AYS Daily Digest 16/04/20: Testimonies from people trapped at sea
By: Are You Syrious
Tags: Digest, Migrants, Refugees, Europe, Frontex

Heart-breaking testimonies from refugees on the move // News from inside German refugee camps dealing with COVID-19 // Austria’s agreement to deport migrants and refugees // Updates from minors evacuated from Greece

“On board the #ALANKURDI, our guests are increasingly desperate. After 11 days on the ship without an end in sight, one person jumped overboard. 146 people must be brought to safety!” — @sea-eye

Feature

A heart-breaking testimony was shared from a woman who was among the 63 persons left stranded at sea for almost a week. Due to the lack of assistance from the Maltese authorities, the woman witnessed 5 people on the boat die of thirst and exhaustion and 7 more people drown. They were ultimately deported back to Libya and detained back in Tripoli’s inhumane Tariq Al Sikka detention centre.

“We have been in this place for about three years. We were registered by the UNHCR in Sikka. And we left Sikka feeling depressed and hopeless because we did not receive any assistance. We were desperate and so we tried to get across the sea. It was a pointless journey. We were at sea for about seven days. We were picked up on the seventh day and we were hopeful. However, we were deported back to Libya without being told anything. We returned to Libya and we’re back locked up in Sikka again. We have returned to the place where we found no hope in the first place. We have no idea what we are going to do. Trying to get across the sea again sounds pointless because we have tried that and we were at sea for seven days with no food or water. Our throats were so dry that we had no choice but to drink sea water. We are eight women in this place. We are all trembling. Some of us have sore bottoms. Six of us are Eritreans, one of whom is a mother with a child. The other two are, I think, South Sudanese. One of them has a young child. We are really all in a bad state of mind and our bodies are shaking because we have witnessed our brothers (friends) dying before our eyes. They died due to starvation and depression. It’s the same situation with the remaining people in this place. Returning to Libya has been very difficult on all of us. We left from this place initially because we had no hope here and we don’t think there is any hope for us here now. One help that we desperately need, please help us to get out of this place called Libya. We just ask to be moved to any place out of Libya where we can be safe, that’s the only thing that can give us peace. Apart from the seven days we had spent at sea, we had also stayed by the coast for three days. We had not eaten any food during all that time. This really had a terrible effect on us. What made us lose hope further was seeing helicopters fly over us and not helping when we were left stranded at sea because the boat was out of fuel. On top of that, strong waves made us feel seasick. It was a hopeless situation dealing with all this and the hardships of going hungry and thirsty. Everybody is feeling hopeless, hungry and thirsty to the extent that nobody has anything to say. This is why some of our friends ended up dying. There is nothing here that can make us resist, to the point that we have lost our appetite for food even though we are hungry. Please help us because we desperately need help.”

Additionally, Alarm Phone has published a press release into how malta and EU authorities left people to die at sea and returned survivors to war. The press release affirms that the inaction of authorities in Malta, Italy, Libya, Portugal, Germany, as well as the EU border agency Frontex caused the death of 12 people. Alarm phone dispels the claims from the Maltese government and shows that the boat had drifted within the Maltese Search and Rescue (SAR) zone yet all relevant failed to intervene, using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to dramatically breach the law of the sea as well as human rights and refugee conventions.

In the report, Alarm Phone offers a detailed reconstruction of the distressing case, showing clearly how it unfolded, and the ways in which Malta and other European authorities refused to rescue the people in distress. The full report can be viewed below:

Turkey

Germany

EUobserver has reported that almost half of the 600 residents from the Ellwangen refugee camp in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany, have tested positive for COVID-19. In a damning example of the continued failings of the German state to protect the health of migrants and refugees, within Ellwangen camp people who have tested positive are still being forced to share facilities with everyone else. All facilities are shared including bathrooms, showers, toilets and bedrooms. The camp does not allow individuals to cook their own food and thus everyone must get their food in the canteen.

Speaking under conditions of anonymity to the EUobserver a resident said “everyone is scared to eat something because of crowds and we don’t know who has coronavirus or not”.

Speaking out against the conditions of this camp, the Wurtemburg Refugee Council has demanded the eviction of the camp, but since the demand was first issued some three weeks ago, the proposal has still been ignored. Since the facility first went into lockdown on the 5th of April after a 32-year old man tested positive, the number of infections has since skyrocketed leading the police to continue imposing a forced lockdown of all residents. In an unprecedented measure, the single WIFI hotspot had been switched off meaning that many residents are now unable to contact families, legal teams or find out more information about the ongoing crisis.

“They are seeing these people as a kind of threat and a danger, it seems to be an acceptable strategy to park the police outside and make sure nobody comes in and nobody comes out,” said Seán McGinley, a manager at the Baden-Wurttemberg Refugee Council.

Reports indicate that the camp had rented a facility to quarantine some camp residents if they fell sick, but the small size of the facility limits its capacity to 30 people and makes it useless when almost half of a 600 people camp have already tested positive.