WatchTheMed Alarm Phone Six Week Report: 29th August – 10th October 2016

18. Oktober 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für WatchTheMed Alarm Phone Six Week Report: 29th August – 10th October 2016 · Kategorien: Alarm Phone

Quelle: Alarmphone | [EN] [FR] [DT]

International solidarity against mass drowning, detention and further border militarisation

„FERRIES NOT FRONTEX“ read the banner that Alarm Phone activists put up on the high-speed ferry between Tangier (Morocco) and Tarifa (Spain), on Monday the 26th of September 2016. The ferry protest engaged passengers and crew in conversations about the Mediterranean as one of the deadliest and most militarised borders in the world, which gained a lot of interest and positive feedback, especially among passengers from Morocco (for a longer recap of the protest see: https://archiv.ffm-online.org/2016/09/27/ferries-not-frontex-2/). While thousands of tourists, mainly from the Global North, cross the Mediterranean on ferries with ease each year, others have to risk their lives when they want to cross over to the European side.

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Memorials for those who drowned at the borders of ‘Fortress Europe’ when trying to overcome them.

14. Oktober 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Memorials for those who drowned at the borders of ‘Fortress Europe’ when trying to overcome them. · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Griechenland, Mittelmeer · Tags:

Download als pdf | Journey Back To Lesvos

We need Ferries and safe ways to travel – not Frontex and the EU-Turkey-deal.

  • Sunday, 23rd of October 2016 in Korakas
  • Monday, 24th of October 2016 in Thermi
  • Meeting place and time will be chosen together with the local friends soon.

lesvos2013-screen-ds-pdf

The dying in the Sea did not stop. The murderous visa-regime of the EU still exists. Safe ways to travel, with the ferry-boat from Dikili or Ayvalik to Mytilene are still unreachable for all those who have no papers and are fleeing from war, violence and leave for a more dignified life. Still about 100 people every day, men, women and children, arrive on the shores of Lesvos after having risked their lives in unseaworthy small boats. Commemorating the dead of this border is also a denouncement of these murderous policies and practices. Those commemorated are not the victims of a natural catastrophe; they are the dead of a border regime for which the EU-government are politically responsible. Simply said: if it had been possible for them to buy a ferry ticket and to move wherever they wanted and needed to, they would certainly be still alive.

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Ferries not Frontex

27. September 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Ferries not Frontex · Kategorien: Alarm Phone · Tags:

Quelle: WatchTheMed

Today (Mon. 26/9/2016) people from Alarm Phone dropped banners and handed out flyers for freedom of movement onboard the high-speed ferry between Tangier (Morocco) and Tarifa (Spain). In Tarifa port the ferry was welcomed by activists who set up a Ferries not Frontex sail on their yacht, while waving banners. At the same time, the “Salvamar Alkaid” rescue vessel of the Spanish coastguard arrived at Tarifa`s port and expressed sympathy with the activists, raising their thumbs.

ferries

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Alarm Phone Report: August 2016

02. September 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Alarm Phone Report: August 2016 · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Mittelmeer

Quelle: Alarm Phone

Weekly Reports: Interceptions, Push-Backs, and Drownings: Another Summer in the Mediterranean Sea

In the past two months, the period that this report covers, the WatchTheMed Alarm Phone was frequently alerted to situations of distress in all three regions of the Mediterranean Sea. We were engaged in 38 distress cases, of which 18 took place in the Central Mediterranean, 7 in the Aegean Sea and 13 in the Western Mediterranean (please find links to the individual reports of the past two months below). While in most cases the safe arrival of all travellers could be confirmed, in some cases we had to witness the loss of life and human rights violations.

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„Record macabre en 2016“

08. August 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für „Record macabre en 2016“ · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Algerien, Hintergrund, Mittelmeer · Tags: , ,

Quelle: El Watan

La tragédie migratoire se poursuit toujours en méditerranée

Plus de 89 000 migrants, pour la plupart originaires d’Afrique subsaharienne, sont arrivés sur les côtes italiennes depuis le début de l’année, un total approchant des 93 000 recensés entre janvier et juillet 2015.

C’est ce que l’on pouvait retenir du sinistre et dernier bilan du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (UNHCR), dressé peu de temps avant la série d’opérations de secours intervenues, tout récemment, avec pas moins de 6500 migrants secourus au large de la Méditerranée au cours de la dernière semaine de juillet 2016.

