Shifting Overseas Route
Spain Becomes New Target for Migrants
Although the number of migrants making their way across the
Mediterranean to Europe has fallen drastically, the preferred overseas route
has now moved westward to the strait between Morocco and Spain. Now Rome,
Madrid and North African countries are battling to find a solution. By DER
SPIEGEL Staff
(…) “Mallorca? The government of the Balearic Islands has
declared Salvini an unwanted person and banned him for "xenophobia."
Italy's deputy prime minister is touting it as a personal victory. His message:
Thanks to my walls-up policy, I can once again swim in peace, while the
Africans now head to Spain, as its socialist government wants.”
August 03, 2018 06:23
PM
Twenty minutes by car from the Moroccan port city of
Tangier, a young Cameroonian -- who would like to be known here as Paul -- is
following a gravel road along the sea. He wears jeans and a red T-shirt, and is
about to begin the trip to Europe. He can see Spain from here.
He zigzags through the pine woods and brambles down a few
craggy hillsides and past an abandoned Moroccan military watchtower. Then he
has reached it -- the bay on the southern edge of the Strait of Gibraltar where
he and his friends are preparing for the journey across. Spain's Costa de la
Luz is located less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) away.
So far, Paul's attempts to flee have all failed. Either the
coast guard came and made him return, or the wind made the boat in which he and
his fellow travelers were sitting go in a circle.
There are 20 beaches around Tangier. In the past two weeks
alone, 18,000 refugees have tried to depart here in small, motor-less rubber
boats loaded with five to ten men. On good days, the crossing takes about six
hours and costs between 500 and 2,000 euros ($580 to $2,300) per person.
Paul says the smugglers, who are now increasingly based in
Tangier, meet their clients in the Misnana neighborhood, where the new arrivals
from Senegal or Ghana sleep under make-shift tents made of truck tarpaulins
before embarking on their journey to Europe. Ever since word spread that people
are being tortured in Libyan camps and that Italy's government is sending back
ships filled with rescued refugees, more and more migrants are looking for
alternatives.
Across the strait, in Spain, the consequences are coming
into view: Last Saturday, on the beach at Zahora, near Cape Trafalgar, about 50
refugees sprinted among the nearly naked swimmers and nudists as their wooden
boat reached the coast. There was an uproar on the beach and some of the
vacationers filmed the scene. The images, which were posted on the internet
soon after, show the collision between two worlds.
The images from Spain, which have been shared around the
world, may be truthful, but they create a false impression. Since the start of
the year, more refugees have arrived by boat in Spain than in Italy, and the
route from Morocco to Spain is currently the most traveled way to Europe. The
path across the central Mediterranean from Libya to Italy has largely been
blocked since the new Italian government, at the behest of right-wing
nationalist Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, stopped allowing any ships
carrying refugees to make land.
A New Reality
The images, however, don't show that the number of new
arrivals to Europe via the Mediterranean route has fallen sharply overall, from
more 1 million in 2015 to about 58,000 in the first seven months of 2018. The
agreement between the previous Italian government and the Libyan authorities,
as well as the policies of the new Italian government, are having an impact.
"In the past five or six months, the situation has changed
completely," says Sebastiano Rossitto, captain of the Virginio Fasan, an
Italian Navy frigate cruising near the Libyan coast.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in
issue 32/2018 (August 3rd, 2018) of DER SPIEGEL.
Paradoxically, however, the dispute within the European
Union over migration has intensified. When it comes to the question of who
should take up the stranded migrants, the EU, which is intended to be a
community based on shared values, has shown its true, disunited colors. The two
countries bordering the Mediterranean -- Italy and Spain -- represent
diametrically opposed policies. Until recently, the social democratic
government in Italy had maintained a more liberal policy when it came to
refugees, but, these days, it's the newly elected, left-wing government in
Madrid that is doing so. In Rome, it's the hardliners who are now calling the
shots.
Whereas new gymnasiums and tent camps are constantly being
prepared in Spain, Interior Minister Salvini is keeping up his supporters'
spirits by posting selfies from the beach. Standing knee-deep in the water,
with his stomach extending over his light-gray bathing suit, he sent his
regards from the Milano Marittima coastal swimming area with the words:
"Sea, sun, quiet, friends, beer" -- and, ironically, "kisses to
Mallorca."
