Hard Borders

The Times

26 August 2017

Only the clearest possible message that illegal migration is not worth it will deter those risking their lives to reach Europe from Africa by sea

After three years of confusion there are signs that the European Union may at last be feeling its way towards a realistic response to the Mediterranean migration crisis. These signs come too late for the thousands who have died at sea and in the desert. They have yet to evolve into enforceable policies and whether they ever will is open to question, but some progress is better than none.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU’s commissioner for migration, tells The Times today that Brussels is considering imposing trade, aid and visa embargoes on migrants’ countries of origin to pressure them into helping repatriate those who are refused asylum. In Italy, which is bearing the brunt of the crisis, the interior minister has held meetings with mayors of key Libyan towns and cities to explore ways of policing Libya’s southern border. On Monday President Macron of France will convene talks between European and African leaders in Paris to add high-level impetus to European efforts to stem the migrant flow at source.

All three initiatives are based on the realisation that uncontrolled economic migration hurts the mainly African countries where it originates, destabilises the European countries where the migrants are heading and inflicts untold suffering on the people themselves. These should be uncontroversial ideas. Even so, they are starkly at odds with the thinking behind Germany’s decision to throw open its borders to refugees from the Middle East and beyond two years ago. Many but not all of them were fleeing Syria’s war, but that has not made it any easier for a disunited Europe to absorb them without political tension and localised strife.

Mr Avramopoulos was instrumental in the EU-Turkish scheme which, while by no means perfect, has cut the flow of migrants through southeastern Europe to a fraction of 2015 levels by giving Syrian refugees temporary status in Turkey. He appears to understand that the crisis in the central and western Mediterranean requires equally decisive action to persuade would-be migrants that the journey is not worth it.

That will in turn require border controls deep in the Sahara where traffickers bring their human cargo to Libya from Niger, Chad and Mali, as Italy insists. It will require Libyan unity, as Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, observed after a trip to Benghazi this week. Above all it will require a message of deterrence to be sent to sub-Saharan Africa by a more resolute EU, principally through the swift and efficient return of migrants denied asylum. Just 27 per cent of migrants in this category are repatriated. Seven in ten stay. This is the single biggest “pull factor” for those considering following them from Lagos, Douala or Accra. “If people know they have no chance to stay, they are less likely to come,” the commissioner says. His words should be a mantra for any EU heads of government still on the fence about a humanitarian and political emergency they have the power to end.

The Times’ series this week on the migration crisis has laid bare Europe’s failure to enforce a serious repatriation policy, the hell of Libya’s makeshift detention centres and the use of social media by traffickers to broadcast the torture of their captives to extort money from relatives. Despite everything the lure of Europe remains, not least because, as one Nigerian migrant stranded in Tripoli said, “if you go back to your land, you will be starting from below zero”.

This is why the co-operation of countries of origin matters. Mr Avramopoulos’s plan to secure it using restrictions on aid and development as well as visas represents a new willingness to use what concrete leverage Brussels has in Africa. There should always be avenues for legal migration, but the message from Europe must be clear: unchecked illegal migration will not be tolerated.

Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hard-borders-z3cf29t0h

EU Ponders Tough Action Against Migrant-source Countries

VOA

By Jamie Dettmer

26 August 2017

ROME — The EU’s commissioner for migration says Brussels may withhold development aid and impose trade and visa restrictions on migrant-source countries in Africa and Asia to force them to take back failed asylum-seekers.

In an interview with Britain’s The Times published Saturday, Dimitris Avramopoulos said EU chiefs “are considering stopping funding of major development projects. We invested in these regions to create opportunities and keep people there.”

He said countries which failed to cooperate with repatriations could face blanket visa restrictions. Germany recently threatened to withhold visas from the ruling elites of migrant-source countries that do not accept returnees.

But Avramopoulos appeared to indicate a much broader visa embargo is now being contemplated, saying “thousands of foreigners, from diplomats and doctors to students and researchers” would be impacted by the travel restrictions now under discussion.

“The EU is not afraid to make use of leverages in trade or visa policy. Let’s be honest: it is neither good for Africa nor for Europe that so many people cross the Mediterranean,” he said.

This is the first time EU commissioners have threatened to block access to European markets in response to a long-running migration crisis that’s roiling the continent and threatening to upend traditional party politics and empower populist nationalists.

The “hard borders” approach now being considered is being condemned by humanitarian NGOs, which often embrace a “no border” ideology.

