Der griechische Vize-Innenminister fordert im Focus europäische Unterstützung bei der Versorgung von Flüchtlingen. Ansonsten werde das Land Hunderttausende Flüchtlinge mit Reisepapieren ausstatten und „Europa überfluten“.
Der griechische Vize-Innenminister Giannis Panousis kündigt Europa eine Flüchtlingswelle an – wenn Griechenland keine finanzielle Hilfe bekomme. Das berichtet das Nachrichtenmagazin Focus. […]“
[English]
The 2014 U.N. appeal for refugees in the region was only 54 percent funded as of mid-December.
Then there is the question of relieving the actual burden of hosting refugees. Since 2013, only 8,116 Syrian refugees have been resettled to countries outside the region, and another 11,130 granted other types of visas. In all, a paltry 79,180 resettlement offers have been pledged worldwide in response to UNHCR appeals to resettle 130,000 Syrian refugees. Weiterlesen »
by Zara Rabinovitch
Publics and policymakers in Europe and the United States have been taxed in recent months by attempted entries at their southern borders of significant numbers of unauthorized migrants. Many of these migrants have possible humanitarian protection claims—whether unaccompanied children from Central America arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border or would-be asylum seekers journeying across the Mediterranean in rickety, overloaded boats.
Libya Herald
By Libya Herald staff. Tripoli, 27 February 2015:
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has successfully organised the evacuation of 133 Senegalese men from the Karareem reception centre in Misrata to Djerba, Tunisia, from where they will then fly on to Dakar.
Italienische Kriegsschiffe sind mit militärischen Spezialkommandos an Bord Richtung Libyen aus gelaufen. Die Tageszeitung La Stampa berichtet, dass das Ziel die Sicherung des Erdöl- und Erdgasexports und die Pipeline Greenstream sind. Damit ist die westllibysche Küstenregion im Visier, von der die Mehrzahl der Boat-people Richtung Süditalien aufbrechen.
La San Giorgio salpata dalla Spezia in missione di addestramento. A bordo forze speciali
Sono partiti da Spezia e da Taranto, puntando verso la polveriera libica. Ma si fermeranno prima, al confine con le acque territoriali di Tripoli. Formalmente impegnati in un’esercitazione, anche se i connotati non sarebbero proprio quelli classici dell’addestramento: pronti a intervenire se la situazione dovesse precipitare. La notizia è stata confermata da diverse fonti. Le preoccupazioni di un improvviso precipitare degli eventi che potrebbero compromettere gli interessi strategici dell’Italia in Libia hanno fatto scattare l’allarme delle forze di difesa italiane. Tutto è accaduto tra giovedì e venerdì. I militari del reggimento San Marco sono arrivati alla Spezia nel cuore della notte. Hanno attraversato la città per poi costeggiare le vecchie mura dell’Arsenale e arrivare fino alla caserma del Comsubin (Comando subacquei e incursori), al Varignano, il promontorio a ovest del golfo. Lì gli incursori, già svegli, preparavano i mezzi, il necessario alla missione. Pronti a salire sulla nave San Giorgio, arrivata appositamente da Brindisi.
„[…] Seltsamerweise erscheinen am Laufmeter Bücher wie «Der Afrika-Boom» oder «Afrika ist das neue Asien», und zugleich riskieren Tausende ihr Leben, um diesem boomenden Kontinent zu entkommen. Diese Desperados sind nicht naiv. Befragungen zeigen, dass sie mehrheitlich über die Risiken Bescheid wissen. Migration ist ein Prozess, der sich selber verstärkt. Emigranten ziehen weitere Emigranten nach. Es gibt Länder mit einer Migrationstradition, und es ist doch anzunehmen, dass sich dort die Wahrheit über Europa früher oder später herumspricht. Aber offenbar ist der Leidensdruck grösser. Es ist vor allem der Mangel an Perspektiven und Hoffnungen, der die jungen Ausbrecher deprimiert.
Mohamed Kamara from Guinea, 21-years old, is one more refugee who died in Police custody, due to lack of health care. He came to Greece in 2012. He attempted to leave through Patras port but was arrested and imprisoned for eight months in Corinth detention center. According to his friends he applied for asylum but was given a negative answer in mid January 2015. After that he was arrested again on February 7 and on February 9 he was transferred to Kifissia Police Station in Athens. There he kept complaining about his health. Finally, on February 20, he was move in a comatose state to a hospital where he died. According to information he had been in almost comatose state for 24 hours before he was transfered to a hospital!
Stephanie Maher [1]
“Images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the stories we tell ourselves about our own evolution” – (W. J. T. Mitchell 1984, 504)
2006, Philippe Desmazes / Getty Images
Media representations are powerful. Not only do they embody the appealing veneer of journalistic impartiality, which seems to objectively reflect world in unadulterated ways, but also they help to generate public opinion and thus create consensus when crafting and mobilizing particular policy responses.
Such an image-policy nexus is exemplified in the hyper-mediatized phenomenon of clandestine migration out of West Africa during 2006 and 2007. While the Western route was effectively crippled by the implementation of border controls and surveillance technologies, the images we see today of boat migrants leaving North African shores bear a striking similarity to those circulated nearly a decade ago.
In order to highlight the productive relationship between image and policy, this photo essay explores some of the visual and rhetorical representations of West African boat migrants that circulated widely in the European and American press during what was called a “wave” of clandestine arrivals in the Canary Islands. I briefly explore the history of clandestine boat migration from Senegal to the Canary Islands before unpacking some of the strategies that image producers used to inform broader publics about the “threat of invasion” of poor African youth on European soil.[2] I conclude by examining some of the policies mobilized in response to the “wave” of clandestine arrivals and the contemporary phenomenon of boat migration to Europe.
As High Commissioner for Refugees, it breaks my heart to see Syrian families fleeing from a horrible war, forced to risk their lives again, on unsafe boats, to find protection in Europe. Since the start of 2015, over 370 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean – that’s one person drowning for every twenty who made it. But Italy’s Mare Nostrum operation has ended, and the EU’s Triton initiative is limited both in mandate and in resources. Europe must step up its capacity to save lives, with a robust search and rescue operation in the Central Mediterranean – or thousands more, including many, many Syrians, will perish.
To reduce the number of people getting on boats in the first place, more legal avenues are needed for Syrians to seek protection in third countries. Several States provide resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes, but the needs far exceed available spaces. We believe one-tenth of the Syrian refugees would require resettlement as the adequate solution for their protection situation. Flexible visa policies, expanded family reunification, academic scholarships and private sponsor schemes must complement these measures. Following the example of countries like Germany and Sweden, other States in Europe and the Gulf region should consider offering legal access with more opportunities, so as to alleviate some of the pressure on Syria’s neighbours and give more refugees an alternative way of reaching safety.
Cádiz, EFE
Salvamento Marítimo ha rescatado esta mañana a diez inmigrantes, ocho varones, una mujer y un bebé, que estaban a la deriva en una embarcación neumática a un kilómetro de la costa de Tarifa (Cádiz).