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini at a local election
rally in Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan. Salvini has become one of the most
high-profile anti-migrant hardliners
Mallorca? The government of the Balearic Islands has
declared Salvini an unwanted person and banned him for "xenophobia."
Italy's deputy prime minister is touting it as a personal victory. His message:
Thanks to my walls-up policy, I can once again swim in peace, while the
Africans now head to Spain, as its socialist government wants.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez surprised allies in
mid-June, just two weeks after assuming office, by taking in 630 passengers on
the rescue ship Aquarius that had previously been turned away by Italy and
Malta. He allowed the boat to land at the port of Valencia. The new foreign
minister, Josep Borrell, declared in Madrid that the move was meant as an
"electric shock" for the EU. He said the Europeans should "no
longer look away"--- and that, if the question of immigration isn't
tackled jointly, it could spell the end of the EU.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska
complained that the previous government had not made any preparations, even
though an increasing number of refugees have been arriving by boat in the past
year. Prime Minister Sánchez, who is governing with a minority cabinet, is
facing pressure from the right on the refugee issue. "It is not possible
for Spain to absorb millions of Africans who want to come to Europe," says
Pablo Casado, the newly selected head of the conservative People's Party. The
border, he says, must be "defended."
Unimpressed, the left-wing government is considering
removing the barbed wire on the external borders at Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish
exclaves located in Morocco. Under orders from Prime Minister Sánchez,
hospitals have also recently begun treating migrants without residence permits
again. Conservatives and liberals have warned that this could have a "signal
effect" and attract more refugees to Spain. The mayor of the coastal city
of Algeciras has even said that a "new Lampedusa" could emerge in
Andalusia -- a reference to the island in the Strait of Sicily that has been a
destination for refugees in recent years.
African Problems and Solutions
This isn't Spain's fault, though. The problem is created
largely by Morocco. A growing number of migrants are reaching Europe via the
country and the western Mediterranean. Spanish maritime rescuers noticed as
early as June that people on unstable, inflatable rafts were being allowed to
set out on the sea, even during the day. They departed from beaches near
Tangier, as well as bays to the east, near Nador. Over three dozen Africans
even sailed through the Strait to Tarifa, in Spain, on a dinghy. Last Thursday,
about 600 migrants managed to cross the border fence in the exclave of Ceuta.
Data from the EU border protection agency Frontex strongly
suggest that the human smuggling mafia is exploiting the laxness of the Moroccan
security forces. It appears Morocco is trying to extort concessions from the EU
by placing Spain under pressure in the form of barely controlled immigration.
Even before the change of government in Spain, the people in power in Morocco
felt they were being mistreated. Whereas Turkey received 6 billion euros to
stop the migrant flows, Morocco was only given 100 million. Since the beginning
of the year, officials in the country have been waiting for money to strengthen
border security. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has now made
assurances that a transfer of funds will take place, and the EU commissioner
for migration has plans to travel to the region.
Morocco itself has changed from a migrant transit country to
an immigration destination and has given 52,000 people the right to stay --
despite the high levels of unemployment, especially among youth. Increasingly,
Moroccans themselves are boarding the "pateras," as the wooden boats
are called, unimpeded by the security forces, to find a better future in
Europe.
They know their chances of attaining asylum in, for example,
Germany, are very small. They simply hope they won't get deported too quickly.
But such migration without any perspectives is also a burden for everyone
involved.
So, what can be done to bring the stream of people from
North Africa and the Sahara under control?
One solution are migrant centers, the so-called
"disembarkation platforms," sites located on non-European soil where
asylum applications are to be decided without the claimants setting foot in
Europe. A kind of pilot project in this vein, led by UNHCR, the United Nation's
refugee organization, but largely financed by the EU, is currently being
created at one of the largest traffic arteries, Tripoli, a city of several
million in Libya.
Behind the tinted glass-clad headquarters of government
leader Fayez Sarraj, construction workers are cleaning the façade of a
four-story building, which was recently opened, unofficially, as the Emergency
Transit Center. Up to 1,000 of the people stranded in Libya are to be given
shelter at the center. From here, they are to be flown to a UN transitional
center in Niger, and then, depending on countries' willingness, redistributed
to third nations.