On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France will chair talks featuring European and African leaders in Paris in a renewed bid to thrash out a more effective strategy to stem migrant flows. African leaders are likely to argue they need more development aid.

Italy's dilemma

The following day EU national leaders will hold one of their regular summits in which the migration issue will figure prominently. Both Italy and Germany have national elections in coming months and Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni and Germany’s Angela Merkel will likely want to show voters they are shutting down migrant routes.

Italy will push the EU to try to replicate with Libya a deal that was struck with Turkey last year, which largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans. But analysts say such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya given the lack of an effective central authority in the northern Africa state.

The migration influx has morphed into a political crisis for Italy’s left-leaning coalition government. In municipal elections earlier this year the coalition lost ground to center-right parties such as Matteo Salvini’s Northern League, which has called for a “stop to the invasion.”

Italy’s right-wing Forza Italia party has campaigned for the denial of landing rights to NGO ships carrying migrants. And even the maverick radical Five Star Movement is moving to an anti-immigrant position, calling for a halt to any new migrants being lodged in Rome.

Gentiloni has accused fellow EU nations of “looking the other way,” and not doing enough to assist Italy with the surge in migrants crossing the Mediterranean. A burden-sharing system across the EU has failed with just a few thousand taken off Italy’s hands by other EU member states.

Libya has become the main gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa, and also from the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria and Bangladesh. Many are fleeing war and persecution, but most who are using Libya are seeking to escape poverty. Italy has become the main point of arrival of those rescued off the coast of Libya.

As the economic migration has grown, with only a small proportion of asylum-seekers coming from countries engulfed in war, so sentiment in Italy has shifted with Italians becoming enraged at the strain the influx is having on the country’s migrant facilities, which are now all full, and the appearance of migrants even in far-flung villages.

600,000 asylum seekers

This week, police evicted more than a hundred Eritreans and Ethiopians from an abandoned office building near Rome’s central railway station. The occupants — who had been given refugee status — complained that Italy doesn't help asylum-seekers integrate, fails to house them and provide language classes.

In fact, the Italian authorities do, housing many in villages across the country, providing months-long language tuition and up to 45 euros a day per refugee. But many refugees bolt the system, preferring to live in large cities such as Rome, Naples, Milan and Bologna and to try their luck.

The sheer numbers — more than 600,000 asylum-seekers have entered Italy since 2014 — are overwhelming. And the assistance asylum-seekers do receive is increasingly infuriating ordinary Italians in villages migrants are sent to for temporary periods. “I don’t get that money from the government and we are struggling as well — we don’t have enough jobs for our kids and now migrant kids will be competing for the few jobs that are around,” says Anna-Maria Bianchi, a mother-of-two from a Lazio village just north of Rome.

The only good news as far as Italian authorities are concerned is that there has been a fall-off in the rate of new arrivals this August and July. Official figures show arrivals in Italy from North Africa dropped by more than 50 percent in July from a year earlier and August arrivals are down even further, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The decline is being put down to several factors — from changeable sea conditions to a heightened Libyan coastguard presence and a reduction in humanitarian rescue-refugee operations. There are also several probes by Italian authorities, who say NGOs have been colluding with people-traffickers.

Source:  https://www.voanews.com/a/eu-ponders-tough-action-against-migrant-source-countries/4001782.html

Frontex-Director Fabrice Leggeri: 'Border control itself is not a panacea'

Rescue operations are "the obligation of all those who are at sea," says the EU's border control boss. In a DW interview, he describes the huge challenges the EU faces in a situation that means life or death every day.

Deutsche Welle

By Astrid Prange

19 August 2017

Deutsche Welle: The Libyan government announced that it will expand its coast protection area and would not permit humanitarian aid workers to enter the security zone. Who will save the refugees now when their boats sink, Frontex?

Fabrice Leggeri: I think it is very is important to understand that Frontex does not replace border control duties of the national authorities, but instead, we provide additional technical assistance to those countries that face an increased migratory pressure. In Italy Frontex currently deploys 13 vessels, 3 helicopters, 2 aircraft and 450 border and coast guard officers who assist the Italian authorities with border surveillance, Search and Rescue, identification and registration of the migrants in various hotspots across Sicily as well as intelligence gathering about the smuggling networks operating in the countries of origin and transit. We can adjust the operational levels if needed and if so requested by the Italian authorities with special attention to the protection of vulnerable groups and referral to the asylum authorities.

