• En #Arizona, le mur de #conteneurs à la #frontière avec le #Mexique en cours de #démantèlement

    Sur une route poussiéreuse de l’Arizona, un pick-up fonce et emporte au loin un grand caisson métallique. A la frontière entre les Etats-Unis et le Mexique, un mur de conteneurs, installé pour plusieurs dizaines de millions de dollars il y a seulement quelques mois, était en cours de démantèlement ce week-end.

    Sur une route poussiéreuse de l’Arizona, un pick-up fonce et emporte au loin un grand caisson métallique. A la frontière entre les Etats-Unis et le Mexique, un mur de conteneurs, installé pour plusieurs dizaines de millions de dollars il y a seulement quelques mois, était en cours de démantèlement ce week-end.

    Dans les mois précédant la fin de son mandat, le gouverneur républicain de l’Arizona, dans le sud-ouest des Etats-Unis, avait ordonné qu’une gigantesque enfilade de conteneurs soient placés à la frontière avec le Mexique, afin, selon lui, d’endiguer l’immigration illégale.

    Mais après avoir été poursuivi devant la justice par l’Etat fédéral pour avoir placé les conteneurs sur des terres fédérales, dans la forêt nationale de #Coronado, le gouverneur #Greg_Ducey, remplacé depuis par la démocrate #Katie_Hobbs, a accepté en décembre de les retirer.

    « Je n’arrive pas à croire que le gouverneur Ducey puisse penser que c’était une bonne idée », souligne à l’AFP Debbie McGuire une ancienne habitante de l’Arizona venue assister aux opérations de démantèlement.

    « C’est complètement absurde de mettre des conteneurs qui n’allaient jamais réussir à empêcher les gens de passer », dit-elle. « C’est ridicule et un gaspillage complet de l’argent du contribuable ».

    L’édification du mur de conteneurs a commencé mi-2022 et a rapidement fait face à une puissante fronde. Ses détracteurs estiment que l’assemblage n’est rien d’autre qu’une manoeuvre politique cynique qui endommage l’#environnement et n’a aucun impact sur le nombre de traversées illégales de la frontière.

    Relief escarpé

    Ils affirment que le mur de conteneurs, qui s’étire sur près de sept kilomètres à travers les terres fédérales, empiète sur une zone importante de conservation environnementale.

    Le relief y est également tellement escarpé que selon eux, les passeurs de migrants n’ont jamais vraiment utilisé cette zone.

    En pratique, les conteneurs étaient inadéquats pour empêcher les migrants de les franchir : leur forme rigide faisait qu’ils n’étaient pas toujours alignés en fonction du relief, laissant des trous béants entre les boîtes.

    « C’est une #mascarade et un #gaspillage de l’#argent_public », estime Bill Wilson, un habitant de la ville voisine venu voir vendredi le démantèlement du mur de conteneurs.

    Le septuagénaire dénonce aussi « une #stratégie_politicienne ».

    L’Arizona partage quelque 600 kilomètres de frontière avec le Mexique, passant par des aires protégées, des parcs nationaux, des zones militaires et des réserves amérindiennes.

    Les arrivées illégales de migrants venant de pays d’Amérique du sud et centrale sont un thème récurrent dans les attaques des républicains contre Joe Biden, qui a promis d’augmenter les expulsions immédiates.

    Plus de 230.000 arrestations ont encore été enregistrées en novembre à la frontière sud des Etats-Unis, un niveau record.

    Jusqu’à l’arrivée à la Maison Blanche en 2017 de Donald Trump - qui avait fait campagne sur le slogan « Construisons le mur » - il n’existait pas réellement de barrière physique entre l’Arizona et le Mexique.

    A présent, de larges portions de la frontière sont dotées d’une grille qui s’élève par endroits jusqu’à neuf mètres de haut.

    Dans la forêt nationale de Coronado, qui ne peut être atteinte que par des petites routes de terre, la frontière n’était démarquée avant l’arrivée des conteneurs que par un grillage barbelé.

    https://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/en-arizona-le-mur-de-conteneurs-la-frontiere-avec-le-mexique-

    #containers #frontières #barrières_frontalières #USA #Etats-Unis #walls_don't_work #asile #migrations #réfugiés #murs

  • Border barrier boondoggle. Trump’s promised inexpensive, impregnable wall was anything but.

    “I would build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me. And I’ll build them very inexpensively,” Donald Trump said in 2015 as he announced his presidential run. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” During the campaign, Trump offered more details. His wall would span the entire length of the border, or nearly 2,000 miles, it would be fashioned with concrete — not unlike the Berlin Wall — and would be “impregnable” and “big and beautiful.”

    It didn’t quite work out that way. By the end of Trump’s term, his administration had completed construction of about 450 miles of barrier, none of which was concrete and all of which was demonstrably pregnable, at a cost at least five times that of the existing barriers. Mexico did not pay a dime for it. And the “beautiful” part? That, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

    When Trump first promised to build the wall along the border, he apparently didn’t realize that his predecessors had already constructed hundreds of miles of barriers. It all started in 1996, when President #Bill_Clinton signed the #Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Responsibility_Act. Fences were constructed in urban areas, such as #Nogales and #San_Diego, with the intention of driving border crossers into the desert, where they could be more easily apprehended — but also where they were at greater risk of dying of heat-related ailments.

    A decade later, President George W. Bush signed the #Secure_Fence_Act of 2006, authorizing the construction of 700 miles of barriers. As a result, 652 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers already lined the border, mostly between #El_Paso and San Diego, by the time #Trump was elected. All the evidence, however, suggests that it did very little to stop undocumented migration, in part because at least two-thirds of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. arrived on #visas and then overstayed them.

    Besides, no wall is truly impregnable, as Trump himself indicated in a speech on the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when he said: “Let the fate of the Berlin Wall be a lesson to oppressive regimes and rulers everywhere: No Iron Curtain can ever contain the iron will of a people resolved to be free.” Oddly enough, “iron curtain” may be the most accurate description of Trump’s new segments of the wall.

    On the day of his inauguration, President Joseph Biden signed an executive order halting further construction. Now, many observers are urging him to go further and dismantle the barrier, as well as try to repair the damage done. Or, as President Ronald Reagan put it in 1987, “Tear down this wall!”

    https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.3/infographic-borderlands-border-barrier-boondoggle
    #cartographie #infographie #visualisation #murs #prix #coût #longueur #barrières_frontalières #Trump #promesses #promesses_non_maintenues #statistiques #chiffres #George_Bush #overstayers #Joe_Binden #walls_don't_work

    ping @reka

  • Homeland tour: Why I didn’t write about the breach in the border fence Amira Hass | Aug. 12, 2020 | 4:52 AM - Haaretz.com
    https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-homeland-tour-why-i-didn-t-write-about-the-breach-in-the-border-fe

    The video clip I received to my cellphone contained 29 seconds of waves breaking on rocks. “We’re in Tel Aviv,” my friend wrote me. How much excitement was compressed into those few words.

    She is from Nablus. She, her husband and their two children did what tens of thousands of Palestinians from throughout the West Bank have been doing in recent weeks. They left through a breach in the separation fence and entered Israel.

    This was the first time her 25-year-old son had crossed the Green Line and seen Palestine’s sea. “He didn’t want to leave,” my friend said. “He went crazy over how beautiful the sea is.”

    As chance had it, they exited through the breach at Far’un, east of Taibeh, about half an hour after I left that exact same spot. Like them, I saw the soldiers standing on the road and watching as masses of people crossed on foot from the fence to waiting minibuses or taxis.

    I saw entire families, groups of young people, couples, babies in strollers and toddlers trotting along the dirt road after their parents. Some went down the sides of the narrow wadi and climbed up toward the breach. Still others chose the longer but easier, paved route there.

    It went on all day and all evening. They came from cities, villages and refugee camps. Some headed to Acre and some to Netanya. Some planned to spend the night in the Galilee or the Triangle region, others would go home at midnight. The excessive price for a taxi ride angered them, but didn’t deter them.

    And as usual, there were small-scale entrepreneurs there. One was selling masks. Another lugged a canister of cooking gas all day, back and forth, and sold coffee or sage tea. “I’m afraid the soldiers will shoot me, because they’ll think the canister is a weapon,” he said. But the lure of some income was stronger than his fear.

    These breaches in the fence are no secret, and B’Tselem – the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories has documented cases in which soldiers shot and seriously wounded laborers who entered Israel through them. Yet the army, the lord and master on the ground, hasn’t closed them.

    It’s also well-known that these breaches have multiplied since the coronavirus pandemic began. They are now spread out along the entire length of the fence.

    Before dawn, laborers come through them. Israel needs their work, and they need a livelihood. Farmers whose land is locked away on the other side of the separation barrier also come through them. That way, when they go to and return from their fields, they don’t have to wait for soldiers to open the gate.

    And over the past two weeks, even before the Eid al-Adha holiday on July 31, they have been joined by a never-ending stream of vacationers – people who long for normalcy, freedom of movement, fun and visits to friends. “They’re hungering to travel around their homeland,” said Ehab Al-Jariri, editor and host of one of Palestinian radio’s most interesting talk shows.

    I decided to wait with the story and pictures of this exodus. I was afraid that any attention to it from the Israeli media would hasten the closure of the breaches. An opportunity for another few thousand Palestinians to exercise their right to travel around their homeland is much more important than any journalistic report.

    For the same reason, photographer Oren Ziv of +972 Magazine, whom I met during one of my visits to Far’un, decided to temporarily shelve his photographs. But now that the story has already been told on Israeli television, we have been freed from this decision.

    When so many breaches have remained open for around half a year, it’s clear that this is a decision from above. Israeli security officials have made some sort of cost-benefit calculation, once again proving the extent to which Israeli control over the Palestinians is present, invasive and capricious.

    In the morning, soldiers actually do lie in wait near the breaches in some parts of the West Bank and fire tear gas canisters at people as they pass by. Why? It’s not clear. Palestinians have been busy speculating about why the breaches haven’t been closed and why soldiers sometimes fire tear gas at them and sometimes don’t. Indeed, by Tuesday morning reports from along the fence were telling about soldiers shooting tear gas and closing some breaches.

    The fear or the dangers the vacationers may face are dwarfed in comparison to the possibility of freeing themselves of the usual suffocation and stress, if only for a day. Even if afterward, the feeling of being imprisoned in West Bank enclaves merely grows stronger.

    • ‘A rare chance’: Palestinians cross breach in separation barrier to enjoy the sea
      Thousands of Palestinian families are traveling through large holes in the West Bank barrier to visit the coast, while the Israeli army largely turns a blind eye.
      By Ahmad Al-Bazz and Oren Ziv August 11, 2020
      https://www.972mag.com/separation-barrier-crossing-sea-west-bank

      Palestinians walking through a hole in the Israeli separation barrier next to the West Bank village of Far’oun near Tulkarem. (Activestills)

      In the past two weeks, tens of thousands of West Bank Palestinians have been freely traveling to cities and towns beyond the Green Line via holes in the Israeli separation barrier — with most of them headed for the beach.

      These mass crossings, which have been taking place as Israeli soldiers look on, coincided with the four-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha that began on July 30. Each year, Palestinians marking the occasion apply for rare holiday permits, which the Israeli Defense Ministry sometimes issues under limited conditions.

      Israel did not issue holiday permits this year ostensibly due to the COVID-19 crisis, but the breach in the separation barrier meant that Palestinians were still able to go to the coast — usually off-limits to them — to mark the holiday. (...)

    • The separation barrier is an illusion — and Israel knows it
      Most Jewish-Israelis believe enforcing segregation is necessary for their security. In reality, Palestinians defy that segregation all the time.
      By Meron Rapoport and Oren Ziv August 14, 2020
      https://www.972mag.com/separation-barrier-breaches-illusion

      Palestinians walking through a hole in the Israeli separation barrier next to the West Bank village of Far’oun near Tulkarem. (Activestills)

      Every Jewish Israeli who travels to Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and encounters soldiers on the way out is familiar with their shocked response. “What, you were there, in Ramallah?!” they will ask, as if you had just returned from a wild land, as if you had come out alive from hell itself.

      The separation barrier, a stretch of concrete wall and metal fences that Israel began building in the 2000s during the Second Intifada, has contributed greatly to this perception, which most Jewish Israelis share. As if the barrier managed to segregate Israelis from Palestinians, us here and them there, beyond the mountains of darkness. As if the barrier “works.”

      The tens of thousands of Palestinians who crossed freely into Israel through the recent breaches in the barrier, in many instances under the watchful eyes of Israeli soldiers, are challenging this perception. But for some senior Israeli officials who are familiar with the situation, this is no surprise. The barrier acts mostly as a symbol, and does not really separate Israelis and Palestinians, because Palestinians travel past it all the time. Israel’s security system is relatively indifferent to this movement; it only cares that people don’t talk about it. The only purpose the separation barrier serves, says one of the retired officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, is to transform the Israeli mind — to create an illusion of separation.

    • Le sel de la mer, pour la première fois à Jaffa
      Par Dareen Tatour 17 août 2020 | Traduction : JPB pour l’Agence Média Palestine - Mondoweiss | Agence Media Palestine
      https://agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2020/08/20/le-sel-de-la-mer-pour-la-premiere-fois-a-jaffa

      J’ai commencé à marcher dans les rues de Jaffa et à aller entre ses plages et ses parcs. J’ai été très touchée par ce que j’ai vu. Je n’avais jamais vu Jaffa comme cela auparavant – la majorité de ceux que j’ai vus étaient des Palestiniens. Dans tous les lieux où je me suis promenée, la conversation entre les gens était en arabe. Chaque fois que je regardais autour de moi, je voyais des Palestiniens, comme si je vivais à une autre époque que celle dans laquelle je vis. Je voyais des femmes portant des vêtements palestiniens et des jilbabs avec le hijab partout. J’ai vu des gens et des enfants jouer et s’amuser, écouter de la musique et contempler la nature. Ils étalaient spontanément leur nourriture sur l’herbe et le sable de la plage. J’ai senti la maqlouba palestinienne, je me suis tournée vers l’arôme et j’ai vu une dizaine de personnes assises autour d’une grande casserole. Une femme tourne le plat sur un grand plateau et répand le doux parfum dans l’air de Jaffa. Je me suis avancée et j’ai vu un groupe de jeunes hommes préparer un narguilé et placer devant eux une assiette de yaourt trempé dans de l’huile d’olive, à côté une assiette d’olives vertes marinées et un bol de pastèque.

