Alarmphone | 12.12.2017
Alarm Phone Six Week Report, 30 October – 10 December 2017
+++3,081 counted fatalities at sea +++ Increased returns to Libya and documented mass enslavement +++ Unprecedented movements from Morocco to Spain +++ General developments in the Central Mediterranean, Aegean Sea, and Western Mediterranean +++ Summaries of all Alarm Phone distress cases
Over the past six weeks, the period that this report covers, we have again witnessed significant developments in all three regions of the Mediterranean Sea. Off the coast of Libya, the spectacle of migrant interception has taken on a new dimension. In the presence of EU military actors, thousands of people on the move are captured by EU-financed Libyan authorities and abducted back to Libya where they face systematic forms of torture, rape, and enslavement. The crews of non-governmental humanitarians, while present at the scene and able to bring these people to safety, are prevented from intervening. Interceptions also occur in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean contexts. In the Aegean Sea, those who escape Turkey’s intercepting authorities and survive the crossing, face inhumane reception conditions in Greek-European detention facilities. With winter approaching, the situation worsens and once again Europe has produced a humanitarian crisis and widespread migrant suffering. The Greek government, blackmailed by the EU, accepts that people freeze to death in tents, rather than allowing them to travel on to mainland Europe. In the Western Mediterranean region, we witnessed unprecedented movements – the arrival of about 3,900 people in Spain in November alone constitutes a new record, never was a higher number of arrivals recorded in a single month.
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