AYS Daily Digest 8/5/19: Deportation straight to danger, violence and humiliation — widely practiced by Europe
By: Ellen Elias-Bursac
Tags: Migration, Digest, Deportations, Europe, Refugees

AYS Daily Digest 8/5/19: Deportation straight to danger, violence and humiliation — widely practiced by Europe

EU continues funding and supporting Libya’s inhumane treatment through deportations to detention surrounded by shootings / Hungary ignores duty to examine asylum claims, keeps deporting people to war zones / German detention and deportation treatment under the criticism of the European Council / Calls for aid and help, invitations to protests Ellen Elias-Bursac Follow May 9, 2019 · 7 min read

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May 9

“Shrapnel from the blast tore through the roof of the women’s hangar and nearly hit an infant. “My baby was asleep on this bed when it came through the roof,” says one of the women. “ — source: MSF Sea‏

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Night deportation from Hungary

Hungary’s infamous policies and failing to respect the common laws and principles of the European Union are already widely known. However, lately ahead of the upcoming elections and in the generally heated discussion on all questions regarding migration and international protection, the country’s official actions are touching a new low.

“In Budapest from the airport, on the side of the road, I stopped counting after 20 billboards. <Let’s support Orban Victor’s program. Let’s stop immigration.>” — Photo and comment: Orsi Hardi

Several strands of electrified wiring in front of the multiple barbed wire fences still stand on the border with Serbia, where one of the recently expelled families was returned in an event that grabbed many people’s attention.

A family’s hopes were crushed after they had spent more than three months at Hungary’s border migrant camp, having waited for over two years for an answer to their request and later for their appeal to be considered.

In the transit zone, not only is starvation a common practice, but the experiences of those who stayed there are horrid, described in more detail here.

Hungary rejected the families’ asylum requests and gave them the choice of being expelled to Serbia or being flown back to Afghanistan.

“The treatment of these families, including their removal from Hungarian territory with no serious effort to look at their claims to refugee status, is deeply regrettable,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi reportedly said. Still, obviously nobody did anything to prevent their expulsion and Hungary’s methods continue.

A family of six was deported to Serbia, having to cross a gate in the border fence in the dark, with no one waiting for them on the Serbian side.

UNHCR workers witnessed the whole thing.

“Hungary never examined their asylum claims on merit,” said Andras Lederer, of the Helsinki Committee. It was the Helsinki Committee who took the three cases of Afghan families who were about to be expelled to the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR suspended Hungary’s plan to deport a family.

The activists said they had secured an interim measure to stop the deportation of one of two other families awaiting a similar fate.

According to Eurostat, there have been deportations to all major countries of origin, even Syria. In 2018, Hungary deported 45 people to Iran, 80 to Afghanistan, 95 to Iraq and 25 to Syria.

Urgent action needed in Libya to prevent a disaster

As the death toll from the fighting in Tripoli rises to 443, last night’s airstrikes directly hit the Tajoura detention centre compound in Tripoli, a mere 80m from where refugee women are trapped, reports MSF. However, the EU is still cooperating with the Libyan coast guard to send people who are seeking asylum in Europe back to war-torn Libya.

An immediate evacuation of these people is necessary!

“Utilising civilian infrastructure in this manner constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law and must be avoided at all costs”, says the UN. At the same time, at the UNHCR Gathering & Departure Facility a 21-year old pregnant woman is very sick, she has been vomiting blood for the past two weeks.

Refugees in contact with the journalist Sally Hayden say they’re worried she won’t survive the night.