      Tandis que je continuait de cheminer, j’ai vu ce qui devrait être plus banal dans ce pays – la vue et les parfums de la présence palestinienne. Voir Jaffa rempli de ses habitants originels.

  • WATCH: Viral video claims to show ‘Trump’s border wall’ COLLAPSE under the wrath of #Hurricane_Hanna

    A section of the US-Mexico border wall in Texas allegedly failed to withstand the power of nature, according to a viral video. While its authenticity has been questioned, the clip sent President Trump’s critics into overdrive.

    A viral video purportedly showing a partial collapse of the border fence between the United States and Mexico was widely shared online on Sunday. While it was not immediately clear where it was recorded and which segment of the fence was affected, several local journalists and media reports indicated the incident happened somewhere between Texas and the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas as the storm battered the region.

    https://www.rt.com/usa/495928-texas-border-wall-collapse-hurricane

    #murs #barrières_frontalières #destruction #walls_don't_work #les_murs_tombent #frontières #USA #Etats-Unis #Mexique

    –—

    ajouté à la métaliste sur les murs qui tombent...
    https://seenthis.net/messages/823380

    • Writers on the Range: The wall with Mexico will come tumbling down

      Few walls last forever. Last winter, part of President Trump’s new border wall wavered toward collapse under the force of strong winds whipping through the twin cities of Calexico and Mexicali. An 80-foot segment lurched into Mexican territory, and it took cranes from the U.S. side to right the steel panels.

      Most of the families I know that live close to the border have arrived at the same conclusion: The monstrous wall so close to them has further militarized our international boundary with Mexico. They say that a steel barrier with a yard-wide concrete footer — and lighting that never dims — permanently blocks the free flow of wildlife, seeds, pollen, water, religious pilgrims and essential workers across the U.S.-Mexico border. We have watched U.S. agencies rush to build a wall through the poorest communities in western North America without local consent.

      Both supporters and opponents of this bigger wall speak fatalistically about the barrier. They seem to concede that more miles of wall are irreversible because the courts have upheld Trump’s legal waivers of 41 state and federal laws.

      Meanwhile, the wall does damage wherever it’s built or expanded. Habitats for endangered species have been fragmented, and human remains in sacred sites have been desecrated. The doom-and-gloomers say there is no going back.

      But one needs to read only a bit of world history to realize that walls can come down as a quickly as they were put up.

      Thirty years ago this last November, the Berlin Wall was demolished after 26 years of dividing Berlin and East Germany from West Germany. Its deconstruction cost far less than its original construction, thanks in part to eager people who pitched in to turn the concrete part of the wall back into rubble. The two sections of Berlin have now been reunited for a longer period of time than the construction of the wall in 1961 divided them.

      Closer to home, the first barrier built on our southern border, dividing Nogales Arizona from Nogales Sonora, came tumbling down faster than the walls at the Battle of Jericho. This wall was erected a little over a century ago, during the time that Mexico was in the depths of a revolution.

      American-made rifles were frequently smuggled into Sonora through Ambos Nogales. To slow the flow of firearms, Sonora’s Gov. Maytorena ordered the erection of an 11- strand barbwire fence to run down the middle of International Street, where the two countries met.

      Yes. That’s right: The first border barrier along the boundary line was erected to keep U.S. citizens from illegally passing rifles into Mexico.

      But that first border wall so enraged the community of Ambos Nogales that it was brought down within a mere four months of its being erected. As soon as Gen. Obregón defeated Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in Nogales, Sonora, in 1915, he ordered the 11-strand fence torn down.

      Regardless of your political stance about our current border policies, it is time that we recognize that a permanent border wall is not a fait accompli. The pandemic has reminded us what a true “national emergency” is, and a hyped-up emergency at the border does not justify such environmental and economic costs.

      If we don’t want it, it can be legally deauthorized, once again allowing surface waters to flow. Dozens of species of wildlife now threatened by habitat fragmentation could once again migrate, and seeds could tumble across the desert floor.

      A debate is already underway about how the wall should be deconstructed, how its materials could be recycled, how sacred sites along its pathway would be reconsecrated, and how damaged natural habitats could at last be restored.

      I live just 14 miles as the crow flies from the Arizona-Sonora, Mexico, border, and though no one can predict when the times will dramatically change, it is never too early to consider the possibility that this foolish wall will fall.

      It is already time to support a broad-based “Border Wall De-Commission,” one with United States, Mexican and tribal nation representatives. Let us now envision and restore a more just and humane future along our border with Mexico, and with trans-border tribes.

      https://www.parkrecord.com/news/writers-on-the-range-the-wall-with-mexico-will-come-tumbling-down

      via @isskein

  • La #Slovénie érige de nouvelles barrières à sa frontière avec la #Croatie


    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/24082/la-slovenie-erige-de-nouvelles-barrieres-a-sa-frontiere-avec-la-croati

    La Slovénie a décidé de renforcer sa frontière avec la Croatie afin d’éviter des franchissements illégaux par des migrants, a annoncé mardi le ministère de l’Intérieur. En cinq ans, près de 200 kilomètres de clôtures ont déjà été construits dans cette zone.

    La Slovénie a déclaré, mardi 14 avril, qu’elle allait ajouter 40 kilomètres de nouvelles barrières à sa frontière avec la Croatie afin d’empêcher des migrants de la franchir clandestinement, rapporte l’agence de presse Reuters. Depuis 2015, le pays a fait construire progressivement quelque 196 kilomètres de clôtures sur les 670 kilomètres de frontière commune entre la Slovénie et la Croatie.

    Le ministère n’a pas précisé où les nouvelles barrières seront installées, mais a indiqué que leur construction serait effective dans le courant de l’année. Une annonce similaire portant également sur 40 kilomètres de nouvelles barrières avait été faite en juillet dernier pour l’année 2019.

    Bien que la Croatie et la Slovénie soient membres de l’Union européenne, la première n’appartient pas à l’espace Schengen de libre circulation. Les autorités slovènes ont donc expliqué l’an dernier qu’elles comptaient installer de nouvelles clôtures « dans les zones où il est urgent d’empêcher le franchissement illégal des frontières et de protéger les citoyens et leurs biens ».

    Explosion du nombre de tentatives de franchissement de la frontière

    Sur les deux premiers mois de l’année 2020, la police slovène a dénombré 1 165 tentatives de passage clandestin, soit près de 80% de plus qu’à la même période l’an dernier. Elle avait notamment annoncé, le mois dernier, avoir découvert une trentaine de migrants cachés dans un train de marchandises (https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/23225/slovenie-la-police-decouvre-trente-migrants-caches-sous-de-l-argile-da).

    Revenu fin février dans le fauteuil de Premier ministre, Janez Jansa avait promis lors de sa campagne de durcir sa politique en matière d’asile, d’ajouter de nouvelles barrières frontalières et de renforcer les contrôles aux frontières de ce petit pays de deux millions d’habitants situé sur le route migratoire des Balkans (https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/23045/slovenie-le-conservateur-janez-jansa-revient-au-pouvoir-en-durcissant-).

    Durant le pic de la crise migratoire en 2015 et 2016, un demi million de migrants clandestins avait traversé la Slovénie en six mois afin d’atteindre les pays d’Europe occidentale plus riches, comme la France, l’Allemagne ou le Royaume-Uni.

    #barrières_frontalières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #murs #route_des_balkans #frontière_sud-alpine #frontières #clôture

    • C’était 2019...
      En Slovénie, une clôture « de la honte » à la frontière croate (1/3)

      Depuis 2015, le gouvernement slovène érige le long de sa frontière sud une clôture de #barbelés pour tenter d’endiguer le flux de migrants en provenance de la Croatie voisine. Les villages slovènes traversés par les fils barbelés supportent mal l’installation de ce grillage qui, selon eux, abîme le #paysage et n’empêche pas la traversée des migrants.

      « Qui aime se réveiller le matin avec des #fils_barbelés devant sa fenêtre ? » Rudy ne décolère pas. Cet habitant de #Slavski_Laz, un village perdu dans les #montagnes slovènes, frontalier avec la Croatie, ne s’explique toujours pas pourquoi le gouvernement a construit, ici, au bord de la #rivière_Kolpa, une clôture de barbelés.

      « Ils disent que ce grillage est fait pour nous protéger… Mais nous protéger de quoi ? Je n’ai #peur de rien… », continue ce retraité qui vit depuis des années dans la région encore largement sauvage. L’argument de « l’#invasion_migratoire » brandi par le gouvernement pour justifier la construction de ce mur de métal ne le convainc pas.

      « Les migrants ici, ils passent, c’est tout », explique-t-il. « Ils transitent par la Slovénie et puis s’en vont vers d’autres pays, vers le nord de l’Europe généralement ».

      Les amis de Rudy acquiescent, tous attablés dans le seul café encore ouvert à 19h de #Kostel, un village de moins de 650 habitants non loin d’une des rares routes menant à la Croatie. Selon eux, la clôture est inutile, elle abîme le paysage, et son rôle de #dissuasion est largement surestimé. « Ils disent que les barbelés vont empêcher le passage de migrants… Mais tout le monde passe quand même ! », sourit Marco, un ami de Rudy, habitant dans le village voisin de Fara, en déclenchant l’hilarité de l’assemblée.

      « Par exemple, en ce moment, avec l’hiver et les forts courants, les rivages sont boueux, poreux, alors, les terrains bougent, la clôture s’effondre. Les migrants qui veulent passer n’ont même pas besoin de se fatiguer, ils ont juste à l’#enjamber », continue Marco en riant. « Il y a des endroits où des sillons se sont creusés. Ils peuvent aussi passer sous la barrière ! »

      116 km de #grillages

      Près de 14 000 migrants ont traversé la frontière depuis le début de l’année, « soit 70% de plus que l’année dernière », à la même période, affirment les autorités slovènes à InfoMigrants.

      Cet été, 40 km supplémentaires de grillages ont donc été construits à la frontière sud, le long de la rivière Kolpa. « Il faut empêcher le franchissement illégal des frontières », a indiqué le ministère de l’Intérieur dans un communiqué. En tout, depuis 2015, Ljulbjana a déjà érigé 116 km de grillages le long de la Kolpa qui parcourt les 670 km de frontière avec la Croatie.

      « Ces clôtures ne sont pas une baguette magique mais elles nous aident », ajoute, de son côté, un commandant de police slovène.

      Khaled, un demandeur d’asile érythréen, aujourd’hui à Ljubljana, a tenté trois fois le passage de la frontière slovène avant de réussir à entrer dans le pays. La clôture, il s’en souvient très bien. « J’ai traversé la frontière au mois de mai, quelque part vers #Ribnica. Je me souviens qu’une fois la rivière franchie, il a fallu passer ces barbelés. Alors j’ai grimpé, je me suis déchiré les mains, elles étaient pleines de sang, mais je suis passé ».

      Montagnes dangereuses, présence d’#ours, eau glaciale

      Au delà de sa dangerosité, Rudy, le villageois, voit dans cet alignement de barbelés, une « #clôture_de_la_honte » qui, selon lui, stigmatise les migrants. « On voit arriver des familles, parfois des enfants. Je ne vois pas bien en quoi, ce sont des ennemis », continue le retraité.

      « Cette barrière, c’est le début de l’enfer », explique à son tour une jeune fille qui énumère les dangers qui attendent les migrants juste après son franchissement : la montagne « très dangereuse quand on s’y perd », les températures « glaciales » et les ours, nombreux dans le pays. « Parfois, on entend des cris là-haut. Ce sont des migrants qui hurlent pour effrayer les animaux ».

      Ces dernières semaines, deux migrants sont décédés par #noyade dans la Kolpa et un autre a été retrouvé mort de froid et d’#épuisement dans la #forêt.

      Surtout, les migrants doivent éviter les patrouilles de #police. « La nuit, quand nous tentons la traversée, nous voyons les lumières des lampes torche, derrière la clôture. Les #policiers sont partout. C’est ça qui nous effraie le plus », se souvient Khaled. « On fait tout pour les éviter. Quand la police vous attrape, elle vous renvoie en Croatie. Elle vous emmène rarement jusqu’à la capitale pour demander l’asile ».

      Depuis le début de l’année, sur les 14 000 entrées illégales, plus de 8 000 renvois – aussi appelés « pushbacks » - ont été effectués depuis les frontières slovènes, affirment les autorités.

      Patrouille de miliciens d’extrême-droite

      « C’est une #honte, il y a la police, l’armée, maintenant cette clôture et il y a même une milice ! », fulmine à son tour Katarina Bernad Sterva, directrice de l’association slovène d’aide aux réfugiés, qui se désespère de la situation à la frontière.

      Depuis quelques jours en effet, des miliciens en treillis militaires, visages cachés derrière des cagoules noires, patrouillent aussi le long de la rivière Kolpa. Dirigée par le leader d’extrême-droite, Andrej Sisko,cette milice se veut un « renfort » à l’armée régulière pour « défendre la frontière » et intercepter les migrants. « Nous sommes le point d’entrée de l’espace Schengen », se justifie Andrej Sisko. « Nous voulons faire passer un message. Nous voulons dire aux étrangers de rester chez eux. La clôture est fragile, elle ne permet pas de stopper les migrants alors nous venons contrôler les abords de la rivière nous-mêmes ».

      La milice d’#Andrej_Sisko n’a aucun mandat légal. Et visiblement, les villageois s’expliquent mal leur présence.

      Si certains rient à leur passage - « C’est le carnaval quand ils sont là », entend-t-on ici et là dans les villages frontaliers – d’autres comme Katarina Bernad Sterva regarde cette armée parallèle avec une inquiétude grandissante. « Ce qui m’effraie, c’est qu’ils existent. Publiquement, le gouvernement a condamné leurs actions, mais, dans les faits, les autorités ne font rien. Ces hommes sont fous, nous nous attendions à une réaction forte du gouvernement, comme par exemple l’annonce de la dissolution de ces patrouilles ».
      https://twitter.com/sarecmarjan/status/1036914541693755400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E10

      Interrogée par InfoMigrants, la police reste muette sur le sujet. « Je n’ai rien à dire sur ces hommes. Ils n’ont pas le soutien de la police », déclare simplement Vicjem Toskan, l’un des commandants en chef de la police de Koper, à l’ouest du pays.

