Regional: Tragedies continue as Europe fails to offer safe route for refugees. Up to 19 people are feared to have drowned on Tuesday 7 July, after a people smugglers boat capsized off the Greek Islands, en route from Turkey. This marks the first major tragedy in the Mediterranean in over a month.
“Some 2000 migrants tried to enter the Channel Tunnel terminal in Calais on Monday night”. An official count at the beginning of July found that 3000 migrants – mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Afghanistan – were camping in the French port of Calais, trying to enter the UK by attempting to board trains and lorries. Eight migrants have so far died this summer attempting the border crossing.
New report from IDC member the Detention Forum, examines the increasing detainment of ‘vulnerable people’ in the UK’s immigration detention centers and makes significant recommendations for a vulnerability assessment tool and practice which better enables detection of vulnerabilities prior to detainment, but which is adaptable to changes over time in detention. Read IDC members’ review of the report here.
“There are no windows, no wind”. Rare opportunity to see what life is like in limbo, at UK’s Colnbrook Immigration Removal Centre. Photographer Nana Varveropoulou and detainees themselves, visually document the experiences inside this “shadowy place”.
Balkans: Refugees and migrants beaten by police, left in legal limbo and failed by EU, reports Amnesty International. The western Balkans route has overtaken the Mediterranean pathway as the biggest irregular passage into the EU. The number of people apprehended crossing the Serbia-Hungary border alone has risen by more than 2,500% since 2010 (from 2,370 to 60,602). After making the sea journey from Turkey to Greece, then overland through Macedonia, Serbia and attempting entry into the EU via Hungary, refugees and migrants are routinely subjected to unlawful push-backs and violent ill-treatment by border police, the report says.
Amnesty International found that in both Serbia and Macedonia, refugees and migrants are routinely detained in inhuman and degrading conditions, despite the presumption against detention. Hungary has plans to build a 4 meter high fence along the 110-mile border with Serbia to stop migrants crossing into the EU, which community activists have protested. As evidence suggests that the flow of irregular migration into Europe is not expected to dissipate in the near future, the need for comprehensive and compassionate European Union policy to tackle the record number of irregular migrants attempting entry, becomes increasingly vital. And as spokesman for UNHCR William Spindler makes clear, “tightening borders is not the solution”.
Greece: As Europe largely turns it’s back on refugees, Lesbos residents and holidaymakers extend their helping hands to migrants.
Malta: The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention welcomes Malta’s decision to remove automatic mandatory detention of irregular migrants and asylum seekers, which has dramatically reduced the number of migrants in detention. Yet the Working Group has indicated that long term solutions are needed which address the “precarious and inhuman conditions of the alternatives to detention in Malta”.
The forward movement in Malta’s immigration policy is however indicating positive steps towards meaningful alternatives to detention, with monitoring mechanisms being set up; as well as the opening of a new initial assessment center for unaccompanied minors and small families to have immediate clearance checks before being transferred to open centers.
Cyprus: The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) hears unlawful immigration detention cases of Kurdish asylum seekers, and orders Cyprus to pay compensation.