leonardo, gruppo italiano che ad Israele fornisce gli elicotteri Apache. Il 26 ottobre scorso un centinaio di persone avevano invece bloccato l’accesso alla filiale britannica dell’azienda di armi israeliana Elbit Systems.
Di fronte al genocidio dei palestinesi in corso a Gaza, in tutto il mondo sta montando un’ondata di indignazione che chiede il boicottaggio degli apparati militari ed economici di Israele, con un movimento che somiglia molto a quello che portò alla fine del regime di apartheid in Sudafrica.
A livello internazionale da anni è attiva in tal senso la campagna BDS (Boicottaggio, Disinvestimento, Sanzioni) verso Israele che le autorità di Tel Aviv temono moltissimo e contro cui hanno creato un apposito dipartimento, lanciando una contro campagna di criminalizzazione del Bds in vari paesi europei e negli USA. Un tentativo evidentemente destinato a fallire.
▻https://www.osservatoriorepressione.info/porti-bloccati-linvio-armi-israele
#Graffiti seen during the recent port blockade in #Tacoma, Washington targeting carrying weapons to Israel.
https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/bf4779419-8cf74f/ry9bLnePSmtt/UH9XweB9OF49qgyFlKJ3ZttfHQoZRVSMG0O13SFI.jpg 
https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/bf4779419-8cf74f/LBT7Nel7ppT4/gZ7ps5nhjxBmGb9vIAQnAVcHwpD9uy7K18RovwCt.jpg 
https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/bf4779419-8cf74f/JdFIsnmgayEL/E5MXiBiuGnRkEDb734BIKWRp1zgeAHsdosDP21bV.jpg 
https://pixelfed.zoo-logique.org/storage/m/_v2/578583396227231930/bf4779419-8cf74f/Co6bUMR1LdAX/uDcxCT4AduFhWoLRWi54Lr1iYQpGjUAw0V5A0piT.jpg 
Genova: In centinaia bloccano il porto contro l’invio di armi a Israele
E’ iniziato all’alba, presso il porto di Genova, il presidio per impedire il passaggio della nave della #ZIM, carica di armamenti e diretta a Israele.
Dal varco San Benigno già centinaia le persone solidali con il popolo palestinese, tra lavoratori del porto, studenti, cittadini e realtà che vanno dal sindacalismo di base alle associazioni pacifiste e che si sono ritrovati questa mattina uniti sotto gli slogan “la guerra comincia da qui” “fermiamo le navi della morte”. Oltre al varco della ZIM bloccato anche il varco dei traghetti.
Oltre al varco della ZIM, la principale compagnia logistica di Israele, è stato bloccato anche il varco dei traghetti.
Il cielo di Genova si è anche illuminato di rosso (clicca qui per il video: ▻https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=348645561154990) con una serie di torce, a simulare quello che, tutti i giorni, accade a Gaza con l’occupazione militare israeliana: “i popoli in rivolta – dicono camalli e solidali – scrivono la storia”.
«Sono cinque anni che facciano una serie di blocchi, scioperi, presidi, azioni anche con la comunità europea per contrastare i traffici. Principalmente contro la compagnia Bahri. Nel 2019 siamo riusciti a evitare che una nave dell’azienda saudita caricasse dal porto di Genova armi che sarebbero state utilizzate in Yemen», spiega Josè Nivoi, sindacalista dell’Usb dopo essere stato per 16 anni un lavoratore del porto: «Nella nostra chat abbiamo condiviso anche un piccolo manuale, scritto insieme all’osservatorio Weapon Watch, su come identificare i container che contengono armi. Perché ci sono degli obblighi internazionali, ad esempio, che costringono le compagnie ad applicare una serie di adesivi utili per quando i vigili del fuoco devono intervenire in caso di incendio. Che rendono riconoscibili i carichi. Mentre in altre navi le armi sono facilmente individuabili, visibili ad occhio nudo».