There is no question about the fact that Search and Rescue is the obligation of all those who are at sea and for Frontex it is a task we take very seriously – last year alone Frontex-deployed assets contributed to the rescue of 90 000 people in Italy and Greece alone and we continue to provide support with border surveillance and search and rescue.

But it is important to understand that border control itself is not a panacea, but that only a global solution can be effective to manage these flows.

Should humanitarian aid organizations be more present in regions like Yemen, Uganda, Sudan instead of the Mediterranean Sea?

Frontex is an operational, not political organization, and our role is to provide technical assistance to those countries which face an increased migratory pressure. As I responded before: Search and Rescue is not only a legal obligation, but it is also a duty of all those who are at sea. There is no doubt that the smugglers are taking advantage of the tragedy of the refugees and migrants and are profiting heavily from their desperation; In 2015 it is estimated they profited between 4 – 6 billion euros from their dirty business. The situation at all external borders of the EU –  not only in Italy, but also increasingly in Spain and in Greece, remains very difficult and while not being one organization, the smugglers operating in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Turkey seem to have one thing in common: little concern for the safety of the migrants, putting 150 migrants on board of boats which should not be carrying more than 10, in difficult weather conditions. These often capsize shortly after leaving the shores of these countries resulting in terrible tragedies.

The solution to the current situation must consist of many elements, not one: eliminating the root causes of migration: wars, conflicts, poverty and famine, dismantling the ruthless criminal networks which are taking advantage of the desperate situation the migrants are in and, lastly opening up of legal channels allowing the refugees to apply for asylum without having to put themselves in the hands of the traffickers. But we all know there are many challenges related to these. Frontex has contributed to the arrest of some 600 suspects of smuggling and human trafficking and we will not tire to do more to disrupt these criminal activities.

In order to assure security management of European borders, Frontex has to cooperate with governments from neighbouring countries of the EU which are not sharing the same values. Where is the limit for cooperation?

Cooperating with countries outside the EU is an integral part of Frontex's mandate. Frontex has concluded working arrangements with the authorities of 18 countries. The primary objective is to share EU best practices, train the border guards of non EU countries how to conduct border control in full respect of fundamental rights. We concentrate on what can be improved.

We aim to intensify existing bilateral cooperation with EU's neighboring countries, as well as with countries of origin and transit for irregular migration. Frontex cooperates with law enforcement authorities, provides trainings to officers, organizes workshops, shares risk analyses to strengthen the border control capacities of the non-EU countries.

Last year, as part of the extended mandate of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex has started deploying liaison officers to third countries. At the moment we have a liaison officer in Turkey, Serbia and Niger. Their task is to monitor the migratory situation in the countries and strengthen the cooperation between host countries and Frontex.

In order to fulfill his mandate, Frontex is getting enough support from Brussels and EU members?

Responding to the unprecedented migratory situation in 2015, the European Commission on 15 December of the same year, presented a legislative proposal for the creation of a European Border and Coast Guard. It proposed creating a new agency on the existing structures of Frontex, to meet the new challenges and political realities faced by the EU at its external borders, especially related to migration and internal security.

The proposal was approved by the European Parliament and Council in a record time of just nine months, the new European Border and Coast Guard Agency was officially launched on 6 October 2016, giving Frontex a new and broader mandate. This clearly proves the strong commitment of European policymakers to strengthen the agency and to give us wider tasks, including the fight against cross-border crime and providing security within the Union.

Frontex currently deploys some 1,800 border and coast guard officers who work at external borders – not only along Europe's maritime borders, but also at land and at many international airports. These officers are deployed by 28 EU member states and four Schengen associated countries. We do see an important commitment not only from Brussels, but also from the European capitals with which we work very closely.

This email interview was conducted by Astrid Prange de Oliveira.

Source:  http://www.dw.com/en/frontex-director-fabrice-leggeri-border-control-itself-is-not-a-panacea/a-40153595

Migrants: Tajani in favor of dialogue with Tripoli, Benghazi

'But also with the tribes in the country's south'

ANSAmed

25 August 2017

CATANIA - European Parliament President Antonio Tajani said Europe has a "duty to intervene" in the migrant crisis, in response to a journalist's question about a UNHCR report criticizing Europe because it can't extend its border to Libya.
"No one wants to extend the borders of Europe to Libya, but there's a problem that regards our continent: the significant migrant flows now, that will probably involve millions of people in the future if there's no intervention, are a fundamental problem for the stability and security of Europe," Tajani said.