      Ce soir-là, à Kostel, les amis du café s’interrogent surtout sur le sort réservé aux migrants interceptés par cette milice d’extrême-droite. « On a déjà la police et l’armée pour intercepter les migrants. On a une clôture pour les empêcher de continuer leur route. Eux, qu’est-ce qui vont leur faire, la nuit, dans la montagne ? », s’inquiète Rudy. « Ils portent des masques, ils marchent dans la forêt. J’ai plus peur d’eux que des immigrés qui traversent la rivière », chuchote à son tour, une jeune fille en bout de table. « Si j’étais migrante, je n’aimerais vraiment pas tomber sur eux ».

      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/20807/en-slovenie-une-cloture-de-la-honte-a-la-frontiere-croate-1-3

      #milices #patrouilles #extrême_droite #Kolpa #efficacité #montagne #Alpes #décès #morts #mourir_aux_frontières #danger #dangers #push-back #refoulement #refoulements #militarisation_des_frontières #push-backs

      –---

      #Walls_don't_work :

      « Par exemple, en ce moment, avec l’hiver et les forts courants, les rivages sont boueux, poreux, alors, les terrains bougent, la clôture s’effondre. Les migrants qui veulent passer n’ont même pas besoin de se fatiguer, ils ont juste à l’#enjamber », continue Marco en riant. « Il y a des endroits où des sillons se sont creusés. Ils peuvent aussi passer sous la barrière ! »

      –-> voir la métaliste

    • Despite all the existing reports about the Croatian police violence and brutality, Slovenia continues to pushback migrants to Croatia. This was recently even recognized by the Italian court: an Italian court stopped deportation to Slovenia on the grounds that there is a risk for an asylum seeker to be subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment due to the high possibility of him (or her) being further expelled to Croatia and then to Bosnia or Serbia.
      More on that in AYS article from beginning of June:
      AYS Special: Italian Court StopsDeportation to Slovenia, Meanwhile Pushbacks Continue
      https://medium.com/are-you-syrious/ays-special-italian-court-stops-deportation-to-slovenia-meanwhile-pushbacks-

      Last week, the new Slovenian Minister of Interior Affair (of the new right wing government) frankly admitted in an interview that Slovenian police is sending migrants back to Croatia and consequently into the refugees centres in Bosnia and Serbia:
      Notranji minister Aleš Hojs razkril migracijsko »skrivnost«
      https://www.dnevnik.si/1042931634 (only in Slovenian)

      Currently, the government is also preparing a new Aliens Act where they plan to severely restrict access to asylum (among many other things): this means that during what they call complex migration emergencies, proclaimed by the government, access to asylum can be completely limited.

      Message reçu via la mailing-list Migreurop, le 15.06.2020

    • Slovénie : une vingtaine de migrants « proches de la suffocation » découverts dans des camions

      La police slovène a annoncé avoir découvert 22 migrants cachés dans des camion-citernes, samedi, à la frontière croate. Les contrôles ont été fortement renforcés dans cette région avec notamment l’envoi de 1 000 nouveaux policiers début juin.

      « Ils étaient proches de la suffocation. » Vingt-deux migrants cachés dans deux camion-citernes alimentaires ont été découverts par la police slovène, samedi 20 juin, à la frontière avec la Croatie, rapporte l’agence de presse AP. Les deux poids-lourds avaient des plaques d’immatriculation provenant de Serbie.

      Un premier groupe de 13 migrants a été découvert lors d’un contrôle de police à la frontière. Le second groupe, composé de 9 personnes, a été trouvé peu après dans un autre camion appartenant à la même compagnie.

      Les migrants sont originaires du Bangladesh, d’Inde, de Turquie et de Syrie, indique la police.

      Des milliers de migrants empruntent chaque année la route dite « des Balkans » malgré sa dangerosité. Un grand nombre d’entre eux font appel à des passeurs afin de traverser les frontières vers l’Europe occidentale dans des camions, plutôt que de tenter leur chance à pied à travers les forêts et les montagnes de la région.

      Craignant une recrudescence des passages clandestins à la suite du déconfinement décrété dans différents pays européens, la Slovénie a annoncé, début juin, qu’elle envoyait 1000 officiers de police en renfort à sa frontière avec la Croatie. Ces effectifs sont équipés de #drones, de #caméras_thermiques et de #détecteurs_de_mouvements.


      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/25519/slovenie-une-vingtaine-de-migrants-proches-de-la-suffocation-decouvert

  • Portion of US border wall in California falls over in high winds and lands on Mexican side

    Newly installed panels from the US border wall fell over in high winds Wednesday, landing on trees on the Mexican side of the border.
    The area is part of an ongoing construction project to improve existing sections of the wall.
    Agent Carlos Pitones of the Customs and Border Protection sector in El Centro, California, told CNN that the sections that gave way had recently been set in a new concrete foundation in Calexico, California. The concrete had not yet cured, according to Pitones, and the wall panels were unable to withstand the windy conditions.

    The National Weather Service reports that winds in the area gusted as high as 37 mph Wednesday. Video from CNN affiliate KYMA shows the metal panels leaning against trees adjacent to a Mexicali, Mexico, street as the wind whips up dirt from the construction site on the other side of the border.
    “We are grateful there was no property damage or injuries,” said Pitones.
    Customs and Border Protection says local Mexicali officials diverted traffic from the area of the accident, and the agency is working with the Mexican government on the next steps to right the wall. Pitones said it is not currently known how long the construction work in the area will need to be suspended in order to allow for cleanup.
    Three years into his presidency, President Donald Trump’s signature campaign promise has faced a host of legal and logistical challenges. Even with funding, the administration will have to contend with private landowners whose property may be seized to build barriers along the border.
    Trump has sought to pull hundreds of millions of dollars from several government accounts as his administration looks to construct 450 miles of barriers in the ramp-up to the presidential election.
    Earlier this month, the administration announced that the wall had reached the 100-mile mark, the majority of which was replacing barriers with newer, enhanced designs, and around half a mile was constructed in the Rio Grande Valley where no wall previously existed.
    The White House has pushed for construction on the US-Mexico border to be dubbed new wall, according to a former administration official. There was a “constant drumbeat” from the White House to call it “new wall” within the Department of Homeland Security, the official added. “There is a lot of pressure on the President to deliver in the campaign promise.”

    Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan has previously said he feels “no pressure from the administration to build more miles of wall.”

    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/29/politics/us-border-wall-falls-over-high-winds/index.html

    #murs #barrières_frontalières #destruction #walls_don't_work #les_murs_tombent #frontières #Californie #USA #Etats-Unis #Mexique

    Ajouté à la métaliste:
    https://seenthis.net/messages/823380

  • Why ’stronger borders’ don’t work

    Thousands of people die annually trying to cross borders. It’s often argued stronger borders and more checks would deter people from making dangerous crossings. But how accurate is this? Maya Goodfellow explores what the current border regime means for people seeking asylum

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2020/jan/21/why-stronger-borders-dont-work
    #fermeture_des_frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #walls_don't_work #dissuasion #frontières #problème #solution #vidéo #externalisation #vulnérabilité #danger #péril #militarisation_des_frontières #ressources_pédagogiques #pull_factor #facteur_pull #stéréotypes #préjugés #pull-factor #audition #voies_légales #réinstallation

    Cette carte


    #cartographie #visualisation #frontières_intérieures #Schengen (fin de -)
    ping @karine4 @isskein

  • C’était #2016... à Calais on construisait des #barrières_frontalières

    https://seenthis.net/messages/523063

    Calais jour après jour : Londres va construire un mur anti-migrants
    https://seenthis.net/messages/522824

    Migrants de Calais : « Un #mur_végétalisé » pour sécuriser la rocade portuaire
    https://seenthis.net/messages/522771

    Migrants : Londres construit un mur anti-intrusion à Calais
    https://seenthis.net/messages/522540

    Migrants : la France cessera-t-elle de garder les frontières du Royaume-Uni ?
    https://seenthis.net/messages/503515

    Migrants : l’extension des grilles anti-intrusions de la rocade de #Calais a débuté

    Rocade et Mascarade
    https://seenthis.net/messages/484847

    Je mets ci-dessous les infos de l’époque, car c’est une fil de discussion non initié par moi-même (https://seenthis.net/messages/499021) et par peur de perdre d’info, je préfère mettre l’info ci-dessous, dans un fil de discussion initié par moi...

    Et des #grillages plus anciens détruits par le #vent...
    https://seenthis.net/messages/332776
    https://seenthis.net/messages/325296
    #walls_don't_work

    signalé par @cela

    #murs #barrières_frontalières #Calais #France #UK #Angleterre #militarisation_des_frontières #migrations #asile #réfugiés

  • Trump Admits His Border Wall is Not Impenetrable after Reports Parts Have Been Sawed Through: ’You Can Cut Through Anything’

    President Donald Trump has admitted his border wall is not as impenetrable as he had initially claimed after reports that some parts had been sawed through.

    The Washington Post reported on Saturday that smuggling gangs have used commercial power tools to cut through the new parts of Trump’s controversial wall along the Mexican border.

    The gangs used a cordless reciprocating saw, which can be purchased at hardware stores starting from as little as $100, to make gaps big enough for people and drugs to pass through, U.S. agents and officials who have knowledge of the situation told the newspaper.

    Once fitted with specialized blades, the saws can cut through the steel-and-concrete bollards of the barrier in minutes, according to the unnamed agents.

    Trump, who spent years insisting his border wall would be impenetrable, conceded that any wall can be cut through but insisted the damage could be “easily fixed.”

    “We have a very powerful wall. But no matter how powerful, you can cut through anything, in all fairness,” Trump told reporters in Washington, D.C. before his departure for New York City on Saturday evening.

    "We have a lot of people watching,’ Trump added, according to Politico. “Cutting is one thing, but it’s easily fixed. One of the reasons we did it the way we did it, it’s very easily fixed. You put the chunk back in.”

    But according to the Post, smugglers have learned how to cut the bollards and then return them to their positions so that the damage goes unnoticed, allowing the passage to be used multiple times.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents reportedly drive along the barrier and kick the bollards with their boots to check for any defects in the metal. If any are found, welding crews are sent in to fix the damage.

    But smugglers have also returned to the same bollards once they have been fixed and cut through the welds as the metal on those bollards is softer, the Post reported. They have also tried to trick agents by using a putty that looks like welding to make a bollard that has been cut look as if it is still intact.

    And cutting isn’t the only technique used by the smugglers to circumvent the barrier. They have also been building makeshift ladders to scale the wall, especially in the San Diego area, the Post reported.

    In a statement to Newsweek, a CBP spokesperson insisted that “the wall is working.”

    The spokesperson said: "Any characterization that the wall isn’t working is simply false. The wall is working and is providing additional capability that Border Patrol agents have asked for.

    “What we’re building is a wall system, which includes cameras, sensors, infrastructure and border patrol agents to ensure we ultimately apprehend the criminals trying to defeat it. When someone cuts through the wall and a border patrol agent is standing there to arrest them because of the technology that gave them a heads up, that’s a win.”

    The spokesperson didn’t elaborate on how many breaches there have been.

    But a senior administration official, who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, said there had been “a few instances” but added that the new fencing had “significantly increased security and deterrence.”

    Trump has made building the wall along the border to stop migrants coming into the U.S. from Mexico a major feature of his presidency, repeatedly boasting about its construction at rallies, in ads and on Twitter.

    He recently touted the taxpayer-funded barrier as a “world-class security system” that is “virtually impenetrable.”

    “When the wall is built, it will be virtually impossible to come over illegally, and then we’re able to take border control and put them at points of entry,” Trump said during a visit to a construction site in San Diego’s Otay Mesa area in September, according to the Associated Press.

    https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admits-border-wall-not-impenetrable-saw-cut-through-1469428

    Si même #Trump le dit.................

    #walls_don't_work #murs #barrières_frontalières #frontières #USA #Etats-Unis

  • #Zoltan_Kovacs sur twitter

    Hungary’s southern border fence has contributed immensely to reducing migration on the Western Balkans migration route since September 2015. Yet, @EU_Commission refuses to cover a fair portion of our extra defense costs. Here’s some data from @Frontex

    https://twitter.com/zoltanspox/status/1168862668352040960
    #Hongrie

    Zoltán Kovács (born 1969) is a Hungarian historian and politician, who currently serves as Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Relations in the Second Cabinet of Viktor Orbán.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_Kov%C3%A1cs_(politician,_1969)

    #murs #propagande #Hongrie #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés

    Les #statistiques ne disent pas tout...

    Ma réponse :

    Great! People who are by law allowed to ask for #asylum are now blocked in inhumane conditions in #Croatia & #Bosnia... or try to find new, more dangerous ways to cross the #borders.
    #WallsDontWork, #walls are never the solution!

    https://twitter.com/CDB_77/status/1169127329924288513

    ping @reka

  • Mexicans Are Stealing Border Wall Materials, Using Them For Home Security

    Unnamed Mexican officials told San Diego’s KUSI-TV that 15 to 20 people have been arrested for stealing concertina wire from the U.S.-Mexico border and selling it to security-minded homeowners in Tijuana.


    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/border-wall-stolen-tijuana-home-security_n_5c9291bbe4b08c4fec33b5f4
    #murs #utilisation_alternative_des_ressources #ré-usage #recyclage #barrières_frontalières #walls_don't_work

    Autres exemples sur twitter, publiés à la demande de Reece Jones:
    https://twitter.com/tlesam/status/1108523471104081920

    Autres exemples, donc:


    https://qz.com/484342/locals-are-using-the-us-mexico-border-fence-as-a-giant-volleyball-net
    #sport #volleyball


    http://time.com/4346012/greek-migrants-macedonia-idomeni-camp


    https://www.telegraphindia.com/states/north-east/sc-order-on-border-fence/cid/1436674
    #séchoir


    https://www.thelocal.de/20091019/22677
    #tourisme et #souvenirs


    https://www.cntraveler.com/story/usmexico-border-art-installation
    #art


    https://subtopia.blogspot.com/2007/06/extreme-border-sports.html
    #sport

    • An 8-year-old girl climbed an 18-foot replica of Donald Trump’s ’un-climbable’ border wall in seconds

      An 18-foot replica of Donald Trump’s border wall has been scaled in a matter of seconds by novice climbers, an eight-year-old girl, and a man who returned for another attempt while juggling with one hand.

      The US president described his wall as “virtually impenetrable” during a trip to the US-Mexico border in September, claiming 20 “world class” mountain climbers had told him his chosen prototype was difficult to climb.