Nel 2021 il Collettivo autonomo dei lavoratori portuali di Genova, insieme quelli di Napoli e Livorno ha anche cercato di bloccare una nave israeliana che stava trasportando missili italiani a Tel Aviv: «Non siamo riusciti a fermarla perché abbiamo saputo troppo tardi, dalle carte d’imbarco, che cosa trasportava. Ma da quel momento sono iniziate le nostre operazioni in solidarietà con il popolo palestinese. E abbiamo deciso di accogliere l’appello lanciato lo scorso 16 ottobre dai sindacati palestinesi per “smettere di armare Israele”. Rifiutando di gestire l’imbarco di carichi di armi. Non vogliamo essere complici della guerra».
A convocare l’iniziativa l’Assemblea contro la guerra e la repressione. “Mentre da quasi due anni in Ucraina si combatte una guerra fra blocchi di paesi capitalisti, mentre lo stato d’Israele massacra i palestinesi, mentre la guerra nucleare è dietro l’angolo, il Porto di Genova continua a caratterizzarsi come snodo della logistica di guerra: imbarchi di camion militari diretti alla Tunisia per il contrasto dei flussi migratori, passaggio di navi della ZIM, principale compagnia navale israeliana, nuovi materiali militari per l’aeronautica Saudita pronti per la prossima Bahri. Questo è quello che sta dietro ai varchi del porto di Genova. Basta traffici di armi in porto. Solidarietà internazionalista agli oppressi/e palestinesi. Il nemico è in casa nostra. Guerra alla Guerra” si legge nel comunicato che invitava alla partecipazione.
L’iniziativa di oggi raccoglie l’invito dei sindacati palestinesi, che nei giorni scorsi avevano diffuso un appello nel quale chiedono ai lavoratori delle industrie coinvolte di rifiutarsi di costruire armi destinate ad Israele, di rifiutarsi di trasportare armi ad Israele, di passare mozioni e risoluzioni al proprio interno volte a questi obiettivi, di agire contro le aziende complicitamente coinvolte nell’implementare il brutale ed illegale assedio messo in atto da Israele, in particolare se hanno contratti con la vostra istituzione, di mettere pressione sui governi per fermare tutti i commerci militari ed in armi con Israele, e nel caso degli Stati Uniti, per interrompere il proprio sostegno economico diretto.a lottare e a opporci con tutta la nostra forza a questa guerra, boicottandola praticamente con i mezzi che abbiamo a disposizione e quindi chiediamo a tutte e tutti di partecipare al presidio.
Il collegamento dal porto di Genova con Rosangela della redazione di Radio Onda d’Urto e le interviste ai manifestanti: ▻https://www.radiondadurto.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Rosangela-da-Genova.mp3
Le interviste ai partecipanti: ▻https://www.radiondadurto.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/interviste-Rosangela-due.mp3
Il blocco del molo è poi diventato corteo fino alla sede della compagnia israeliana ZIM dove si è verificato un fitto lancio di uova piene di vernice rossa. La cronaca di Rosangela della Redazione di Radio Onda d’Urto: ▻https://www.radiondadurto.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Rosi-da-sede-Zim-Genova.mp3
Ancora interviste ai partecipanti: ▻https://www.radiondadurto.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/interviste-Rosangela-tre.mp3Corrispondenza conclusiva con un bilancio dell’iniziativa di Riccardo del Collettivo autonomo lavoratori portuali: ▻https://www.radiondadurto.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Corrispondenza-conclusiva-di-Riccardo-Calp-Genova.mp3
▻https://www.osservatoriorepressione.info/genova-centinaia-bloccano-porto-linvio-armi-israele
#camalli
Shutting Down the Port of Tacoma
Since October 7, the Israeli military has killed over 10,000 people in Palestine, almost half of whom were children. In response, people around the world have mobilized in solidarity. Many are seeking ways to proceed from demanding a ceasefire to using direct action to hinder the United States government from channeling arms to Israel. Despite the cold weather on Monday, November 6, several hundred people showed up at the Port of Tacoma in Washington State to block access to a shipping vessel that was scheduled to deliver equipment to the Israeli military.
In the following text, participants review the history of port blockades in the Puget Sound, share their experience at the protest, and seek to offer inspiration for continued transoceanic solidarity.
Escalating Resistance
On Thursday, November 2, demonstrators protesting the bombing and invasion of Gaza blocked a freeway in Durham, North Carolina and shut down 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. Early on Friday, November 3, at the Port of Oakland in California, demonstrators managed to board the United States Ready Reserve Fleet’s MV Cape Orlando, which was scheduled to depart for Tacoma to pick up military equipment bound for Israel. The Cape Orlando is owned by the Department of Transportation, directed by the Department of Defense, and managed and crewed by commercial mariners. After an hours-long standoff, the Coast Guard finally managed to get the protesters off the boat.
Afterwards, word spread that there would be another protest when the boat arrived in Tacoma. The event was announced by a coalition of national organizations and their local chapters: Falastiniyat (a Palestinian diaspora feminist collective), Samidoun (a national Palestinian prisoner support network), and the Arab Resource & Organizing Center, which had also participated in organizing the protest in Oakland.
The mobilization in Tacoma was originally scheduled for 2:30 pm on Sunday, November 5, but the organizers changed the time due to updated information about the ship’s arrival, calling for people to show up at 5 am on Monday. Despite fears that the last-minute change would undercut momentum, several hundred demonstrators turned out that morning. The blockade itself consisted of a continual picket at multiple points, bolstered by quite a few drivers who were willing to risk the authorities impounding their cars.
All of the workers that the ILWU deployed for the day shift were blocked from loading the ship. Stopping the port workers from loading it was widely understood as the goal of the blockade; unfortunately, however, this did not prevent the military cargo from reaching the ship. Acting as scabs, the United States military stepped in to load it, apparently having been snuck into the port on Coast Guard vessels.
Now that the fog of war is lifting, we can review the events of the day in detail.
Drawing on Decades of Port Blockades
The Pacific Northwest has a long history of port shutdowns.
In 1984, port workers in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) coordinated with anti-Apartheid activists and refused to unload cargo ships from South Africa. Between 2006 and 2009, the Port Militarization Resistance movement repeatedly blockaded the ports of Olympia and Tacoma to protest against the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2011 and 2012, participants in Occupy/Decolonize Seattle organized in solidarity with port workers in the ILWU in Longview and shut down the Port of Seattle, among other ports.
In 2014, demonstrators blockaded the Port of Tacoma using the slogan Block the Boat, singing “Our ports will be blocked to Israel’s ships until Gaza’s ports are free.” One of the participants was the mother of Rachel Corrie, a student who was murdered in Gaza by the Israeli military in 2002 while attempting to prevent them from demolishing the homes of Palestinian families. In 2015, an activist chained herself to a support ship for Royal Dutch Shell’s exploratory oil drilling plans, using the slogan Shell No. In 2021, Block the Boat protesters delayed the unloading of the Israeli-operated ZIM San Diego ship for weeks. The Arab Resource & Organizing Center played a part in organizing the Block the Boat protests.
Today, the Port of Tacoma appears to be the preferred loading point for military equipment in the region—perhaps because the Port Militarization Resistance successfully shut down logistics at the Port of Olympia, while Tacoma police were able to use enough violent force to keep the Port of Tacoma open for military shipments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The various port blockades fostered years of organizing between ILWU workers, marginalized migrant truck workers, environmentalists, and anti-war activists. New tactics of kayaktivism emerged out of anti-extractivism struggles in Seattle, where seafaring affinity groups were able to outmaneuver both the Coast Guard and the environmental nonprofit organizations that wanted to keep things symbolic. On one occasion, a kayaking group managed to run a Shell vessel aground without being apprehended. Some participants brought reinforced banners to the demonstration on Monday, November 6, 2023, because they remembered how police used force to clear away less-equipped demonstrators during the “Block the Boat” picket at the Port of Seattle in 2021.
Over the years, these port blockades have inspired other innovations in the genre. In November 2017, demonstrators blockaded the railroad tracks that pass through Olympia.1 At a time when Indigenous water protector and land defense struggles were escalating and locals wanted to act in solidarity, blockading the port seemed prohibitively challenging, so they chose a section of railroad tracks via which fracking proppants were sent to the port. This occupation was arguably more defensible and effective than a port blockade would have been, lasting well over a week. It may indicate a future field for experimentation.
