AYS Daily Digest 28/10/20: A traumatic wake-up for hundreds forcibly moved to a camp in the south of Serbia
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Migration, Digest, Europe, Refugees, Serbia

GREECE

Breaking news that arrived on the morning when this News Digest was published:

First Reception and police officers are now in PIKPA to start eviction of the camps and a move of the residents to the “old” Kara Tepe. Two buses and one military truck (to take the residents’ luggage) are at PIKPA for this reason. Lawyers and press are informed.

— AYS will report more about this, and will be publishing a Special on the topic.

Sea arrivals and pushbacks

So far this month Aegean Boat Report has registered 32 illegal pushbacks by the Aegean Sea, performed by the Greek Coast Guard, 881 people, children, women and men, have been denied their right to seek asylum, their human rights have been violated by the Greek government.

Fifteen of these pushback cases were performed by using rescue equipment, where 527 people, children, women and men were placed on a total of 30 life rafts, and left helplessly drifting at sea.

Many of these people were picked up on the Greek Aegean islands, after they had already arrived, transported by vessels from the Hellenic Coast Guard back to sea and forced onto the tent shaped rafts. In a normal world, people are rescued from life rafts, and not forced onto one and left adrift.

Moria 2.0

How violent does the humanitarian space become to the refugee population it is working to support, if every action has to align with the governing security apparatus?

Today was a national holiday in Greece, “Oxi-day”. On this occasion, the people at Moria2 have been completely locked up. Meanwhile there was a nationalist car parade organized by known local fascists. Many were shaking hands with police officers.

SEA/ITALY

Too many life vests aboard these ships

The cynical strategy by the Italian authorities to make sure that no ship can save lives and no one can reach the European shores alive is that they stop the ships that have the capacity to actually save lives.

Mediterranea reports that preposterous, unfounded and arbitrary are the motives based on political indications coming directly from Rome, which are propelling the reasons for the recent refusal to board Rescue activists and the activists and Medical Team activists of Mediterranea Saving Humans, aboard the ship as shipowner technicians.

We have sent our legal team to the right places to protest these unlawful measures, but oppositions and appeals involve expensive procedures that will last months before obtaining justice. Meanwhile, while Mare Jonio will face a series of regular, important maintenance work to the hull and motor systems, as scheduled by the Italian Naval Register, MEDITERRANEA’s operating facilities will continue to monitor the situation at sea, as we have done in the face of cases of vessels in distress and shipwrecked over the last few days and relaunching, along with other European civil organizations, a mobilization so that all ships are freed and can return to saving lives in the Mediterranean. We will not stop.

Ships have been blocked because they were carrying too many life vests, the Sea Watch team says.

BELGIUM

Belgium breached international law in 2017 when it deported a Sudanese man to Khartoum

A distressing catalogue of failures by Belgian authorities has been on display in the most recent case regarding the Belgian deportation practice, as Amnesty International has reported:

The European Court of Human Rights today found that Belgium breached international law in 2017 when it deported a Sudanese man to Khartoum without determining the risks he might face upon return and with the cooperation of Sudanese security officials, a ruling which highlights the Belgian authorities’ failure to protect people fleeing human rights violations.

Read more on the case here.

SPAIN

Call for school supplies for Melilla