      “We had 20 mountain climbers. That’s all they do, they love to climb mountains … some of them were champions,” Mr Trump said. “And we gave them different prototypes of walls, and this was the one that was hardest to climb … this wall can’t be climbed.”

      His remarks were taken as a challenge by 75-year-old Rick Weber, co-founder of Muir Valley, a rock climbing park and nature reserve in Kentucky.

      “You don’t tell a bona fide rock climber something’s impossible to climb,” he told Time magazine.

      Mr Weber, a retired engineer, decided to build a replica of Mr Trump’s wall using official dimensions and recent images of the structure.

      He wrote in to popular climbing magazine Rock & Ice to announce a climbing competition on 11 and 12 October to coincide with Rocktoberfest, one of the largest annual gatherings of climbers in the US.

      “No one in our climbing community knows any of these 20 mountaineers. I doubt if they exist,” he wrote. "More importantly, to declare something to be impossible to climb to a bona fide rock climber is to issue a challenge.

      “So, I decided to build an exact replica and hold a competition.”

      Ahead of the official competition, several people had already managed to climb the wall.

      Among these was eight-year-old Lucy Hancock, who climbed the replica using a belay – a rope that acts as a safety measure, rather than an aid. Footage showed her scaling the majority of the wall in little more than a minute.

      Erik Kloeker, a 29-year-old climbing guide and property manager at Muir Valley who told The Courier Journal he had been climbing for nine years, climbed the structure in about 30 seconds in a demonstration.

      “The border wall that they’re building could be climbed pretty easily,” said Mr Kloeker, who juggled several items in one hand during repeat attempts.

      Mr Trump’s border wall is being built at heights of 18-feet and 30-feet, consisting of singular pillars and a larger panel along the top.

      Mr Weber told Time that as the large top panel is the same size, a climber who manages to ascend pillars of the 18-foot version would have no difficulty scaling the additional distance.

      He decided to allow climbers to hold on to the side of the top panel, as he claimed such gaps existed between each section of wall in the real designs.

      The retired engineer said a wall without pillars would be far more difficult to climb.

      “I’m not making an argument that we shouldn’t have a secure border. I’m not doing that at all,” he said. “What I’m trying to do is to make sure that we’re not blowing a lot of money on some silly nonsense of putting up something that he thinks can’t be climbed. Because it can. And will be.”

      During his September visit to the San Diego border, Mr Trump claimed hopeful climbers would “have to bring hoses and waters [sic]” to combat the large top panel of the design, which he said was designed to absorb enough heat to “fry an egg”.

      Mr Trump recently denied making enquiries about creating a moat filled with alligators and snakes along the border.

      Despite campaigning on the promise that Mexico would pay for the structure, the Defence Department has been forced to divert some $3.6 billion in military funding.

      https://www.businessinsider.com/8-year-old-climbs-replica-of-trump-wall-in-seconds-2019-10?IR=T

  • Calais : 46 migrants investissent un ferry à destination du Royaume-Uni

    Jamais le port de Calais, très sécurisé, n’a connu une intrusion aussi importante de migrants. Une centaine d’entre eux se sont introduits illégalement dans l’enceinte, samedi soir, entre 21h15 et 21h30. La moitié a réussi à grimper à bord d’un ferry de la compagnie DFDS, qui venait d’accoster en provenance de Douvres, à l’aide d’une échelle et en profitant de la marée haute. La police est intervenue très vite. Au total, 63 migrants ont été interpellés.

    https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/15485/calais-46-migrants-investissent-un-ferry-a-destination-du-royaume-uni

    Jamais le port de Calais, très sécurisé, n’a connu une intrusion aussi importante de migrants.

    –-> #walls_don't_work

    #murs #barrières_frontalières #contrôles_frontaliers #asile #migrations #réfugiés #frontières #UK #Calais #France #Angleterre

  • Quelques extraits de la #BD
    #Humains, #La_Roya est une fleuve , dont il a déjà été question ici :


    https://seenthis.net/messages/693475

    Extraits :


    #ligne #ligne_frontalière #zone_frontalière #frontière_mobile


    #histoire #Giraude #grillage #barrières_frontalières


    #walls_don't_work


    #pas_de_la_mort #campement


    #tunnel #refoulement #push-back #risque


    #légende_de_mamadou #passeurs #vêtements


    #ouverture_des_frontières


    #Roya_citoyenne #délit_de_solidarité #business #armée #militarisation_des_frontières #drones


    #jeu_de_l'oie #migrerrance


    #Bella_ciao #fête


    #Méditerranée #mer_Méditerranée


    #memoria_delle_Alpi


    #20_km #20_kilomètres #Sospel #PAF #police_aux_frontières


    #illégalité #légalité


    #sans-papiers #papiers


    #Francesco_Biamonti


    #Briançon #Hautes-Alpes


    #ouvrir_les_frontières


    #inhumanité


    #mourir_aux_frontières #décès #mort


    #invisibilité #invisibilisation


    #neige #froid

    #bande_dessinée #livre #frontière_sud-alpine #solidarité #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Cédric_Herrou #Vintimille #Italie #France #Menton #Alpes #montagne

    ping @nepthys @reka

    • Dans la BD on cite le #livre
      "Les Paroles la nuit" de Francesco Biamonti

      Dans l’obscurité de la nuit, sur les sentiers des collines ligures battues par le vent, parmi ces terres arides, de roches et d’argile, de ronces, d’oliviers et de mimosas, erre une humanité inquiète en proie à la violence qui règne sur les côtes : ce sont les laissés-pour-compte de la modernité occidentale, attirés par la frontière française, à la recherche d’une terre d’accueil.

      Des coups de feu, un bruissement dans les arbres, les restes d’un bivouac, des traces de sang, un cadavre retrouvé au petit matin sont les signes du passage de ces hordes de damnés, incarnés par deux personnages poignants, un homme et une petite fille kurdes qu’un implacable destin poursuit.

      Donnant voix aux silences de Leonardo et de ses amis, à leurs remords, à leur perception des événements et des choses, l’auteur nous livre des tranches d’existence qui se détachent sur un paysage à la lumière changeante ; la dérive de notre monde malade revient sans cesse dans une conversation suspendue au-dessus de l’abîme.

      http://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/les-paroles-la-nuit-francesco-biamonti/9782020350105

  • El Gobierno desempolva un convenio de hace 26 años para expulsar a 116 migrantes

    La operación, de carácter extraordinario, se basa en un pacto que España y Marruecos firmaron en 1992.

    La Policía Nacional ha devuelto a Marruecos a los 116 subsaharianos que este miércoles saltaron la valla de Ceuta. Únicamente permanecen en España los dos menores que participaron en la entrada. El Gobierno ha recurrido para repatriarlos a un convenido firmado en 1992 por los entonces ministros del Interior de ambos países, José Luis Corcuera y Driss Basri, que contemplaba la expulsión en menos de 10 días de los ciudadanos de terceros países que entraran ilegalmente en España desde Marruecos. En sus 26 años, el acuerdo solo se había aplicado de manera excepcional.

    Firmado tras un repunte de la llegada de pateras a las costas andaluzas a comienzo de los noventa, en sus primeros 13 años en vigor el convenio sirvió para expulsar únicamente a 114 migrantes. En 2006, el Gobierno de José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero intentó reactivarlo, pero sin éxito. Tampoco lo logró Jorge Fernández Díaz, ministro del Interior del PP, quien en 2014 llegó a plantear a Marruecos su aplicación solo a aquellos que lograran saltar la valla de “forma violenta”. Desde entonces, se había utilizado en contadas ocasiones y, siempre, con un número de extranjeros muy inferior al de este jueves.

    Fuentes policiales destacan que las reticencias de Rabat a admitir ciudadanos de terceros países por esta vía había convertido su aplicación en excepcional. En los últimos años se aplicaba únicamente a los no marroquíes que arribaban en patera a las Islas Chafarinas, un archipiélago de soberanía española situado a 27 millas náuticas de Melilla y a 1,9 de la costa de Marruecos, en las que solo hay un destacamento militar español.

    La decisión de reactivar el acuerdo de Corcuera más allá de estas pateras la tomó el Ejecutivo de Pedro Sánchez el pasado 26 de julio, después de que más de 600 inmigrantes lograran saltar la valla de Ceuta. Los ministros del Interior y Asuntos Exteriores, Fernando Grande-Marlaska y Josep Borrell, respectivamente, solicitaron entonces a Marruecos que permitiera la entrega de, al menos, una parte de este numeroso grupo, pero Rabat rechazó la propuesta, según detallan fuentes de Interior conocedoras de aquellos contactos. Marruecos sí se comprometió a aplicar el convenio si se volvía a producir un salto masivo, como el que finalmente se produjo este miércoles otra vez en Ceuta. España inició entonces los contactos, pero las autoridades del país magrebí volvieron a mostrar reticencias. Grande-Marlaska entró en contacto esa misma tarde con sus interlocutores magrebíes para desatascar la situación.

    Los responsables de la Comisaría General de Extranjería y Fronteras desplegaron entonces un amplio dispositivo para cumplimentar los trámites en pocas horas. Los migrantes fueron trasladados de 10 en 10 desde el Centro de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes (CETI) de Ceuta a dependencias policiales para tramitar el expediente de devolución de forma exprés. Tras tomarles la filiación, se les entregaba la orden de expulsión en presencia de un abogado. De allí, pasaban a los calabozos para su posterior traslado en vehículos a la frontera. Interior ha marcado distancias con las polémicas devoluciones en caliente, en las que no se produce ninguna de estas circunstancias y que ya han costado una condena del Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos de Estrasburgo. Portavoces del ministerio recalcaban que “ninguno” de los 116 inmigrantes ahora devueltos a Marruecos solicitó asilo durante este trámite.
    España pagará los gastos

    Fuentes del equipo de Grande-Marlaska reconocen que el procedimiento habitual es que la devolución se haga directamente con el país de origen. Sin embargo, el acuerdo ahora esgrimido contempla la posibilidad de que regresen al país desde el que han cruzado la frontera, pese a que no sean oriundos de allí. “La clave es que han entrado por Marruecos”, recalcan estas fuentes. El convenio recoge que España se hace cargo tanto de los gastos de transporte a Marruecos como, posteriormente, desde allí a sus países de origen.

    Interior recalca que la entrada de los ahora devueltos se produjo de forma “ilegal y violenta” tras arrojar cal viva, ácido y excrementos a los guardias civiles que custodiaban la frontera. Siete agentes y cinco migrantes resultados heridos. “Legalmente, su situación es muy distinta de los que se les rescata en el mar”, recuerdan desde el ministerio. En el caso del auxilio de las pateras, la normativa internacional establece la obligación de los servicios de salvamento de llevar a los rescatados al puerto seguro más cercano.

    https://elpais.com/politica/2018/08/23/actualidad/1535027599_502354.html

    Je mets ici un autre message pour alimenter le tag #walls_don't_work #efficacité #murs #barrières_frontalières #frontières #les_murs_ne_marchent_pas

    ... même si, une fois passé le mur, les autorités marocaines ont procédé au #renvois #expulsions #push-backs des exilé·es qui avaient réussi à passer le barrage...

    #Ceuta #Melilla #Espagne #Maroc

  • Video shows Palestinians from Gaza cut border fence, enter Israeli territory
    Haaretz.com | Palestinians report six wounded, one seriously, by live fire at protests near border. Israeli army says it shot toward Palestinians who tried to damage fence
    Jack Khoury and Yaniv Kubovich May 05, 2018 6:31 PM
    https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/video-shows-palestinians-from-gaza-cut-fence-enter-israeli-territory-1.6054
    https://youtu.be/X4Z0noNhI2Q

    In the video, several Palestinians are seen approaching the fence and shouting, with one shouting “God is with us, we are crossing the fence.” The young man goes on to encourage the others to damage the fence and cross through it.

    The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that it had thwarted two attempts by protesters to damage the fence and cross into Israeli territory. The protesters turned back after troops arrived, the army said.

    Attempts by Palestinians in Gaza to cross into Israeli territory continued on Saturday, the IDF spokesman said.

  • Greece reinforces land border with Turkey to stem flow of migrants | World news | The Guardian

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/29/greece-reinforces-land-border-with-turkey-to-stem-flow-of-migrants

    Greece has rushed to reinforce its land border with Turkey as fears mount over a sharp rise in the number of refugees and migrants crossing the frontier.

    Police patrols were augmented as local authorities said the increase in arrivals had become reminiscent of the influx of migrants on the Aegean islands close to the Turkish coast. About 2,900 people crossed the land border in April, by far surpassing the number who arrived by sea, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said. The figure represents half of the total number of crossings during the whole of 2017.

    #migrations #asile #turquie #grèce #réfugiés

  • On the edge of the EU, refugee flows flood the Evros River

    A clampdown on Europe’s eastern borders and the Aegean Sea has forced migrants to seek different — and more dangerous — routes to the continent. Hunters and fishermen find their bodies, reports Anthee Carassava.

    http://www.dw.com/en/on-the-edge-of-the-eu-refugee-flows-flood-the-evros-river/a-43068842?maca=en-Twitter-sharing
    #Evros #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Grèce #frontières #Pavlos_Pavlidis #mourir_aux_frontières #morts #décès

    • Si jamais, pour mémoire, j’avais écrit cet article en 2012, paru dans @lacite et repris par @visionscarto :
      Dans la région de l’Evros, un mur inutile sur la frontière greco-turque

      L’Europe se déchire sur la « crise des migrants », et la Hongrie vient d’annoncer la fermeture de la frontière et l’édification d’une clôture de barbelés de 4 mètres de haut sur les 175 kilomètres de tracé frontalier avec la Serbie. Mais que se passe-t-il vraiment le long des frontières européennes ? Voyage en plusieurs étapes avec Alberto Campi et Cristina Del Biaggio, qui arpentent ces marges depuis 2012.

      Aujourd’hui, le mur d’Evros, sur la frontière greco-turque. Considérée comme une passoire, les autorités grecques ont cherché à la « verrouiller » en construisant un « mur » sur un peu plus de 12 kilomètres, symbole du durcissement de la politique de surveillance et de restriction des flux migratoires vers l’Europe.


      https://visionscarto.net/evros-mur-inutile

    • Erdogan crackdown, Syria war seen fueling migrant flows to Greece

      Over the previous week, a record 1,500 migrants and asylum-seekers crossed the Evros River border, most of them Kurds from Syria and Iraq, as well as self-professed critics of the Erdogan regime. Most turn themselves into Greek authorities, waiting to be formally identified and transferred to reception centers.