Gathering at the Port
The Port of Tacoma and the nearby ICE detention center are located in an industrial area that also houses a police academy. They are only accessible through narrow choke points; in the past, police have taken advantage of these to target and harass protesters. The preceding action at the Port of Oakland took place in a more urban terrain; as protesters prepared for the ship to dock in Tacoma, concerns grew about the various possibilities for repression. Veterans of the Port Militarization Resistance and other logistically-minded individuals compiled lists of considerations to take into account when carrying out an action at this particular port.
On Monday morning, people showed up with positive energy and reinforced banners. Hundreds of people coordinated to bring in supplies and additional waves of picketers. The plan was to establish a picket line at every of the three entrances into Pier 7. As it turned out, the police preemptively blocked the entrances, sitting in their vehicles behind the Port fence. Demonstrators marched in circles, chanting, while others gathered material with which to create impromptu barricades.
Other anarchists remained at a distance, standing by to do jail support and advising the participants on security precautions. Others set up at the nearby casino, investigating and squashing rumors in the growing signal groups and helping to link people to the information or communication loops they needed. Whether autonomously or in conversation with the organizers, all of them did their best to contribute to the unfolding action.
The demonstration successfully accomplished what some had thought might be impossible, preventing the ILWU workers from loading the military shipment. Unexpectedly, this was not enough. Even seasoned longshoremen were surprised that the military could be brought in to act as scabs by loading the ship.
Could we have focused instead on blocking the equipment from reaching the port in the first place? According to publicly available shift screens, the cargo that was eventually loaded onto the ship had already arrived at the port before the action’s originally planned 2:30 pm start time on November 5. Considering that Sunday afternoon was arguably the earliest that anyone could mobilize a mass action on such short notice, it is not surprising that the idea of blocking the cargo was abandoned in favor of blocking the ILWU workers. Of course, if the information that military supplies were entering the port had circulated earlier, something else might have been possible.
The organizers chose the approach of blocking the workers in spite of the tension it was bound to cause with the ILWU Local 23. Our contacts in the ILWU describe the Local 23 president as a Zionist; most workers in Local 23 were supposedly against the action, despite respecting the picket.2 The president allegedly went so far as to suggest bringing in ILWU workers on boats, a plan that the military apparently rejected.
There were rumors that a flotilla of kayaks was organizing to impede the Orlando’s departure the following morning. In the end, a canoe piloted by members of the Puyallup, Nisqually, and other Coast Salish peoples and accompanied by a few kayakers blocked the ship’s path for a short time on November 6, but nothing materialized for November 7.
This intervention is an important reminder of the ethical and strategic necessity of working with Indigenous groups who know the land and water and preserve a living memory of struggle against colonial violence that includes repeatedly outmaneuvering the United States military.
The ship departed, but one Stryker Armored Personnel Carrier that was scheduled for work according the ILWU shift screens was not loaded, presumably due to the picket. Given the military work-crew’s inexperience in loading shipping containers, it’s unclear how much of the shipment was completely loaded in the time allotted for the ship, as ports hold to a strict schedule in order not to disrupt capital’s global supply chains.
Evaluation
The main organizers received feedback in the course of the protest and adapted their strategy as the situation changed, shifting their communication to articulate what they were trying to do and explaining their choices rather than simply appealing to their authority as an organization or as Palestinians. Nonetheless, some participants have expressed displeasure about how things unfolded. It was difficult to get comprehensive information about what was going on, and this hindered people from making their own decisions and acting autonomously. Some anarchists who were on the ground report that the vessel was still being loaded when the organizers called off the event; others question the choice not to reveal the fact that the military was loading the equipment while the demonstration still had numbers and momentum.
It is hard to determine to what extent organizers intentionally withheld information. We believe that it is important to offer constructive feedback and principled criticism while resisting the temptation to make assumptions about others’ intentions (or, at worst, to engage in snitch-jacketing, which can undermine efforts to respond to actual infiltration and security breaches in the movement and often contributes to misdiagnosing the problems in play).
Cooperating with the authorities—especially at the expense of other radicals—is always unacceptable. This is a staple of events dominated by authoritarian organizations. Fortunately, nothing of this kind appears to have occurred during the blockade on November 6. Those on either side of this debate should be careful to resist knee-jerk reactions and to avoid projecting bad intentions onto imagined all-white “adventurists” or repressive “peace police.”
