THERE is nothing to celebrate about Europe’s treatment of refugees at its external borders, said migrant rights organisations on International Migrants Day today.
Alarm Phone, an activist network that runs a hotline for refugees in distress at sea, called on the European and Libyan coastguard authorities today to release the results of their investigations into the estimated 91 people who went missing in the central Mediterranean 10 months ago.
The 91 people departed from Garabulli, Libya, in a rubber boat late at night on February 9.
Alarm Phone’s activists received a call from the boat in the early hours the following morning and reported it to the Libyan, Italian and Maltese coastguards.
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Launch of Black Book on border pushbacks
To coincide with International Migrants Day on 18th December, the Left Group in the European Parliament will be launching a ‘Black Book of push-backs’ (click here for volume 1 and volume 2) at the EU’s external border on the same day at 10h00 CET.
This 1500-page publication, in two volumes, has been compiled by the Border Violence Monitoring Network and it exposes in detail the illegal practice of violent push-backs of migrants which have been taking place over many months at the EU’s external borders – with full impunity.
The book will bring the voices of the victims to the European institutions as well as governments, and it aims to hold them accountable for the tortures, the inhumane and degrading treatment, and the violation of the right-to-life that people seeking safety in the European Union are faced with.