      Greek officials are concerned that arrivals via Evros will rise as dry weather has resulted in lower water levels in the river.

      Another key factor, military and police sources have told Kathimerini, is that Turkish authorities appear less willing than before to stem inflows. They say that the ease with which traffickers and migrants are able to reach the Turkish side of the border – despite Erdogan’s decision to reinforce Turkey’s land border with thousands of pro-government military border guards – suggests that the authorities have either been ordered to turn a blind eye to widespread trespassing or are susceptible to bribes. Additionally, analysts say that the fact that the vast majority of migrants are Kurds from war-torn Afrin in Syria and from Iraq, whose presence in Turkey would be a headache for Erdogan, amplifies skepticism over the true motives of Turkish authorities.

      “The Turks are doing in Evros what we did in Idomeni in the beginning [of the crisis],” a source said in reference to the now-defunct border camp on Greece’s frontier with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. “We simply facilitated the refugee flows so that they could move on to Europe through Skopje.”

      Meanwhile, sources say that the channels of communication between Greek and Turkish border guards, which in the past facilitated the arrest of migrants and smugglers before the attempted crossing, have been clogged amid deteriorating bilateral ties. The arrest of two Greek soldiers in early March after they accidentally crossed into Turkish territory has made Greek patrols more restrained in their operations.

      Greece plans to reinforce its border force with an additional 150 guards as of May 1.

      http://www.ekathimerini.com/227933/article/ekathimerini/news/erdogan-crackdown-syria-war-seen-fueling-migrant-flows-to-greece

      Greece plans to reinforce its border force with an additional 150 guards as of May 1

      –-> #militarisation_des_frontières

    • Concern as rising numbers cross from Turkey to Greece via Evros

      Over a thousand people have crossed the Evros river, marking the land border between Turkey and Greece, since March this year. Last week over one hundred people arrived each day and 340 people arrived on Tuesday alone. This has led to concerns from authorities and NGOs that an emergency situation is unfolding.

      Many of the people crossing the border have ended up sleeping in the parks and squares of the city of Thessaloniki, waiting for a place in a camp. There are also reports of hundreds of people waiting outside police stations, to get arrested in order to gain temporary residence. The municipality has expressed concerns that the city may experience similar circumstance as the events of 2015, where thousands of people slept on the streets across Greece. Local and national migration authorities have scheduled a meeting for Saturday to discuss the situation. The Migration Policy Minister Dimitris Vitsas expressed his concerns about the increase of arrivals and announced his ministry has developed two plans to deal with the situation, which he will share privately with party leaders.

      Arrivals have also been increasing on the Aegean islands, with arrivals on Lesvos almost four times the amount of last year. Minister Vitsas said “I’m not scared about the islands because we know what we have to do. What is really worrisome is the huge increase through Evros.” A concern also raised by the Head of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) in Greece, Ruben Cano: “This is not the route most people take to reach Greece – it’s a worrying development. The summer will see river levels drop which could also lead to a further rise in people braving the journey.”

      The situation for refugees in Greece has been increasingly tense after incidents on Sunday, where a group of asylum seekers who had been occupying the central square in Mytillene, Lesvos to protest reception conditions and long asylum processing times, were attacked by over a hundred far right extremists. The attackers threw projectiles, including bricks and flares. The Mayor of Lesvos, Spyros Galinos, wrote to Minister Vitsas and the Citizen’s Protection Minister Nikos Toskas, saying, “Lack of action and poor management has resulted in nearly 10,000 asylum seekers being trapped in miserable conditions around a town of 27,000 residents and has created intense fear in the local community; a community that has lost its sense of security and after last night’s events its cohesion too.”

      The state of affairs in Turkey following the failed coup-attempt of 2016, the humanitarian impact of the war in Syria and deteriorating diplomatic ties between Greece and Turkey are cited as reasons for the increase of crossings of mainly people of Kurdish descent from Syria and Iraq and Turkish nationals.


      https://www.ecre.org/concern-as-rising-numbers-cross-from-turkey-to-greece-via-evros

    • Grèce : de plus en plus de réfugiés arrivent par voie terrestre

      La situation devient « intenable » dans la région de l’Evros, au nord-est de la Grèce. Selon le HCR, 2900 personnes ont pénétré dans le pays en avril par la frontière terrestre, 1650 en mars. Les autorités grecques s’inquiètent de cette hausse d’autant que de nombreux camps ont été fermés dans le nord du pays et que les capacités d’accueil y sont restreintes.


      https://www.courrierdesbalkans.fr/les-refugies-sont-de-plus-en-plus-nombreux-a-arriver-par-voie-ter

    • ’Grieken die migranten terugsturen is duistere, illegale praktijk’

      In de nacht, buiten het zicht, langs de afgelegen rivieroever van de Evros gebeurt het: migranten die voet op Griekse bodem hebben gezet, worden weer in een bootje geladen en teruggevaren naar Turkije. Pushbacks. De grensrivier tussen Turkije en Griekenland is het middelpunt van een goed georganiseerd, illegaal gesleep met migranten.

      https://nos.nl/artikel/2230095-grieken-die-migranten-terugsturen-is-duistere-illegale-praktijk.html
      #refoulement #push-back

    • Le HCR demande à la Grèce d’améliorer la situation à Evros

      Le HCR, l’Agence des Nations Unies pour les réfugiés, demande au gouvernement grec d’améliorer de toute urgence les conditions de vie et les capacités d’accueil des réfugiés dans la région d’Evros, à la suite d’une récente augmentation des arrivées via la frontière terrestre avec la Turquie. Des centaines de personnes sont actuellement maintenues dans des centres de détention de la police.

      Environ 2 900 personnes sont arrivées à Evros ce mois-ci, principalement des familles syriennes ou iraquiennes. Cela représente près de la moitié des arrivées enregistrées pour l’ensemble de l’année 2017. Selon les données recueillies par le HCR, les arrivées par voie terrestre ont dépassé le nombre d’arrivées par la mer au mois d’avril. Au moins huit personnes sont mortes depuis le début de l’année en tentant de traverser le fleuve Evros.

      Cette augmentation des nouvelles arrivées met à rude épreuve l’unique centre d’accueil et d’identification d’Evros, situé à Fylakio. Ce centre a dépassé sa capacité maximale d’accueil de 240 personnes, dont 120 enfants non accompagnés ou séparés de leur famille.

      Etant donné que le centre d’accueil et d’identification est submergé et qu’il peine à procéder à l’enregistrement et à l’identification des réfugiés, à fournir des services d’ordre médicaux, psychosociaux ou d’interprétation, les autorités ont placé des personnes, dont de nombreux enfants, dans des centres de détention de la police éparpillés dans la région et inadaptés à la situation, dans l’attente que des places se libèrent.

      Certaines personnes sont maintenues depuis plus de trois mois dans des centres de détention de la police. Les conditions de vie y sont désastreuses et les services y sont limités au strict minimum. Lors d’une visite sur place, les équipes du HCR ont découvert des familles qui dormaient à même le sol dans les couloirs à côté des cellules. Dans un autre établissement, on comptait à peine un médecin et quatre infirmières pour plus de 500 personnes. Parmi les centaines de personnes maintenues dans ces conditions, on dénombre des femmes enceintes, de très jeunes enfants et des personnes qui ont besoin de soins médicaux ou d’une aide psycho-sociale.

      Nous nous réjouissons de la décision qui a permis de libérer plus de 2 500 personnes détenues par les autorités mais nous sommes préoccupés par les conditions dans lesquelles ces libérations ont été réalisées, à savoir sans vérifier la vulnérabilité des personnes concernées et sans leur fournir suffisamment d’informations au sujet de l’asile ou de leurs autres options. Leur situation doit être examinée de toute urgence afin de leur permettre l’accès à des soins et aux procédures d’asile.

      Nous saluons les efforts menés par la police et par le centre d’accueil et d’identification de Fylakio en vue de relever les défis auxquels ils sont confrontés mais, face à des ressources de plus en plus limitées, la situation est devenue intenable.

      Le HCR suggère plusieurs mesures :

      Accroître d’urgence la capacité d’accueil du centre de réception et d’identification, en y augmentant le nombre de places disponibles et en y améliorant les conditions de vie et les services ;
      Identifier des lieux de transit ouverts, vers lesquels pourront être dirigées les personnes qui arrivent d’Evros et où l’enregistrement et l’identification pourront être réalisés ;
      Mettre en place des équipes mobiles d’enregistrement et d’identification ;
      Transférer immédiatement les familles en détention vers des abris sûrs et les guider vers les services dont elles ont besoin ;
      Améliorer les conditions de vie dans les centres de la police, y compris pour des périodes de courte durée, en y assurant l’accès à des espaces communs et à des services élémentaires, notamment et en priorité des soins de santé ;
      Augmenter les capacités d’enregistrement des autorités grecques compétentes afin de garantir l’accès aux procédures d’asile et l’enregistrement des demandes en temps opportun ;
      Transférer rapidement les enfants non accompagnés vers des lieux sûrs et procéder rapidement à une évaluation de leur situation et des liens familiaux.

      Le HCR continue de fournir son appui en matière de protection au centre d’accueil et d’identification de Fylakio, et reste en contact étroit et régulier avec le gouvernement grec afin de faire face à cette situation exceptionnelle. Le HCR continuera d’aider les autorités grecques en fournissant un soutien technique et matériel, notamment des couvertures, des vêtements, des articles d’hygiène, des lampes à énergie solaire et d’autres articles non alimentaires.


      http://www.unhcr.org/fr/news/briefing/2018/4/5ae734a4a/hcr-demande-grece-dameliorer-situation-evros.html

    • La rivière Evros, point de passage des clandestins entre la Turquie à la Grèce

      Les migrants multiplient les tentatives pour passer le fleuve qui marque la frontière, en dépit de la pression exercée par les polices turque et grecque.

      Rivière tumultueuse qui marque la frontière entre la Turquie et la Grèce, à 75 kilomètres de la ville d’Edirne, en Thrace orientale, l’Evros est l’une des portes d’entrée des migrants en Europe. Si les candidats au départ prennent moins souvent les bateaux pour rejoindre l’Union européenne via les îles grecques, ils optent toujours pour la traversée de la rivière Evros, réputée – à tort, car il existe des cas de noyades – moins dangereuse que celle de la mer Egée.

      Ces passages de migrants redoublent après la décrue printanière du fleuve, comme en témoignent les sacs plastique, les vêtements abandonnés et les canots pneumatiques dégonflés qui jonchent ses berges. Ces tout derniers mois, le rythme s’est encore accéléré. Les autorités grecques faisaient état d’une moyenne de 44 arrivées par jour dans la zone en 2017. Elles sont passées à 62 en janvier et février 2018, puis à 200 les mois suivants. « En avril, nous avons enregistré 2 700 arrivées pour la région d’Evros », a déploré Dimitris Vitsas, le ministre de la politique migratoire, lors d’un débat parlementaire sur les réfugiés, mardi 24 avril.

      « Chaque jour, je vois des réfugiés. Je les croise quotidiennement dans mes champs ou le long des sentiers qui mènent au village », confirme Erdogan Adali, le chef de l’administration du village d’#Akcadam, situé à 3 kilomètres du fleuve. « Ça me fend le cœur. Ils sont dans un état pitoyable, hagards, pieds nus, affamés. Je leur donnerais volontiers le gîte et le couvert, mais c’est un délit, je ne peux pas. Dès que je les vois, je suis obligé d’alerter les gendarmes qui viennent les chercher pour les ramener au centre de rétention d’Edirne », raconte l’agriculteur au visage buriné, dont les rizières et les champs de blé jouxtent le village.

      Le reste... #paywall
      https://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2018/06/05/la-riviere-evros-point-de-passage-des-clandestins-entre-la-turquie-a-la-grec

    • Greece: Asylum-Seeking Women Detained with Men. Urgently End Dangerous Detention Conditions

      Greek authorities are routinely confining asylum-seeking women with unrelated men in the northern Evros region, at the land-border with Turkey, putting them at grave risk of sexual violence and harassment. Authorities should immediately stop holding asylum-seeking women and girls in closed facilities with unrelated men.

      Human Rights Watch research in Northern Greece in late May 2018 found women and girls housed with unrelated men in sites for reception and/or detention of asylum seekers. Twelve women and two girls interviewed said they had been locked in cells or enclosures for weeks, and in one case for nearly five months, with men and boys they did not know. Four said they were the sole females confined with dozens of men, in some cases with at least one male partner or relative.

      “Women and girls should not be confined with men who are complete strangers, even for a day,” said Hillary Margolis, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “These women and girls came to Greece seeking security and protection, and instead they are living in fear.”

      Five women said they had severe psychological distress as a result, including two who had suicidal thoughts. Other women and girls said they experienced sleeplessness, anxiety, and other emotional and psychological distress, in part due to fear of confinement with unrelated men.

      The Greek government has not provided authorities in northern Greece with sufficient resources to respond to a surge in arrivals over the land border with Turkey in April. Officials who met with Human Rights Watch acknowledged that the increase led to a slowdown in reception and identification procedures, including registration of asylum claims, as well as overcrowding of and lengthier stays in reception and immigration detention facilities.

      Pending completion of reception and identification procedures, newly-arrived irregular migrants and those seeking international protection are held in border police stations in the Evros region, in the Fylakio pre-removal detention center, run by the Hellenic Police, and/or in the Fylakio reception and identification center (RIC), run by the Ministry for Migration Policy. The Ministry and the Hellenic police granted Human Rights Watch access to these sites, and authorities at the pre-removal detention center and RIC helped identify female migrants in the facilities so that Human Rights Watch could approach them for interviews.

      Eight women and one of the girls said they had been held in cells with unrelated men in Fylakio pre-removal detention center, including six women who were held with unrelated men at the time of the interviews. Five women and the two girls were housed with unrelated men in pre-fabricated containers and locked, fenced-off “sections” in the Fylakio RIC at the time of the interviews. Some said they were held with unrelated men in multiple facilities.

      Two of the women said they had been at the pre-removal center in cells with their male partners and many unknown men for at least two weeks. “Maha,” a 38-year-old woman from Iraq, was visibly shaking as she described being the sole woman in a cell with about 60 men for over two weeks. Maha said she avoided drinking water due to fear of using the shared toilet inside the cell. She said that she was living almost exclusively inside an enclosure she and her partner created by hanging blankets around their bunkbed.