In that spirit, we will spell out our concern. The organizers simultaneously announced that the weapons had been loaded onto the ship, and at the same time, declared victory. This fosters room for suspicion that the original intention had been to “block the boat” symbolically without actually hampering the weapons shipment, in order to create the impression of achieving a “movement win” without any substantive impact. Such empty victories can deflate movements and momentum, sowing distrust in the hundreds of people who showed up on short notice with the intention of stopping weapons from reaching Israel. It might be better to acknowledge failure, admitting that despite our best efforts, the authorities succeeded in their goal, and affirming that we have to step up our efforts if we want to save lives in Gaza. We need organizers to be honest with us so we know what we are up against.
It’s important to highlight that ultimately it was the military that loaded the ship, not the ILWU. This move was unprecedented, just like the military spying on demonstrators during the Port Militarization Resistance. But it should not have been unexpected. From now on, we should bear in mind that the military is prepared to intervene directly in the logistics of capitalism.
This also highlights a weakness in the strategy of blocking a ship by means of a picket line and blockading the streets around the terminal. To have actually stopped the ship, a much more disruptive action would have been called for, potentially including storming the terminal itself and risking police violence and arrests. This isn’t to say that storming the port would have been practical, nor to argue that there is never any reason to blockade the terminal in the way that we did. Rather, the point is that the mechanics of war-capitalism are more pervasive and adaptable than the strategies that people employed to block it in Oakland and Tacoma. Any form of escalation will require more militancy and risk tolerance.
At the same time, we should be honest about our capabilities, our limits, and the challenges we face. Although many people were prepared to engage in a picket, storming a secured facility involves different considerations and material preparation, and demands a cool-headed assessment of benefits versus consequences. We should not simply blame the organizers for the fact that it did not happen. A powerful enough movement cannot be held back, not even by its leaders.
Considering that the United States military outmaneuvered the picket strategy—and in view of the grave stakes of what is occurring Palestine—”Why not storm the port?” might be a good starting point for future strategizing. Yet from this point forward, the port is only going to become more and more secure. Another approach would be to pan back from the port, looking for points of intervention outside it. In this regard, the rail blockade in Olympia in 2017 might offer a promising example.
Likewise, while we should explore ways to resolve differences when we have to work together, we can also look for ways to share information and coordinate while organizing autonomously. We might not be able to reach consensus about what strategy to use, but we can explore where we agree and diverge, acquire and circulate intelligence, and try many different strategies at once.
The logic and logistics of the ruling order are intertwined all the world over. Israeli weapons helped Azerbaijan invade the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in September. The technologies of surveillance, occupation, and repression, refined from besieging Gaza and fragmenting the West Bank, are deployed along the deadly southern border of the United States. The FBI calls Israeli tech firms when they need to hack into someone’s phone. Everything is connected, from the ports on the Salish Sea to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean.
Here’s to mutiny in the belly of the empire. If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
▻https://pugetsoundanarchists.org/shutting-down-the-port-of-tacoma
Des #syndicats du monde entier tentent d’empêcher les livraisons d’armes vers Israël
#Liège, Gênes, Barcelone, #Melbourne, #Oakland, #Toronto et peut-être bientôt différents ports français… Depuis le début du bombardement de Gaza, des syndicats ont tenté de bloquer des livraisons d’armes vers Israël, rappelant la tradition de lutte internationaliste du syndicalisme. Des initiatives insuffisantes pour entraver l’armement du pays, mais qui ont le mérite de mettre les États exportateurs d’armes face à leurs responsabilités.
Peut-on compter sur la solidarité internationaliste des syndicats pour mettre fin à l’attaque de Gaza ? C’est en tout cas ce que veut croire la coordination syndicale Workers in Palestine. Composée de dizaines de syndicats palestiniens rassemblant travailleurs agricoles, pharmaciens ou encore enseignants, elle a lancé un appel aux travailleurs du monde entier afin d’entraver l’acheminement de matériel militaire vers Israël.
« Nous lançons cet appel alors que nous constatons des tentatives visant à interdire et à réduire au silence toute forme de solidarité avec le peuple palestinien. Nous vous demandons de vous exprimer et d’agir face à l’injustice, comme les syndicats l’ont fait historiquement », écrivait-elle le 16 octobre. Dans la foulée, elle appelait à deux journées d’actions internationales les 9 et 10 novembre pour empêcher les livraisons d’armes.