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Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean Sea: Negotiating Political Differences

05. August 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean Sea: Negotiating Political Differences · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Lesetipps, Mittelmeer · Tags:

Download als pdf

Hernan del Valle

Abstract

This article explores the debates that unfolded within Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) around the decision to launch search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean in 2015. It examines how, beyond the unifying imperative to help, there remained very different political interpretations within the organisation about the proper role of humanitarian actors in tackling this visible and tragic situation. The points of contention included categorisation, feasibility, medical impact, and politics, raising the following central questions: should categories matter, and is it relevant whether a needy person is classed as a camp-dwelling refugee or an irregular migrant at sea? Are the needs in the Mediterranean more serious than those in disasters else- where? Would search and rescue operations end up placing publicity and politics over impartiality and neutrality? Looking at how MSF resolved these and other issues can help illustrate the challenges aid agencies face in a world where deaths from large-scale migration are becoming a more common feature of the humanitarian landscape. […]

A sea of struggle – activist border interventions in the Mediterranean Sea

05. August 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für A sea of struggle – activist border interventions in the Mediterranean Sea · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Lesetipps, Mittelmeer

Quelle: Taylor & Francis Online

Maurice Stierl

Cultural Studies, African American and African Studies, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

ABSTRACT

In October 2014, on the anniversary of a large migrant shipwreck in the Mediterranean Sea, activists in Europe and Africa commemorated the victims and protested their deaths by launching the WatchTheMed Alarm Phone. The Alarm Phone functions as a ‘hotline’ for travellers who find themselves in emergency situations when crossing maritime borders towards EUrope. Its shift-teams offer information, advice and the possibility of raising public alarm, also in order to pressurise (state) rescue services to act. Based on my own engagement in the project, I portray an activist network that acted on the desire to intervene more directly in a deadly space that is often considered a ‘maritime void’ or as ‘reserved’ for state and EU (border) authorities. I argue that the Alarm Phone’s transformative political potentiality arises precisely from its capacity to connect its constitutive engagement in (under the surface) mobile commons that facilitate ‘unauthorised’ human movement with public campaigns that call for and (thereby) perform international citizenship. […]

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„Private Seenotretter im Mittelmeer: Bitte nennt uns nicht Gutmenschen“

31. Juli 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für „Private Seenotretter im Mittelmeer: Bitte nennt uns nicht Gutmenschen“ · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Mittelmeer · Tags:

Quelle: Spiegel Online

Das Mittelmeer ist zum Krisengebiet geworden. Täglich brechen Verzweifelte von Libyen per Schlauchboot nach Europa auf. Nadia Kailouli war drei Wochen mit einem privaten Rettungsschiff unterwegs.

Das Mittelmeer ist zum Krisengebiet geworden. Täglich brechen Verzweifelte von Libyen per Schlauchboot nach Europa auf. Nadia Kailouli war drei Wochen mit einem privaten Rettungsschiff unterwegs.

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Your phone is now a refugee’s phone – BBC

27. Juli 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Your phone is now a refugee’s phone – BBC · Kategorien: Alarm Phone, Video

Quelle: bbcmediaaction

Alarm Phone Monthly Report: 30th May – 26th June 2016

04. Juli 2016 · Kommentare deaktiviert für Alarm Phone Monthly Report: 30th May – 26th June 2016 · Kategorien: Alarm Phone

Where is Europe’s Outrage?

Ongoing Border Transgressions and Struggles in times of Mass Drownings, Push-Backs, and Europe’s Silence

In the past four weeks, the WatchTheMed Alarm Phone was involved in 19 distress cases, of which 7 took place in the Aegean Sea, 7 in the Central Mediterranean and 5 in the Western Mediterranean Sea. While in most cases the safe arrival of all travellers could be confirmed, in some cases we had to witness the loss of life and human rights violations:

On the 11th of June, we were alerted to an illegal push-back operation of a refugee boat between Cesme and Chios. The boat had already entered Greek territory, when the Greek coastguard threatened the passengers with gun violence and forced them back to Turkey. A boat part of the Frontex mission was present but did not intervene. The Alarm Phone statement denouncing the incident can be found here: https://alarmphone.org/en/2016/06/15/watchthemed-alarm-phone-denounces-illegal-push-back-operation-with-frontex-present/?post_type_release_type=post.

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