      “I haven’t moved my legs for 23 days,” she said in tears, demonstrating how she cowered with her knees hugged to her chest all day. “If I had a way to kill myself, I would have.”

      According to a police registry given to Human Rights Watch researchers, at the time of the interview she and her partner were held in a cell with 32 unrelated men. Maha was released days after her interview, but her partner remained in detention.

      Some women and girls said they were housed with unrelated men at the RIC for weeks or months. “Suraya,” a woman in her twenties (nationality withheld) in the RIC with her four-year-old nephew while awaiting confirmation of their family links, spent nearly five months in a section she said housed only men and unaccompanied boys. She said a fellow asylum seeker sexually assaulted her. “He started touching me while I was sleeping,” Suraya said, adding that he left when she screamed, and she reported it to authorities. “I have asked [them] to take me to a safer place here, or to another camp, but nothing has happened,” she said.

      Authorities at the pre-removal detention center said there is a separate designated cell for women traveling alone, but they also put families in that cell “if necessary,” such as during periods of overcrowding. The facility was under capacity when Human Rights Watch visited, but two single women said they were in a cell with unrelated families. Authorities in both the pre-removal detention center and the RIC acknowledged gaps in response at the facilities, which they attribute largely to a dearth of resources.

      National and European law as well as international standards require that men and women be held separately in detention, including reception and immigration detention facilities, unless they are members of the same family and consent to being held together. They also call for separating unaccompanied children from adults, and separate accommodation for families. A 2016 order issued by the Headquarters of the Hellenic Police instructs police to separate women and children from unrelated men in closed facilities.

      Greek authorities should ensure the safety and security of all asylum seekers, including by providing single women, single men, families, and unaccompanied children with separate accommodation, toilets and bathing facilities in all immigration detention sites and other closed facilities. Authorities should urgently fit all rooms, bathrooms, and containers in RICs with locking doors to facilitate security and privacy.

      When necessary, authorities should urgently transfer single women, unaccompanied and separated children, and families including couples in immigration detention to accommodation or facilities that meet these standards. Authorities should also ensure that asylum seekers have a safe and confidential means to report sexual harassment or assault, and that such reports are promptly investigated, those responsible are appropriately punished, and immediate measures are taken to ensure victims’ safety and well-being.

      “Women and girls in these sites are overcome by fear from being locked up with men who are complete strangers,” Margolis said. “Greek authorities need to put an urgent stop to this, and grant them the security, privacy and dignity they deserve.”

      Accounts from asylum seekers in Fylakio pre-removal detention center and the reception and identification center (RIC) in Fylakio, Greece:

      Fatima (all names have been changed), 24, from Algeria, who had been at the pre-removal center with her husband for 20 days: “For 20 days I have been the only woman [in our cell]. The others are all single men. I had difficulty at the beginning. I sleep at night covered in a blanket. One night a man [in the cell] came and lifted the blanket and was looking at me. When I go to take a bath, the men come and try to look over the wall…. I am very stressed…. I feel like I have reached the bottom. I feel like I am broken.”

      Suha, 20, from Morocco, who had been in the Fylakio pre-removal detention center with her husband for two weeks. At the time of the interview, they were in a cell alone, but they had previously been in the same center for two weeks in a cell with mostly men: “There were two other girls and 60 to 70 men [in the cell] … I was fighting for myself every day … The worst time was when I would go to the toilet. All of them would follow me with their eyes, say things. Some men, when they see a woman they act like animals. They would call out to me, ‘Stand up, stop here, let us look at you, you’re beautiful.’ The toilets are mixed [for men and women.] The bath is the same. There is no lock on the door. If you sit, they can’t see you [over the wall]. But if you stand they can see you from the chest up. Imagine being a woman in those conditions.”

      Samira, 18, from Syria, who had been in the RIC with her 15-year-old sister for three weeks: “Since I’ve been here I’m unable to eat. I’m very stressed. I can’t leave my sister, I have to take care of her…. I’m constantly afraid that someone will enter our container. I don’t sleep at night – I stay awake during the day and sleep in the morning… I only shower once every two weeks because I feel like people are watching me [in the bathroom] … I wake up every morning at 3 a.m. feeling scared and nervous.”

      Nada, 16, from Syria, who had been in the RIC with her older brother and sister for nearly two months: “We’re the only family in our section, it’s all single men. The only women are me and my sister. Everyone is afraid here. There are more than 20 men [or unaccompanied boys] living in our section…. At first, we were 20 people in the [same] container, but they have all left. It was mixed men and women. We didn’t feel safe and couldn’t sleep. We stayed up all night…. We shared the toilet with strangers. I used to take my sister with me and ask her to wait at the door.”

      Nadir, 21, from Syria, who had been in the RIC for 20 days with his 6-year-old niece, Abra, whose mother became separated from them during the crossing from Turkey to Greece: “We are in the same container with two families…. The doors don’t lock…. The families staying with us are Iraqi Kurds. We can’t communicate with them – how can we feel safe? It is not a question of nationality, it is just that they are strangers. I can’t leave [Abra] alone. If she wants to go outside, I go outside; if she wants to go to the toilet, I go with her. There are single men [or unaccompanied boys]. If you come at night around 10 p.m. you will hear the noises they make [yelling] and understand why we don’t feel safe.”

      Abbas, 35, from Iran, who had arrived at the Fylakio pre-removal detention center with his wife, 36 the previous day: “When we reached here, [the police] said, ‘You have to be separated [from your wife].’ I said, ‘No, we can’t be separated, we are a couple.’ Then the police said, ‘If you don’t separate, you’ll both have to go to the room with all the men.’ My wife was shocked and started crying. She was really scared. I said, ‘Okay, let’s separate.’ I kissed her, said goodbye, and they put her in another room and me in the room with all the men.” Eventually, he said, the police brought his wife to a cell opposite his and then put them together in that cell, along with unrelated families.

      Additional Information on Combined Detention of Women and Men

      In interviews with twelve women and two girls from May 19 to 24, eight women and one girl said they had been held in cells with unrelated men in Fylakio pre-removal detention center, including six women who were held with unrelated men at the time of the interviews.

      Women at the pre-removal center said that combined toilet and bathing stalls in cells they shared with men did not have floor-to-ceiling walls, and they were harassed by male cellmates while using them. One 24-year-old woman, in a cell with her husband and 20 single men, said men attempted to watch her over the wall while she used the toilet.

      Six women and two girls told Human Rights Watch they were also housed with unrelated men at the RIC, sometimes for weeks or months, in pre-fabricated containers and “sections,” which are fenced-in, locked enclosures containing a courtyard and multiple containers housing migrants and asylum seekers. Five women and two girls were being held with unrelated men and/or boys at the time of their interviews at the Fylakio RIC.

      Assignment to sections is based primarily on nationality. Awaiting confirmation of age, placement in designated accommodation, or establishment of family links to other asylum seekers can result in lengthy stays for unaccompanied or separated children and their non-immediate family members.

      Two unrelated girls, ages 15 and 16, each said they had been in these sections in the RIC with unrelated adult men and/or boys for over three weeks; one said she and her 30-year-old sister had been the only females in a section with 20 men and/or boys for about 45 days. One 19-year-old pregnant woman who was there with her husband and in-laws said her container housed multiple unrelated families in one shared room.

      Some women and girls, as well as a man with his 6-year-old niece, said they and their family members live in rooms inside containers shared with unrelated families including men or boys. In all cases, they said they share toilets and bathing facilities with men and/or boys, and that no containers or bedrooms have locking doors.

      Detention of Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Greece

      Under Greek law, authorities may restrict the movement of new arrivals for up to 25 days at a reception and identification center (RIC) and up to a total of six months in immigration detention, including at pre-removal centers. Unaccompanied and separated children may be held longer pending resolution of their cases and reunification with family members, particularly when age or family links are in question, or pending available space in designated sites with protected areas or shelters.

      Upon arrival in the Evros region in northern Greece, where the land-border with Turkey is located, irregular migrants and those seeking international protection are held in border police stations, a pre-removal detention center, and/or a RIC, pending completion of reception and identification procedures. Following these procedures, new arrivals may be detained for processing or assessment of their asylum claim, or for deportation.

      While the increase in arrivals in April temporarily strained asylum identification, registration, and accommodation services in Northern Greece and the Evros region, authorities are responsible for ensuring the safety and security of asylum seekers throughout registration and identification processes. Increased arrivals do not justify the Greek government’s failure to protect women and girls, or to allow dangerous conditions to persist even after arrivals have decreased.

      During Human Rights Watch visits to sites in the Thessaloniki area and in Evros, authorities said that arrivals had returned to a normal range over the previous two weeks. On May 19, authorities at Fylakio pre-removal detention center said the site has a capacity of 374 and was housing only 172 people. On May 21, authorities at the RIC, which has a capacity of 240, said it was housing 196. Nevertheless, Human Rights Watch found women and girls being held with unrelated men and boys.

      On June 1, following an April ad hoc visit to Greece, the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment reported the detention of men, women, and children together in a single cell at the Fylakio pre-removal center, consistent with the Human Rights Watch findings in May.

      Authorities said they give priority to members of “vulnerable” groups for registration, processing, and transfer to appropriate accommodation. Under Greek law this includes unaccompanied or separated children, people with disabilities, pregnant women and new mothers, single parents with minor children, and victims of sexual violence, torture or other severe psychological or physical trauma. The authorities acknowledged that unaccompanied or separated children – and sometimes their family members – may be accommodated for lengthy periods in the RIC due to limited spaces in designated “safe” facilities and lengthy processes for verifying family links.

      The Greek government’s failure to accommodate men, women, and children separately in immigration detention is a longstanding problem, including in Evros. The European Court of Human Rights and multiple other international human rights bodies have criticized inhumane and degrading conditions in Greek immigration detention facilities, including failure to separate women and children from unrelated men. Human Rights Watch has previously documented violence, insecurity, sexual harassment, and unhygienic and unsanitary conditions in facilities for registration, identification, and processing of asylum seekers on the Greek islands, or “hotspots.” Human Rights Watch has also found women traveling alone housed with unrelated men in island hotspots.


      https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/07/greece-asylum-seeking-women-detained-men

      #Fylakio #femmes #violences_sexuelles #harcèlement_sexuel

    • Greek Authorities’ Struggle to Identify Dead Evros Migrants

      The worsening humanitarian situation on Greece’s land border with Turkey, is drawing international media attention.

      As the local authorities also face the challenge of identifying the bodies they recover from the frontier river, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has already called on the Greek government to urgently improve conditions and expand reception capacity in the north east.

      This follows a recent rise in arrivals in the Evros area across the land border with Turkey.

      In one report, Britain’s BBC investigates how people fleeing from Iraq and Syria as well as other countries like Iran and Afghanistan, put themselves at risk while trying to cross the dangerous waters of the Evros.

      The BBC dispatch covers the work of local people like Professor Pavlos Pavlidis of the Alexandroupoli State Hospital. A forensic surgeon, he has built up a huge database of photos, personal items and DNA samples taken from unidentified people who have perished while crossing into Greece.

      Sometimes, his work allows for a victim to be identified: “It gives an answer, even if it is a sad answer,” he says.

      http://greece.greekreporter.com/2018/05/01/greek-authorities-struggle-to-identify-dead-evros-migrants
      #cadavres #morts #identification #corps #décès #mourir_aux_frontières

    • Unprepared and overwhelmed: Greece’s resurgent river border with Turkey. When an old migration route became new again, the Evros region was caught on the back foot.

      Locals in Evros are used to new faces. People have been quietly slipping across the river that forms a natural barrier for all but 12 kilometres of the tense, militarised border between Greece and Turkey since Greece joined the European Union in 1981.

      But everyone on the Evros River was puzzled when a crush of hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers began crossing their sleepy riverine border every day in March. Six months later, arrivals have slowed but worries persist that the region is still poorly prepared for any new influx.

      At the rush’s height in April, more than 3,600 crossed the river in one month, surpassing the total number of people arriving in Greece by sea for the first time since 2012. They came across the Evros on plastic dinghies, and once on Greek soil they were picked up by smugglers in cars or continued the journey by foot. The banks of the river were littered with discarded clothes, water bottles, food and medicine packages, and flotation devices, which remain there today.

      Despite its history of migration, Evros, one of Greece’s poorest regions, was caught off guard. Hundreds of new arrivals were crammed into police stations, waiting for months to lodge their asylum claims. There were no NGOs to help out. Conditions were dismal, and services limited.

      “We are all surprised with the rise in arrivals in Evros, and the lack of Greek preparation,” said Georgia Spyropoulou, an advocacy officer with the Hellenic League for Human Rights, from her office in Athens.

      Greek officials say they were caught unawares too, with a local police commissioner telling the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, in June that “it is necessary to be prepared in case there is an increase in arrivals again.” Still, local police insisted they were doing the best they could with the resources available to them.

      No one is quite sure what prompted the flood of people in the first place. And plenty of of people are still making their way to Evros – 9,480 by the end of July, taking a gamble on a border that looks safe but can be deadly – 29 people have died this year during the crossing or shortly after.
      Border police and barn doors

      Before 2012, and before millions of people began landing on Europe’s beaches and drowning in the Mediterranean, Evros (known as the Meriç River in Turkish) was the main crossing point for those hoping to make it into Europe through Greece.

      Amidst mounting pressure from other EU countries to further seal its borders (Austria’s interior minister famously said Greece was “open like a barn door”), Athens launched Operation Aspida (“Shield”) in 2012, deploying 1,800 more police officers and erecting a fence on the land portion of the border, adding to a 175-strong rapid border intervention team known as RABIT – set up in 2010 with the help of Frontex, the EU border agency.

      Those who made it alive to the Greek banks of the Evros this year found a system wholly unprepared for their arrival.

      The new measures worked, and by November 2012 migrant arrivals had dwindled to none – a remarkable decrease from 6,500 in August that year.

      Athens denies reports of pushbacks of asylum seekers, but human rights watchdogs have documented collective expulsions in which people are forced back into Turkey after already crossing the river, and the UN has also raised concerns.

      Despite the crackdown, the numbers began to creep up again slowly this March. And then the spring rush came.
      Understaffed and unprepared

      Those who made it alive to the Greek banks of the Evros this year found a system wholly unprepared for their arrival.

      The procedure is supposed to be simple: new arrivals are brought to “pre-removal detention centres” run by the Hellenic police, where they wait for no more than seven days to be fingerprinted and have their asylum claims registered at the region’s one official Reception and Identification Centre (RIC) in the small village of Fylakio.