Tradition de lutte anti-impérialiste du syndicalisme
En rappelant la tradition internationaliste du syndicalisme, Workers in Palestine inscrit son appel dans l’histoire des luttes syndicales contre les guerres impérialistes et coloniales. Une tradition qui n’est pas étrangère aux syndicats Français. Ainsi, en 1949, une grève organisée par les dockers de la CGT sur le port de Marseille permettait de bloquer plusieurs bateaux destinés à acheminer des armes vers l’Indochine, alors en pleine guerre de décolonisation. Et ce mode d’action n’a pas été oublié depuis. En 2019, les dockers du port de Gênes se sont mis en grève afin de ne pas avoir à charger un navire soupçonné de transporter des armes (françaises) vers l’Arabie Saoudite. « On a aussi fait des actions pendant la guerre en Irak », se remémore Didier Lebbe, secrétaire permanent de la CNE, un des syndicats belge qui a récemment refusé de transporter des armes vers Israël.
Qu’ils répondent consciemment à l’appel de Workers in Palestine ou non, des syndicats et des collectifs citoyens ont organisé des actions sur des lieux stratégiques du commerce d’armes depuis le début des bombardements sur Gaza. Des blocages et des manifestations ont eu lieu sur les ports de Tacoma aux Etat-unis, ou encore à Melbourne, en Australie ou à Toronto au Canada. A Barcelone, des dockers ont déclaré vouloir refuser de charger ou de décharger tout matériel militaire en lien avec les bombardements à Gaza. Nous avons choisi de nous attarder sur quatre de ces initiatives.
A Gênes, les dockers visent une entreprise de matériel militaire
« De 2019 à aujourd’hui, nous avons bloqué presque deux fois par an les navires transportant des armes vers des zones de guerre comme le Yémen, le Kurdistan, l’Afrique et Gaza », explique Josè Nivoi, docker génois et syndicaliste à l’Unions Sindicale di Base (USB). C’est dans la continuité de ces actions qu’il s’est mobilisé avec ses collègues et son syndicat, à l’appel de Workers in Palestine. Vendredi 10 novembre, près de 400 personnes ont manifesté devant le port de Gênes pour protester contre l’envoi d’armes en Israël. Les dockers ont ensuite marché vers les locaux de Zim integrated Shipping Service, une entreprise israélienne de transport de marchandises et de matériel militaire.
Après l’attaque du Hamas le 7 octobre, cette dernière a proposé son aide à Israël afin d’y acheminer du matériel. « Nous avons des camarades qui surveillent les navires et peuvent voir s’il y a des armes à bord », glisse le docker. Il ajoute que cette action s’inscrit dans la tradition, encore très forte à Gênes, des mobilisation anti-fasciste et anti-impérialsites : « Nous avons toujours été solidaires des peuples qui luttent pour l’autodétermination, et la question palestinienne fait partie de ces luttes. Nous sommes des travailleurs internationalistes et c’est pourquoi nous voulons nous battre pour essayer de changer les choses », explique le docker.
En Angleterre, une usine d’armes bloquée temporairement
Le même jour, près de 400 syndicalistes ont bloqué l’usine d’armes de l’entreprise BAE, à Rochester en Angleterre. L’usine d’arme fabrique notamment des « systèmes d’interception actif » pour les jet F35, « utilisés actuellement par Israël pour bombarder Gaza », écrivent les syndicats organisateurs de cette mobilisation. Art, culture, éducation, santé, sept organisations syndicales se sont retrouvées sous le mot d’ordre « Travailleurs pour une Palestine libre », répondant également à l’appel des syndicats palestiniens du 16 octobre.
« L’industrie d’armement britannique, subventionnée par de l’argent public, est impliquée dans les massacres de Palestiniens. Nous sommes ici aujourd’hui pour perturber la machine de guerre israélienne et prendre position contre la complicité de notre gouvernement et nous exhortons les travailleurs de tout le Royaume-Uni à prendre des mesures similaires sur leurs lieux de travail et dans leurs communautés », explique une professeur qui manifestait vendredi à Dorchester.