"We must work to make Libya a more cohesive country, by favoring dialogue between Tripoli and Benghazi but also with the tribes in the country's south, without wasting more time. I think the migrant code of conduct for NGOs is a positive choice because it gives rules. We can't allow doubts regarding NGOs trying to help irregular migration. Therefore, to avoid this doubt, there must be rules and they must be respected. Of course, everyone who needs to be saved at sea must be saved at sea, but we have to prevent NGOs from undertaking operations that violate Libyan territorial waters and push immigrants to come to Europe, indirectly helping human trafficking organisations. Strength, not violence, must be used by Europe to stop this indecent trafficking of human beings," he said.

Source: http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2017/08/25/migrants-tajani-in-favor-of-dialogue-with-tripoli-benghazi_0dc3b872-8a4f-4ece-a55c-d8264fa5ec66.html

Facebook lambasted over ransom video of traffickers abusing migrants

Reuters

By Emma Batha

25 August 2017

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - People smugglers are using Facebook to broadcast the abuse and torture of migrants in order to extort ransom money from their families, the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) lambasted the tech giant for failing to police the platform and help crack down on traffickers.

One video hosted on the site since June shows Libyan gangmasters threatening emaciated and abused migrants - mostly Somalis and Ethiopians - huddled in a concrete room.

IOM said the traffickers had sent clips to the captives’ families via the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp - a Facebook channel - along with threats that their loved ones would be killed unless ransoms of up to $10,000 were paid.

One young Somali man is seen lying face down with a concrete block on his back. “I was asked for $8,000,” he says, according to the IOM. “They broke my teeth. They broke my hand. I have been here 11 months. They put this stone on me for the last three days. It’s really painful.”

British newspaper The Times, which ran the story on its front page on Friday, also quoted a young Ethiopian who had been held for 15 months. “They beat me with iron bars,” he said.

“They ordered me to pay $8,300 and my family cannot afford to pay that amount.”

Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have crossed the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe since 2014, and thousands have died trying.

Facebook, which has also been criticized for failing to stop traffickers using the platform to advertise their services, said posts by smuggling groups would be removed if reported.

“We encourage people to keep using our reporting tools to flag this kind of behavior so it can be reviewed and swiftly removed by our global team of experts, who work with law enforcement agencies around the world,” a spokesperson said.

But Facebook said it had not removed the June video as it had been posted by a Somali journalist and was important for raising awareness of the problem.

However, IOM spokesman Leonard Doyle accused Facebook of “arrant nonsense”, adding that the smugglers had used the journalist to publicize their demands.

He told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it was totally inappropriate for Facebook to host a video showing the faces of vulnerable people being abused.

”Don’t let Facebook off the hook here,“ he said. ”It’s an absolutely nonsensical argument that it’s up to the public to notify Facebook of stuff that’s happening on Facebook.

“They should invest heavily in policing their platforms to stop vulnerable migrants being exploited, extorted and murdered.”

Doyle said the IOM had tried without success to talk to Facebook about targeting smugglers.

"They should stop smugglers telling people there's an El Dorado waiting for them in Europe when it's a lie," he added.

"It's not good enough to say, 'we are a technology platform, it's got nothing to do with us'."

Doyle said the IOM had tried to find the people in the video, but they had disappeared.

Editing by Ros Russell; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asia-storm-idUSKCN1B60SA

Facebook removes posts made by people smugglers aiming to lure migrants

Social media content painting a positive picture of risky Mediterranean sea crossings is removed after Guardian highlights nature of material

The Guardian

By Karen McVeigh

25 August 2017

Facebook has removed several posts made by people smugglers openly advertising to attract migrants seeking passage to Europe.

Written in Arabic, many of the posts were accompanied by videos and testimonials of what the smugglers claim are successful trips across the Mediterranean from Turkey to Greece, and from Egypt to Italy. All were written in recent months, a time of year when many people attempt the journey.

People smugglers make about $35bn (£27bn) a year worldwide and the industry is the main driver of migrant deaths at sea, according to the head of the International Organisation for Migration. The number of migrants who have died crossing the Mediterranean has so far reached 2,400 this year.

A spokesman for Facebook said: “People smuggling is illegal and any posts that coordinate this activity are not allowed on Facebook. We have removed all of the content that the Guardian shared with us for violating our community standards. We encourage people to use our reporting tools to flag this kind of behaviour so it can be reviewed and swiftly removed by our global team of experts, and escalated to law enforcement where required.”