      But it proved to be anything but.

      The RIC was understaffed and overwhelmed by the numbers, causing the sorts of major delays in processing that have plagued the reception system on the Greek islands.

      In a scathing review of Evros in the springtime, UNHCR criticised the detention of new arrivals in sub-standard police facilities. Human Rights Watch also found troubling conditions in May: women and girls were being held with unrelated men. One woman told the watchdog she was sexually assaulted by a fellow asylum seeker; her requests to be transferred to another location were ignored.

      After asylum seekers’ claims are processed, they are moved to the RIC itself, which has a 240-person capacity.

      Unlike on the Greek islands and its controversial policy of containment, people in Evros are allowed to move about the country. After applying for asylum, most head to other government- or UN-run camps elsewhere in the country. Still, even the RIC facility quickly became overrun as unaccompanied minors and those likely to have their asylum claims rejected had to stay on.
      Improvements

      When IRIN visited Fylakio in July, it found the RIC camp no longer overcrowded, and newly arrived asylum seekers expressed relief at being out of the pre-removal detention centre. “That was a very bad place,” one Turkish arrival said, declining to elaborate.

      IRIN was not granted access to the nearby pre-removal detention centre. But despite Greek police releasing many migrants from police detention, a HRW report from July said conditions in Fylakio remained “inhumane”, describing “dark, dank cells, with overpowering odours in the corridors”, a lack of toilets and locked doors, and insufficient healthcare.

      There have been some improvements for those out of their first detention, and NGOs have arrived to help: ARISIS, a Greek non-governmental organisation that provides social support for minors, had recently set up a makeshift office, and Médecins Sans Frontières has now established a permanent outpost in Fylakio.

      But one RIC employee said they remain understaffed. “We have the experience and motivation to manage the situation,” but not the manpower, the employee said, asking to remain anonymous because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

      Staff work in two shifts. When IRIN visited, the centre’s director was on sick leave, and there were still no doctors on staff, and only three nurses.

      In one crowded container at the RIC centre, an Iraqi family was living alongside the body of a dog that had died the previous week – its body still hadn’t been removed, and the stench lingered. The mother was concerned for the health of her infant, who was in hospital. Because members of the family, including the mother, are minors, they are currently stuck in limbo, waiting at the RIC.

      Communication remains a constant issue. There are no official, permanent translators and the overwhelming majority of the centre’s staff only speaks English or Greek.

      “There are asylum seekers who are interpreting for other asylum seekers… [which is] completely inappropriate,” Eva Cosse, Western Europe researcher for HRW, told IRIN.
      What’s next?

      Months after the springtime surge at Evros, there is still confusion about what caused it – and if there’s any way to predict if the same thing might happen again. Everyone, it seems, has a theory.

      “The waves of migration increase in populations when there are serious issues in the country of origin,” Nikolaos Menexidis, the barrel-chested police major general of Western Thrace, told IRIN from his headquarters in the town of Kommini. “When Turkey created the latest issues in Afrin, we saw a rise in numbers.”

      It’s true that following Turkey’s assault on the Syrian Kurdish enclave of Afrin – militias supported by Ankara took control in March – the majority of those recorded crossing in the spring were Syrian Kurds and Iraqis.

      But that doesn’t explain the drop in other nationalities who have long used the river crossing, like asylum seekers from Pakistan, countered Dimitros Koros, a lawyer with the Greek Council of Refugees.

      Some people may be driven by politics – Turks who had fled and made it to the RIC in Fylakio said they had been wrongly accused of terrorist activity at home or suspected of ties to the Gulen movement, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames for the 2016 attempted coup in his country. Others may have just heard there was a chance to make it to Europe at the river.

      Whatever the reason for the surge, migrants and asylum seekers people will likely continue to take their chances on the way to Greece. And Koros, the lawyer with the Greek Council for Refugees, worries that new arrivals will continue to struggle, as they move away from the squalid conditions at the border itself and into a wider region unequipped to help.

      “Evros is not just the border,” he said. “Evros is here in Thessaloniki. They are here, homeless, without any provision of service.”

      http://www.irinnews.org/news-feature/2018/09/27/unprepared-and-overwhelmed-greece-s-resurgent-river-border-turkey

    • An open secret: Refugee pushbacks across the Turkey-Greece border

      On an eastern frontier of the European Union, people are whisked back to Turkey before they can claim asylum in Greece.

      Linda, a 19-year-old Syrian and registered refugee, had just crossed from Turkey into Greece at the Evros River when men carrying guns appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She wasn’t sure if they were police officers or soldiers, but they emerged from behind trees and wore dark uniforms that helped them blend into the night.

      It was mid-May, and several hours earlier Linda had boarded a mini-bus in Istanbul with around 35 other people, including children and a pregnant woman, eager to enter European Union territory. The trip had been organised by smugglers, and the passengers ended up in a remote area close to the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne. At around three in the morning they boarded small boats that ferried them across the river.

      Linda’s plan was to get into Greece, then make her way to Denmark, where her fiancé lives. Her crossing was part of a sharp uptick in traffic into the EU via the Evros (known as the Meriç in Turkish) this spring; 3,600 people are known to have crossed in April alone, compared to just over 1,000 in all of 2013.

      But she didn’t make it more than a few steps into EU territory before she was stopped.

      The men demanded that everyone in the group hand over their mobile phones. “Then they beat the men who were with us, put us in a boat, and sent us back to the Turkish side of the border,” Linda recalled when she spoke to IRIN recently in Istanbul.

      Pushbacks like the one Linda experienced have been going on for years, documented by both human rights watchdogs and the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR. They are also illegal under European and international law.

      “The right to claim and enjoy asylum is a fundamental human right," Leo Dobbs, a UNHCR spokesman in Greece, told IRIN. Pushbacks at the Evros border, he added, are a “serious issue.”

      According to a report released by the Greek Council for Refugees in February, before the spring rush, pushbacks have increased to the point of being “systematic” as the number of people crossing the Evros has grown slowly in the past two years.

      The Evros River border between Turkey and Greece is one of the easternmost frontiers of the European Union. Until a fence went up on all but 12 kilometres of the Evros in 2012, it was the easiest and safest path for asylum seekers from the Middle East and elsewhere to reach Europe, and nearly 55,000 people crossed the border irregularly in 2011.

      A controversial 2016 EU-Turkey deal that paved the way for asylum seekers to be returned from the Greek Islands to Turkey (which it deems safe under the terms of that agreement), does not apply to the Evros border. Instead, there is a separate, largely ineffective bilateral readmission agreement dating from 2002 that was suspended earlier this year.

      Even under the terms of that agreement, pushbacks like the one Linda experienced violate European and international laws on refugee protection, which require states to allow asylum seekers to file for protection and prohibit sending them back to countries where they may face danger. While countries are allowed to protect their borders, they cannot legally return people who have already crossed without first evaluating their claims.

      Pushbacks may be illegal, but they are an open secret. “It’s something that everybody knows,” said Dimitris Koros, a lawyer with the Greek Council for Refugees. Now, when an asylum seeker enters Greece from the land border, “the first thing you encounter is the possibility of being pushed back,” he added.

      The Greek Ministry for Migration Policy did not respond to IRIN’s requests for comment, but the Greek government has repeatedly denied it is engaged in systematic pushbacks.

      Human rights organisations say they have raised the issue of responsibility with the Greek government multiple times without receiving a response. “It’s a difficult thing… to say that the government instructs or gives orders to the policemen to do it,” Konstantinos Tsitselikis, a human rights law professor and former director of the Hellenic League for Human Rights said, “but they have the knowledge and they tolerate it at least.”

      It’s unclear just how many people have been pushed back or who is responsible, because the area around the border is a closed military zone and there aren’t many NGOs working in the region.

      Meanwhile on the Turkish side of the river, security forces regularly apprehend people attempting to cross and transfer them to government-run detention centres. But amidst a pervasive atmosphere of fear and silence, the treatment of asylum seekers and migrants after they are pushed back and detained largely remains a mystery.
      A longstanding practice

      According to Tsitselikis, pushbacks have been happening for decades.

      “I used to do my military service in 1996-97 in the Evros border area,” he told IRIN. “Even then the Greek authorities were doing pushbacks every day.”

      Although the border is technically a military zone, these days border police patrol the frontier as well as personnel from the EU border control agency, Frontex.

      People who have been pushed back, including Linda, describe being met by security forces wearing different types of uniforms, but it’s tough to assign responsibility.

      “Since it takes place outside of the public eye, we don’t really understand who is responsible,” Koros, from the Greek Council for Refugees, said.

      When asked about the practice by IRIN, Nikolaos Menexidis, police major general of Western Thrace, the Greek region that borders Turkey, said Hellenic police always follow the proper procedures when dealing with migrants.

      Menexidis said his forces have been working with Turkish police for the past six years on what he calls “technical issues.” They primarily exchange information on stopping smugglers on both sides of the border, he said.

      After pushback

      Linda’s ordeal did not end when she was pushed back into Turkey. The smugglers who brought her group to the border were gone and so was the bus. Without phones to call for help, the group was stuck. After waiting several hours, they tried to cross again.

      This time they made it further, walking for five or six hours in Greek territory before they were stopped, taken to a detention centre, and placed in a room with people from many different countries.

      After being held for several more hours, they were driven back to the border, the men were beaten again, and they were all forced back to the Turkish side of the river. By that point, the group was exhausted and thirsty. “For two days we didn’t drink water. When we saw the river we drank from it,” Linda said. “There were people who got sick because the water was dirty.”

      A group of Turkish soldiers found them in the woods and brought them food, water, and milk for the children and pointed them in the direction of Edirne, where they arranged for taxis to bring them back to Istanbul.

      In a way, Linda was lucky. Last December, the Greek Council for Refugees documented the case of a Pakistani man who died of hypothermia after being forcibly returned to Turkey. He had fallen into the cold water on the way back.

      While the Evros is no more than a few metres wide, its current is deceptively strong and, according to records in Greece, at least 29 people this year have died while trying to cross the water or shortly after.

      Some who are forced back to Turkey face serious punishment. Since a failed military coup in 2016, the Turkish government has jailed tens of thousands of opponents, leading to an increase in the number of Turks fleeing to Greece to seek asylum – nearly 2,000 in 2017 compared to just 180 the year before. The Hellenic League for Human Rights has documented two cases of Turks being pushed back from Greece at the Evros and later being imprisoned in Turkey, including journalist Murat Çapan, who is now serving a 22.5 year sentence for “participating in a terrorist organization and attempting to overthrow the constitution”.

      Despite documentation, human rights advocates say they have struggled to bring attention to the issue of pushbacks, as EU and international policymakers focus on stemming Mediterranean crossings. There is little appetite in Europe at the moment for monitoring or changing policies that are keeping asylum seekers and migrants from entering the EU.

      “Both the European Union and the Greek government... prefer not to open this discussion, especially in this political environment,” Tsitselikis said, referring to the rise of right-wing, anti-migration politics in Europe that is shaking the foundations of the EU.
      Fear and silence

      In early June, about a 10-minute drive from Edirne, hundreds of people in the parking lot of what the Turkish government calls a “migrant removal centre” huddled under tin pavilions that offered shade from the afternoon sun. This is where those caught on the Turkish side of the river are brought.

      IRIN visited three times over the course of a week to try to gain access, but never received a response to our requests.

      The centre is surrounded by a low wall topped with a chain-link fence and spools of razor wire. Each time IRIN visited, there were hundreds of people – mostly men, but also women and small children – in the parking lot and white vans passed in and out of the metal gate depositing more people. Two large charter buses idled in the parking lot with their doors open, seemingly waiting for people to board.

      In close to a week spent at the border, there was no concrete evidence of what was happening inside the centre. There were hints and rumours, but no one wanted to speak on record – including Turkish organisations that work with asylum seekers – because of the sensitivity of the issue.

      It is simply not clear how long people are kept in the centre, or what happens to them when they are removed. The Turkish Directorate General of Migration Management responded to IRIN’s requests for comment with links to online statistics and Turkish law on removals.

      Several Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers that IRIN spoke to shared stories of being held in such centres for a period of time before being released inside Turkey and permitted to stay. Most of the people IRIN spoke to reported good treatment while inside.

      But in 2015 and 2016, Amnesty International documented cases of Syrians detained while trying to migrate to Europe and being deported to Syria, according to Anna Shea, an Amnesty researcher working on refugee and migrant rights.

      Amnesty has also recently documented a case of a Syrian asylum seeker stopped in Edirne being deported to Idlib, the rebel-held province in northwestern Syria where a ceasefire is so far holding off a government offensive but humanitarians warn conditions are still dire. It is unclear if the case is part of a larger trend.

      In recent months, Turkey has deported large numbers of Afghans and Syrians, stopped after crossing Turkey’s southern and eastern borders, back to their respective countries.

      But it is difficult to know if this practice has been extended to people who have tried to travel to Greece, given that the organisations working on migrant and refugee rights were unwilling to speak on the record, and the government declined to comment on the issue or allow access to detained migrants.

      “The total stonewalling and lack of information and complete lack of transparency is cause for concern in and of itself,” said Shea, the Amnesty researcher. “I mean, what do they have to hide?”

      Hidden practice

      At a small village outside of Edirne, a man herding goats pointed to places where people crossed the nearby river, but there was no sign of anyone during the day. Crossings happened only at night, he said. And the Turkish army prohibited people from approaching the river after 7 pm.

      The road leading from the village followed the winding course of the Evros, which was often blocked from view by thick stands of trees. The surrounding area was full of corn fields, rice paddies, and thick vegetation. Small dirt roads that shot off in the direction of the river were marked with red signs carrying a stencilled soldier – a warning that entry beyond that point was prohibited.

      Not far away, in the city centre, everyone seemed shocked to learn that so many people had crossed the border this year. It was a problem that most locals assumed was already in the past, given that most of the frontier had been lined with barbed wire and cameras for the past six years.

      But those who have tried and failed to cross the Evros know that the rural quiet harbours dangers the eye can’t see.

      Linda has given up on seeing her fiancé anytime soon – a visa is likely to take years – and she isn’t planning on trying to cross the border again. “I started being afraid because of the things I saw,” she said.


      https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2018/10/08/refugee-pushbacks-across-turkey-greece-border-Evros
      #push-back #refoulement

    • Grèce : le mystère des trois migrantes retrouvées égorgées

      Les corps des trois femmes avaient été découverts le 10 octobre par un agriculteur dans un champ près du fleuve Evros.