En Belgique les syndicats de l’aviation refusent de charger des armes vers Israël
Si les avions de passagers ne relient plus Israël et la Belgique depuis l’attaque du Hamas, des avions cargos continuent de transporter des armes vers l’État hébreu, selon des syndicats. « On constate même une augmentation des vols cargo depuis Liège vers Tel Aviv », confie Christian Delcourt, porte-parole de l’aéroport de Liège, à la presse belge. Un phénomène qui n’a pas échappé aux travailleurs de ces sites. « Dans le courant du mois d’octobre, des manutentionnaires nous ont informés qu’ils chargeaient des armes dans des avions civils commerciaux. D’habitude, ces cargaisons doivent être transportées par des avions militaires. Mais quoi qu’il en soit, il n’était pas question pour eux de participer à une guerre, particulièrement quand on sait que des civils sont massacrés », explique Didier Lebbe, secrétaire permanent de la CNE. Le syndicat chrétien, majoritaire dans ces aéroports, prend alors contact avec trois autres syndicats du secteur pour rédiger un communiqué commun. « Alors qu’un génocide est en cours en Palestine, les travailleurs des différents aéroports de Belgique voient des armes partir vers des zones de guerre », écrivent-ils fin octobre. L’initiative fait en partie mouche : « parmi les deux compagnies aériennes qui effectuent ces livraisons, l’une d’elle les a arrêtées. L’autre, c’est une compagnie israélienne », soutient Didier Lebbe.
En France, les dockers s’organisent
En France, si aucun syndicat n’a pour l’instant appelé à des actions sur les lieux de travail, la fédération CGT Ports et docks pourrait bientôt rejoindre le mouvement international. La semaine prochaine, au port du Pirée à Athènes,12 organisations syndicales de dockers et portuaires européennes, membres de l’EDC (European Dockworkers Council )doivent se réunir pour une assemblée générale. « Au niveau français, on va pousser pour obtenir une journée d’arrêt de travail dans tous les ports européens pour manifester notre volonté d’un processus de paix, et dénoncer tous les conflits armés », affirme Tony Hautbois, secrétaire général de la fédération CGT Ports et docks. La possibilité d’un boycott des syndicats sur le transport d’armes vers Israël sera aussi en débat, il pourrait déboucher sur une position commune entre ces syndicats, qui regroupent 20 000 dockers à travers l’Europe.
D’autres syndicats français ont également mis en avant la nécessité d’une action sur l’outil de travail pour empêcher les livraisons d’armes vers Israël. La fédération Sud-Rail a ainsi appelé à s’exprimer dans la rue « mais aussi avec les méthodes de la lutte des classes, comme la grève ». Sur le réseau social X (ex-Twitter), l’union locale CGT de Guingamp a relayé l’appel de Workers in Palestine.
Des actions symboliques qui ne pèsent pas réellement sur le conflit…
Pourtant, même si les initiatives syndicales essaiment, elles ne suffisent pas à entraver la capacité d’armement d’Israël. « Même si la vente de matériel militaire était bloquée en France, cela ne pèserait pas beaucoup. On estime que notre pays vend environ 20 millions d’euros de composants militaires par an à Israël. C’est incomparable avec ce que l’on vend aux Emirats arabes unis, par exemple », explique Patrice Bouveret, cofondateur de l’Observatoire des armements, centre d’étude antimilitariste basé à Lyon. A cela s’ajoutent les ventes de biens dits « à double usage », des composants qui peuvent servir pour produire du matériel militaire, ou non. « Mais il s’agit de matériel d’une telle précision qu’il est bien souvent utilisé uniquement pour les armes », commente Patrice Bouveret. Ces biens représentent une somme évaluée à 34 millions par le ministère de l’économie dans un rapport (voir tableau p. 38) remis aux parlementaires en juin 2023.
« Le principal fournisseur d’armes à Israël, ce sont les États-Unis : près de 4 milliards d’euros de vente d’armes. Les américains entreposent également des stocks d’armes en Israël dans laquelle cette dernière peut puiser. Enfin, comme Israël a des capacités de production, elle peut importer des composants moins chers, qu’elle pourra elle-même transformer », continue Patrice Bouveret.