Facebook posts by smugglers attempt to paint a rosy picture of the service. They are often accompanied with images of large boats in calm seas or posts about “successful” trips. In one entry, a smuggler describes himself as a noble “hero”, enabling people to access a better life in Europe. Another, in response to a query on the risks involved, says: “Some are worried about safety and security. You have to understand, it’s in our interest to get you to your destination securely so that others will come.”

The sea crossing is one of the fastest-growing black markets in the world, sparking fierce competition between smugglers whose business rests on their reputation, said Paolo Campana, a criminologist at the University of Cambridge.

“Because there is no regulation, the trust problem becomes more acute,” he said. “To trust the wrong smuggler can have fatal consequences.”

Campana is examining social media posts and court records of prosecutions to analyse the networks behind smuggling operations and understand how migrants choose between them. “It is easy to enter the market, so it is competitive,” he said. “You have to advertise your services and you have to be perceived as a competent smuggler.

“What is on Facebook is just the surface. There are closed groups, which we do not have access to. If you see what is in the public domain, then there will be even more behind closed doors,” he said.

A researcher on his team, who analysed Facebook posts mainly from smugglers offering crossings to Syrians via the eastern Mediterranean route (to the Greek islands via Turkey), found evidence of smugglers offering an insurance scheme. If the initial boat was apprehended by Turkish coastguards, a second, third or fourth trip would be free. The prices varied from $450 for a small dinghy, to $1,500 for a “safe private yacht for families”.

Campana said he didn’t know how many crossings are negotiated on the internet, but said social media was just “one aspect” of the booming illegal trade. “In the last five years there have been 2 million illegal border crossings into the EU, including Britain. More than 95% of the journeys involved a sea crossing. And you can’t do a sea crossing without the involvement of one or more smugglers.”

Between 2014 and 2015, illegal border crossings along the eastern Mediterranean route, from Turkey to Italy and Greece, increased more than 17-fold, from about 50,000 to 885,000, although they have since dropped. On the central Mediterranean route, widely considered the most dangerous into Europe, the number of crossings has soared from more than 60,000 in 2011, to 181,000 in 2016.

Campana said the EU focus on policing and naval operations in the Mediterranean was counter-productive, but the issue was a “huge moral dilemma” for authorities.

“Naval operations are very noble; however, they have the unintended consequence of assisting the smugglers by taking the refugees off their hands very close to the Libyan coast – making the ‘product’ more attractive and, ultimately, increasing the number of journeys,” Campana said.

“This is a market driven by exponential demand, and it is that demand which should be targeted. Land-based policies such as refugee resettlement schemes are politically difficult, but might ultimately prove more fruitful in stemming the smuggling tide,” he said.

Joel Millman, a spokesman for IOM, said the organisation had come across Facebook posts from smugglers trying to use their name as an endorsement. “We have had some luck with Facebook, who have shut [posts] down on the basis they are fraudulent. But, unfortunately, they pop up again.”


Source: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/aug/25/facebook-removes-posts-made-by-people-smugglers-aiming-to-lure-migrants

'Mistake' to bring rescued boat migrants to Italy: Tajani

Business Standard

25 August  2017

Catania (Italy), Aug 25 (IANS/AKI) Italy was wrong to allow all migrants saved in the Mediterranean to enter the country, Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, told journalists on Friday.

"We should recall that Italy chose to be allowed to bring here all those who are rescued. And obviously, it's a mistake," Tajani said during a visit to the Sicilian port city of Catania.

"That has happened. We need to change the agreement," said Tajani, who belongs to the centre-right European People's Party containing over 70 national parties from 40 countries.

Tajani was one of the founders of billionaire media magnate and Italian ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's conservative Forza Italia party and is a former EU transport and industry commissioner.

Immigration is one of the thorniest issues facing politicians in Italy, where over 614,000 foreigners have arrived in the past three years, mostly sub-Saharan Africans who landed by boat from Libya.

Italy accuses other European Union countries of failing to share the burden of housing, maintaining and employing the migrants and wants to stem the influx.

It recently introduced a controversial code of conduct for charities rescuing migrants in the Mediterranean - which several have refused to sign - amid allegations that the NGOs are abetting illegal immigration.

--IANS/AKI mr/


Source:  http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ians/mistake-to-bring-rescued-boat-migrants-to-italy-tajani-117082501094_1.html