      Trois migrantes retrouvées mortes début octobre près du fleuve Evros à la frontière gréco-turque au nord de la Grèce ont été identifiées. Selon la police, il s’agit d’une mère et ses deux filles. Elles ont été égorgées après avoir été entravées.

      Le mode d’exécution pose questions aux enquêteurs, qui privilégient la piste criminelle depuis la découverte des corps en octobre dernier. « Des femmes contraintes à s’agenouiller avant d’être égorgées, pourrait évoquer une action de type djihadiste, mais dans l’immédiat, la police n’exclut ni ne privilégie aucune piste », explique une source policière.

      L’hypothèse d’une « punition » infligée par un réseau de passeurs a aussi été avancée par les médias grecs. L’affaire « est sans précédent dans les annales du pays, c’est un mystère », a relevé la même source policière.


      http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/grece-le-mystere-des-trois-migrantes-retrouvees-egorgees-26-10-2018-79291

    • Le fleuve Évros, cimetière des migrants anonymes

      Ce fleuve boueux, aux courants dangereux et à la profondeur traîtresse, tue et recrache régulièrement des corps quasi impossibles à identifier.

      Bloqué en Turquie, Mustafa a d’abord tenté d’atteindre la Bulgarie par la voie terrestre avec un groupe de migrants afghans. Mais une fois la frontière passée, la police bulgare les a interceptés avant de les renvoyer en Turquie, où ils ont été emprisonnés dans le centre de détention d’Edirne pendant trois mois. Quelques semaines après sa libération, au milieu de l’été 2014, Mustafa a demandé à sa famille restée en Afghanistan, d’envoyer de l’argent à un passeur qui avait promis de l’emmener en Bulgarie – mais cette fois-ci en passant par la Grèce.

      Les cinq jeunes hommes de son nouveau groupe ont alors dû se cotiser pour financer le bateau gonflable qui leur servirait à franchir à deux reprises l’Évros, un fleuve de 480 kilomètres de long qui marque la frontière greco-turque, mais aussi une partie de la frontière entre la Grèce et la Bulgarie.

      La route migratoire qui consiste à traverser l’Évros, fréquemment empruntée depuis les années 1990, est redevenue populaire après l’accord UE-Turquie signé en 2016 visant à limiter les arrivées de migrants dans les îles Grecques via la mer Méditerranée. Cette route a longtemps semblé préférable à emprunter la Méditerranée pour atteindre la Grèce. Mais ce fleuve boueux, aux courants dangereux et à la profondeur traîtresse, car variable, tue et recrache régulièrement des corps quasi impossibles à identifier.

      C’est dans la région grecque de l’Évros que l’on trouve le plus grand nombre de corps de migrants non identifiés en Grèce. À cela s’ajoutent les corps retrouvés du côté turc de l’Évros, et aussi en Bulgarie. À Évros, les employés de la morgue de l’hôpital d’Alexandroúpoli, aidés par le Comité International de la Croix Rouge, tentent d’identifier les corps pour aider les familles qui recherchent un proche disparu.

      Mais tout ça, Mustafa ne le sait pas. Le passeur a acheté un bateau « pour les petits bébés » et « à peine plus grand qu’un lit », se rappelle aujourd’hui Mustafa. En pleine nuit, le groupe trouve un coin où la végétation est assez dense pour les dissimuler. Puis, le passeur et les six Afghans gonflent et s’entassent sur la petite embarcation.

      « Les courants étaient trop rapides pour nager, » explique Mustafa à VICE News. « On a eu peur de mourir [...], que le bateau coule et que des poissons, comme des piranhas, nous mangent. » Le groupe traverse finalement la frontière entre la Turquie et la Grèce, en 20 minutes. « On a ensuite récupéré le bateau, car le passeur a dit qu’on en aurait encore besoin, » raconte Mustafa, sa voix douce, mais anxieuse en harmonie avec son visage triste et enfantin.

      En effet, après avoir marché environ deux jours, Mustafa se retrouve face à la même rivière, qu’il doit traverser pour atteindre la Bulgarie. Il fait noir et les branches sous l’eau percent l’embarcation de fortune. Rapidement, Mustafa se débarrasse de son sac à dos pour pouvoir nager. Il s’accroche à des branches, parvient à sortir de l’eau et retrouve le passeur et trois autres camarades. Mais deux des migrants, des jeunes qui n’avaient pas plus de 20 ans, ne sont pas là.

      Objets retrouvés avec les corps de migrants et réfugiés à Évros. Morgue de l’hôpital général de l’université d’Alexandroúpolis, Grèce. Juillet 2017. (Photo de Stylianos Papardelas)

      « Le bateau a coulé, on n’a pas vu ce qu’il s’est passé, mais ensuite, ils avaient disparu, » raconte doucement Mustafa. « On ne les a pas retrouvés. » Après trois jours de marche et une semaine passée au camp de Hamanli, Mustafa est emprisonné dans le centre de détention de Busmantsi près de Sofia. Puis, après encore des semaines de voyage, il atteindra Paris, où il n’a toujours pas réussi à obtenir l’asile et espère faire venir sa femme et ses trois enfants.

      Les deux camarades de voyage de Mustafa ont sans doute rejoint les centaines de victimes de l’Évros, dont les corps, retenus au fond du fleuve par la boue et les branches, sont souvent retrouvés des mois, voire des années, après leur disparition.

      Poppi Lazaridou, assistante à la morgue de l’hôpital général de l’université d’Alexandroúpolis, raconte l’histoire tragique d’une famille afghane. Grèce. Juillet 2017. (Vidéo produite par Christopher Nicholas/Fragkiska Megaloudi/CICR)

      Selon les données communiquées par le CICR, 352 corps ont été découverts entre 2000 et 2017 dans la région de l’Évros, qui borde le fleuve du côté grec. Seuls 105 ont été identifiés. Entre janvier et mai 2017, 841 personnes ont été arrêtées à Évros en essayant de traverser la frontière (contre 1 638 pour la même période en 2016).

      « Mais peut-être qu’il y a plus de corps que nous n’avons pas encore trouvés, » dit le docteur Pavlos Pavlidis, médecin légiste à l’hôpital général de l’université d’Alexandroúpoli (Grèce). De plus, ces chiffres n’incluent pas les corps retrouvés en Turquie et en Bulgarie. « Je pense que les chiffres [pour la Turquie] sont à peu près les mêmes que du côté grec, » ajoute-t-il, lors d’une interview réalisée par le CICR.

      D’après Pavlidis, la première cause de décès des migrants dans la région, ce sont les noyades. Jusqu’en 2008, la deuxième cause de décès, c’était les mines, disséminées le long de la frontière et retirées cette année-là. Après les opérations de déminage, l’hypothermie a pris la seconde place sur la liste.

      « Quand tu sors de la rivière et que tu es mouillé, tu t’assois dans tes habits trempés, et tu commences à te sentir endormi, et tu meurs d’hypothermie, » explique Pavlidis. « Ils sombrent en fait dans un sommeil profond, ils ne souffrent pas... Ils ne se réveillent jamais. »

      Les passeurs ne laissent pas les migrants emporter leurs sacs sur les embarcations. Ils portent donc beaucoup de couches de vêtements sur eux, explique Pavlidis. Quand le bateau chavire, le poids attire les personnes vers le fond. « Il est impossible de survivre, mais en plus les corps restent sous l’eau et on ne peut pas les récupérer, » dit-il. « Nous avions un cas où la personne a été retrouvée portant quatre pantalons et sept chemises. »

      Il y a quelques années, la plupart des victimes étaient principalement des hommes seuls fuyant l’Afghanistan, le Pakistan ou le Bangladesh, d’après les observations de Pavlidis. Mais depuis la guerre en Syrie, les familles syriennes ont rejoint le groupe. « Maintenant, on va avoir des enfants, des femmes, des grands-pères. » (Selon le CICR, le nombre de familles a récemment recommencé à diminuer.)

      Les corps sont retrouvés par Frontex, la police, l’armée ou par des chasseurs et des pêcheurs, explique Pavlidis. Ils sont souvent dans un état de décomposition avancée, ou mangés par les poissons. Lorsqu’on lui ramène un corps, le médecin enregistre les habits et effets personnels. Ces objets, qu’il collecte depuis environ 15 ans, sont essentiels à la reconnaissance des corps.

      Le docteur Pavlos Pavlidis, médecin légiste et pathologiste, montre et parle des objets retrouvés avec les corps de migrants et réfugiés, à la morgue de l’hôpital général de l’université d’Alexandroúpolis, Grèce. Juillet 2017. (Vidéo produite par Christopher Nicholas/Fragkiska Megaloudi/CICR)

      Puis son équipe procède à une autopsie. Ils prélèvent ensuite un échantillon ADN et l’envoient au laboratoire de la police à Athènes. Si l’échantillon correspond à un profil existant, ils collaborent avec la Croix Rouge Internationale. Et, si quelqu’un recherche un proche qui a traversé l’Évros à cette période, ils poursuivent le processus d’identification.

      Si aucune recherche n’est entamée, les corps quittent la morgue après trois à quatre mois, et sont enterrés dans l’un des trois cimetières musulmans des alentours. La position et le numéro de leur tombe sont archivés afin qu’ils puissent être retrouvés par des proches dans le futur.

      « Nous avons plusieurs recherches fructueuses, mais pas tant que ça, car c’est un procédé très complexe et long, » explique Jan Bikker à VICE News. En tant que médecin légiste du CICR à Athènes, son travail consiste en partie à tenter de retrouver les familles des défunts si le gouvernement grec n’a pas réussi à le faire.

      « Ce n’est pas toujours aussi simple que ça en a l’air : on retrouve des papiers d’identité, mais nous ne sommes jamais sûrs que ce soit la bonne personne, » dit-il. « En effet, les papiers peuvent être faux ou une personne peut être enregistrée sous différents noms, ou porter les papiers de quelqu’un d’autre.

      L’équipe de Bikker aide aussi les familles ayant contacté le CICR à retrouver le corps de leurs proches et à produire un échantillon d’ADN pour procéder à l’identification. Cet échantillon est nécessaire à identifier un corps en trop mauvais état.

      Ce travail est difficile pour plusieurs raisons : les familles peuvent vivre dans des zones de conflits ; être des personnes déplacées ; résider illégalement dans un pays ; ou risquer l’emprisonnement si leur gouvernent apprend que leur proche a quitté le pays.

      « Normalement, nous collectons les informations descriptives qui pourraient nous donner une première piste. Une fois que nous avons une idée et une correspondance possible avec un corps, nous tentons de travailler avec [les proches des disparus] et les autorités pour obtenir l’ADN. »

      Une fois le corps identifié, les familles décident, en fonction de leurs moyens, si elles souhaitent rapatrier le corps dans leur pays d’origine.

      « Nous espérons qu’un cadre légal sera mis en place en Grèce [...] pour la centralisation des informations descriptives dans une base de données centrale avec toutes les informations sur les personnes disparues et les corps non identifiés, » explique Bikker.

      Comme l’explique Fragkiska Megaloudi, chargée de communication au CICR à Athènes, l’identification des morts est de la responsabilité de l’État grec. Le CICR est la seule association aidant l’État grec pour le médico-légal et prend le relais pour les identifications difficiles.

      L’association se charge aussi d’instruire les gardes côtiers grecs sur la manière de gérer dignement les corps, fournit du matériel à l’équipe du docteur Pavlidis, et améliore les cimetières accueillant les migrants et réfugiés.

      « Nous aidons à améliorer et à marquer les tombes, comme ça, si nous trouvons la famille, ils peuvent revenir et trouver la tombe de la personne. Sinon ils ne peuvent pas tourner la page, » dit-elle.

      « Nous reconstruisons de petites histoires autour de ces personnes, mais nous ne savons jamais qui elles étaient, leurs noms, ce qu’elles pensaient, leurs espoirs, leurs rêves... Et elles sont juste mortes ici » dit Megaloudi, émue. « C’est le côté le plus tragique de la crise migratoire. »

      Des agriculteurs d’Évros racontent leurs rencontres avec des migrants et réfugiés de passage à Évros. Grèce. Juillet 2017.

      https://www.vice.com/fr/article/d3qxbw/le-fleuve-vros-cimetire-des-migrants-anonymes-grece-turquie

  • 30 Mexican and Chinese nationals found in a tunnel under the Otay Mesa border crossing

    Agents caught four Mexican men and three women, and 23 Chinese nationals, including two women. They apparently had just been smuggled into the United States through the tunnel, Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio said.


    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-smuggling-border-20170828-story.html
    #murs #barrières_frontalières #migrations #asile #réfugiés #USA #frontières #Walls_don't_work #contournement #tunnels

    • Incomplete smuggling tunnel found in #Nogales by Border Patrol, Mexican police

      Border Patrol agents and Mexico’s Federal Police discovered an incomplete cross-border tunnel in Nogales Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.

      The incomplete tunnel was found inside a cross-border storm drain that runs into the United States from Mexico, about 75 yards west of the Dennis DeConcini border crossing in downtown Nogales, said a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector.

      The tunnel did not open to the U.S., but rested more than a dozen feet below a parking lot in Nogales, Ariz. Officials said the tunnel was about 17 feet long, and extended about 12 feet into the U.S., beneath the border fence that remains topped with razor wire installed by National Guard troops last fall.

      The tunnel was discovered during a “cooperative bi-national tunnel sweep,” by agents “trained in illicit tunnel detection,” with Mexico’s Federal Police, as well as agents with the Border Patrol’s International Liaison Unit.

      U.S. Border Patrol agents and Mexican police explored the tunnel and found “various digging and cutting tools,” the spokesman said. No one has arrested in connection with the discovery at this time, he said.

      Authorities in Mexico and the United States will monitor and inspect the incomplete tunnel until it is secured and remediated, which usually involves sealing the tunnel with concrete.

      In March, a traffic lane at the DeConcini port was closed after a remediated tunnel collapsed, causing a minor disruption to traffic at the port.

      Last December, Border Patrol agents conducting a similar sweep found an incomplete 50-foot tunnel that extended about 44 feet into the United States just beneath the port’s parking lot.

      Overall, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector alone have found 119 tunnels, many of them in the Nogales area.


      http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/report/053119_border_tunnel/incomplete-smuggling-tunnel-found-nogales-by-border-patrol-mexican-p

      Et ce chiffre:

      Overall, Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector alone have found 119 tunnels, many of them in the Nogales area.