The number of migrants making the voyage across the sea to
Europe has fallen dramatically in recent years, from 1 million in 2015, to
about 58,000 in the first seven months of 2018. Shown here: Migrants at a naval
base after being intercepted by the Libyan coast guard near Tripoli, Libya.
The number of migrants making the voyage across the sea to
Europe has fallen dramatically in recent years, from 1 million in 2015, to
about 58,000 in the first seven months of 2018. Shown here: Migrants at a naval
base after being intercepted by the Libyan coast guard near Tripoli, Libya.
At the moment, only the most at-risk migrants with the
greatest chance of being granted asylum are being selected in camps run by
Libyan militias and brought here. UNHCR would eventually like to expand the
model across the entire country. The idea is reminiscent of the "asylum
centers," which the EU is requesting be established in North Africa. But
all the countries where they are to be built have so far rejected them.
As a result of Italy's hardline policies and the cooperation
of Libyan militias, the number of migrants coming to Italy from the country has
decreased dramatically. But Libya still remains a key country when it comes to
migration to Europe from Africa -- because it still has no functioning
government, only rival militias, and because migration is the only lucrative
source of income.
According to the Libyan anti-migration authority, more than
10,000 people have been arrested as they were fleeing, with most ending up in
internment camps controlled by militias where torture, undernourishment and
forced labor are a part of everyday life. The militias arrest dark-skinned
people in the streets, who can then buy their freedom from the camps for 1,500
Libyan dinars, or about 300 euros.
Some 1,000 kilometers south of Tripoli, Issa Hassan, a
35-year-old member of the desert-dwelling Tubu people, is standing at the edge
of a road in Katrun. "Why doesn't Europe just close the border where it
still can?" he asks. Every day, he sees Toyotas from Agadez in northern
Niger drive by, carrying up to three-dozen men to Libya on their truck beds.
Katrun, where vehicles are switched after crossing the Sahara, is one of
central North Africa's gateways to Europe.
Hassan, who wanted to become a political scientist before
the toppling of Moammar Gadhafi led him to become a militiaman, doesn't
understand why Europeans want to waste billions on fighting immigration, when
the problem would be so easy to solve. "With 500 people and a bit of air
support, you could control the five reachable access points in the Libyan
Sahara -- that's how it was in Gadhafi's time," says Hassan.
By Fiona Ehlers, Mirco Keilberth, Steffen Lüdke, Walter Mayr
and Helene Zuber
EU grants Spain €3 million in emergency migration funds
Additional aid package comes as Spain grapples with sharp
increase in arrivals.
“The surge in migration has become a source of tension
between the Spanish government and opposition parties, with new conservative
Popular Party leader, Pablo Casado, recently declaring Spain could not offer
papers to all the “millions of Africans wanting to come to Europe.”
By GABRIELA
GALINDO 8/3/18, 4:38 PM CET Updated
8/3/18, 4:41 PM CET
The European Commission has unblocked an additional €3
million in emergency funds to assist Spain in handling a surge in arrivals via
the Western Mediterranean route.
The additional aid package brings to €30 million the total
amount of emergency funding allocated to Spain since July to tackle the
country’s migration challenge, the Commission said in a statement. The bulk of
the funding will go toward covering the costs of deploying extra staff from the
Guardia Civil along Spain’s southern borders.
The announcement comes as European Commissioner for
Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos visited Madrid on Friday to meet with Spanish
officials to discuss cooperation on migration, and after the Spanish government
requested €35 million in emergency assistance to deal with the influx of
migrants earlier this week.
Spain has become the main point of entry into the EU from
the Mediterranean as a clampdown on the route between Libya and Italy has taken
hold and migrants increasingly take the Western Mediterranean route through
Morocco and the strait of Gibraltar.
As of July, 18,600 migrants had reached Spain by sea from
Morocco since the beginning of this year, according to the U.N.’s International
Organization for Migration.
The surge in migration has become a source of tension
between the Spanish government and opposition parties, with new conservative
Popular Party leader, Pablo Casado, recently declaring Spain could not offer
papers to all the “millions of Africans wanting to come to Europe.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário