AYS Daily Digest 11/12/19: People asked to leave GDF or lose right to asylum
By: Ellen Elias-Bursac
Tags: Mediterranean, Digest, Detention, Refugees, Libya

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Dec 12 · 5 min read

Gender based violence in Greece — Report///German aid but no relocation///Detentions and beatings in police station garages and basements in Croatia///Racial discrimination in Bosnia

(Picture Credit: Mikail Çiftçi, Aart Against)

Feature: People asked to leave GDF or lose right to asylum

The New Humanitarian reports that UNHCR have been asking people to leave the Gathering and Departure Facility (GDF) as it currently has approximately 1,150 residents. Many have entered informally having bribed their way in to escape the fighting.

A flyer UNHCR began distributing late November at the GDF — seen by The New Humanitarian — offers food, cash, primary healthcare, and medical referrals to those willing to leave. “You will not be considered for evacuation or resettlement if you stay,” stresses the flyer — the latest in a series of attempts to encourage those who entered informally to leave… A source within UNHCR Libya, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, criticised the effort to push people out, calling it tantamount to “blackmail” to promise them help if they go and threaten their ability to secure refugee status if they do not. “Asylum seekers are asylum seekers and can’t be denied the right to seek asylum on the basis of their stay at the GDF,” they said, adding that the aid on offer had not included “any future consideration for their protection needs or safety” once they leave.

The facility opened one year ago and was proposed by UNHCR. It is believed to have cost $6 million and is co-managed by the Libyan Ministry of Interior, UNHCR, and LibAid. It is also the only centre we know of which has routinely reduced it’s capacity as conditions worsened.

last December UNHCR said the facility could hold 1,000 people, but that number was adjusted in subsequent statements — in September, it was 700, and in October 600.

Libya currently ‘hosts’ around 600,000 refugees but is not signed up to the international refugee convention and while UNHCR states that Libyan authorities have promised to recognise documentation handed out by them to those who choose to leave the GDF, it has been repeatedly shown that, due to the current civil war, there is no guarantee of this happening. UNHCR has also stated that it will leave the centre altogether if conditions do not improve, yet their continued collaboration with both Libyan authorities and militias undermines their stance. They have reportedly received over 47 million Euros from the EU initiative, Trust Fund for Africa, since 2016. This initiative is focussed on curbing migration to Europe while the EU also trains and funds the Libyan Coast Guard who deliberately return people to what has repeatedly been called the ‘hell’ of Libya.

In general, people who are rescued at sea or on vessels intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard are assigned to detention centers in Tripoli or in coastal cities, although in recent months some were allowed to leave upon disembarkation at Libyan ports, due to lack of space in detention or other reasons. — Caroline Gluck, Senior External Relations Officer at UNHCR Libya

Unfortunately UNHCR remain as confused as ever…

Why can’t refugees be sent back to Libya? It’s a human rights thing…