CNN recently reported on the loss of human life in the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel, increased violence on the hazardous journeys migrants and refugees take in times of a global pandemic, and other realities that are summarized below.
In the absence of legal and safe routes around counties/cities undergoing lockdowns, inequalities have been exacerbated – limited access to asylum, health and housing rights, viciously breaching the prohibition of collective expulsions by land and sea.
These avoidable developments are illustrated with examples from South-East Europe, the Central Mediterranean and Western Europe.
- UNHCR notes the increase in sea arrivals in Italy and Malta as the economic situation in Tunisia worsened due to Covid-19 and Libya`s civil war continues.
- The increase is documented in South-East Europe, where people are mostly arriving from Syria, Morocco and Iraq.
- Greece has been accused by Turkey and organizations including Human Rights Watch, of pushing boats carrying hundreds of migrants back into Turkish waters between March and July.
- In recent months, rescue boats have faced vigilante mobs at Greek islands.
- Migrants in Greece were quarantined for months at island camps, which are at four times their capacity with more than 24,000 residents.
Today, when movement is harder and far more dangerous, migrants take these risky routes facing torture, rape and other abuses during land journeys to Libya, "by smugglers, traffickers, militias, but also state officials." Furthermore, there has been an increase in people travelling on makeshift boats, with deadly consequences, due to increased surveillance.
Loss of life in August
- A 28-year old Sudanese migrant was found dead on Sangatte beach, near Calais, France last week.
- At least 45 migrants lost their lives in the deadliest recorded shipwreck off the Libyan coast this year, according to the UNHCR and International Organization for Migration.
Journeys and rights breaching during a pandemic
- Almost 4,900 people have crossed the Eurotunnel in small boats since the beginning of the lockdown — more than double the amount of people who tried to cross in 2019.
- Italy recorded 16,942 sea arrivals so far this year, compared to a total of 11,471 people who arrived in 2019, according to UNHCR data.
- There are no rescue ships on the central Mediterranean, and no EU programs for assistance as in previous years. As a result, migrants leaving Libya by boat are often taken back to Libya by coastguards, and face detention or other rights violations.
- Italy and Malta are blocking boats and refusing disembarkations of rescue ships.
- In a July report, Border Violence Monitoring Network raised concerns over the militarization of borders.
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