AYS Daily Digest 6/5/20: Hungry and locked up in the Western Balkans, as the EU discusses accession
By: Ellen Elias-Bursac
Tags: Balkans, Migration, Digest, Greece, Refugees

GREECE

First registered arrival in 35 days

A boat carrying 51 people landed in Kalo Limani, Lesvos this Wednesday morning, Aegean Boat Report team documented. This was reportedly the first arrival on Lesvos that has been registered in 35 days.

Due to the restrictive measures in place to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the people will remain in the area of arrival and placed in quarantine for 14 days. There has not yet been a decision as to where in this area they will stay, and under what conditions, and the people are waiting on the road at the moment.

State to evict people from camps and homes

In spite of the strict measures in the entire EU asking people not to move or even go out if not necessary, the Greek government has decided that up to 7,500 people who were granted asylum will be evicted by the end of this month, both from the camps and also from houses in private ownership where people have been placed. Also, they will reportedly also lose the right to the cash cards, one of the few items providing people with some dignity and possibility to decide on something in their life while in limbo.

Vulnerability assessment (re)questioned

A Greek prosecutor will reportedly investigate 25,000 vulnerability certificates provided in Greece to people exposed to heightened risks of harm who require special care, support and protection. These are not merely people who are at risk of persecution or refoulement. Such certificates have allowed them the (often life-saving) move from infamous camps at the Greek islands to the country’s mainland. However, it is important to remember that obtaining such a vulnerability document never represented any sort of guarantee for a positive asylum response in their ongoing case. The cases that are to be examined are from the period of the previous government, and while the criteria on which people would be defined as vulnerable or not has changed (depending on how poor and overcrowded the situation in the island camps was and how urgent the need to decongest the islands was), it brings into question who then decided if not the officials and their partners from the international organisations deployed precisely for this mission and working within protection and health area, and why these decisions would now be put into question. We will follow up on this issue and we welcome comments, examples and contributions to the discussion.

During the past two days in a small Greek town road barricades were installed and a hotel that was to host asylum seekers was burned down.

This is being treated as arson, and while the mayor reportedly reacted, no official reactions or condemnation came from the government side, thus they are tacitly accepting such behavior and the violence inflicted on the people. In the meantime, the official state continues with the notion of supporting the degrading treatment, underlying nationalism, and insisting on securitisation in their official policies.

Greek-Turkish border

The media are reporting that the Greek authorities have published reports of two new incidents in less than 24 hours of shots being fired into the air by Turkish guards on the Evros River border with Greece, in the northeast. Some believe these happen so the Turkish side could control specific crossing points along the river border. See more on that particular report here.

Volunteers report

The volunteers of No Name Kitchen, Women in Solidarity House on Lesvos and others reported on this week’s news from Lesvos, Patras, Thessaloniki and Serbia. The link

CZECH REPUBLIC

Demonstration of solidarity with refugees on the Greek Islands held in Prague

“Camps in the Greek islands need to be closed immediately and evacuate refugees to safe and dignified conditions! For example, the use of empty tourist infrastructure in Greece and other European countries, which are still at risk due to the restrictions imposed due to the pandemic of failure”, the protesters stated.

GERMANY

The lie behind the PR

When Germany relocated 47 unaccompanied minors from Greece in mid-April, it was communicated as a “humanitarian action” due to the inhumane conditions in the camps on the Aegean islands. In a weeks-long debate the government parties agreed to take underage kids up to the age of 14, preferably with physical or mental problems, and girls. As the public broadcaster found out now, this was not the case. In fact, most of the relocated kids were healthy and already had close relatives in Germany — and therefore they were eligible by law for relocation or family reunification. The persons involved explained this with the difficult selection process in a short period.

As ProAsyl states, 18 of the kids already have family in Germany — and thus have the legal right to family reunification.

At the same time, it seems that most of the concern was for favorable optics, and not so much for the privacy and protection of the children while they were being taken to the planes and transported to Germany.

SWEDEN

Prolonging the waiting time between applications

If an asylum seeker is rejected, the person can file a new request for asylum in Sweden four years after the negative decision. This is the procedure according to the current rules. Some political parties in parliament now suggest that the wait time should be increased to 10 years. The Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) and the Green Party (Miljöpartiet) strongly oppose this. One of the reasons is the fear of a growing shadow society — which is already the case given the narrow grounds for granting someone asylum.

The parties behind the suggestion, and those opposing it, are all participating in the committee that will present a suggestion for a new long-term and sustainable migration policy for Sweden during the summer. The committee will meet next week. The current and temporary migration policy, almost at the EU’s minimum level, will be in practice until the summer of 2021.