…mais qui mettent les États face à leurs responsabilités
Ces actions ont toutefois le mérite de poser la question de la responsabilité des États producteurs ou exportateurs d’armes dans les bombardements israéliens sur la bande de Gaza et sa population. Alors que 10 000 personnes sont mortes sous les bombes israéliennes, dont 4000 enfants, les termes « nettoyage ethnique », « génocide », ou « crimes de guerre » commencent à se faire entendre dans les plus hautes instances internationales. « La punition collective infligée par Israël aux civils palestiniens est également un crime de guerre, tout comme l’évacuation forcée illégale de civils », a déclaré Volker Türk, Haut Commissaire des Nations unies pour les réfugiés, le 8 novembre.
Les accords et traités internationaux sont très clairs sur l’implication de pays tiers dans la commission de crimes de guerre, notamment par le biais de la vente d’armes. Le traité sur le commerce des armes (TCA), interdit tout transfert d’armes qui pourrait être employé dans le cadre de crimes de guerre. Amnesty international a déjà alerté sur l’implication de la France dans la vente d’armes à l’Arabie Saoudite, accusée de bombarder sans distinction la population civile au Yémen, où elle mène une guerre contre les rebelles Houthis, depuis huit ans.
Quant à savoir si les bombardement israéliens constituent un crime de guerre ou un génocide, c’est à la cour pénale Internationale d’en décider. Une plainte pour « génocide » a déjà été déposée par une centaines de palestiniens, tandis que la France enquête déjà sur de possibles « crimes de guerre » du Hamas. Reporter sans Frontière a aussi déposé une plainte pour « crimes de guerres » après la mort de journalistes palestiniens et israéliens. Enfin, l’ONU enquête actuellement en Israël et en Palestine sur de possibles crimes de guerres, en lien avec l’attaque du Hamas le 7 octobre, ou les bombardements israéliens sur la bande de Gaza depuis un mois.
▻https://rapportsdeforce.fr/linternationale/des-syndicats-du-monde-entier-tentent-dempecher-les-livraisons-darme
#Total en #Ouganda : les opposants subissent #arrestations et pressions
Le projet #Eeacop se retrouve de nouveau sous le feu des critiques. Dans son rapport « Working On Oil is Forbidden : Crackdown Against Environmental Defenders in Uganda » (▻https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/11/02/working-oil-forbidden/crackdown-against-environmental-defenders-uganda), publié le jeudi 2 novembre, l’ONG Human Rights Watch dénonce les pressions et les arrestations arbitraires dont seraient victimes des défenseurs de l’environnement et des activistes ougandais opposés au projet d’oléoduc en Afrique de l’Est. Selon les auteurs du rapport, au moins trente manifestants et défenseurs des droits humains, dont beaucoup d’étudiants, ont été arrêtés à Kampala et dans d’autres régions de l’Ouganda depuis 2021.
Pour réaliser ce travail, l’ONG a collecté les témoignages de 31 personnes, dont 21 activistes anti-Eacop en Ouganda. « [La police] me posait des questions sur le pétrole… À un moment donné, ils me traitaient de terroriste, de saboteur des programmes gouvernementaux…. À la fin, ils ont écrit sur le document de libération sous caution : attroupement illégal », raconte Maxwell Atuhura, défenseur de l’environnement, arrêté à Bullisa en 2021.
Le mégaprojet du groupe français comprend le #forage de 419 #puits dans l’ouest de l’Ouganda, dont un tiers se situent dans le #parc_naturel de #Murchison_Falls. En plus des dégâts sur la #biodiversité du pays, « plus de 100 000 personnes en Ouganda et en #Tanzanie perdront leurs #terres à cause de l’#exploitation_pétrolière », rappelle l’ONG. Dans une lettre du 23 octobre à Human Rights Watch, #TotalÉnergies affirme ne tolérer « aucune attaque ou menace contre ceux qui promeuvent pacifiquement et légalement les #droits_humains dans le cadre de leurs activités ».
▻https://reporterre.net/TotalEnergies-en-Ouganda-HRW-denonce-les-pressions-contre-les-opposants-
#rapport #HRW #pétrole #TotalEnergies