Nyheder

WatchTheMed Alarm Phone 2 Month Report 16th January 2017 – 19th March 2017

Following a period without any reported incidents of push-backs since January 2016, and decreased numbers of emergency calls from the Aegean Sea which is clearly related to decreased border crossings as a consequence of the EU-Turkey deal from March 20, the Alarm Phone documented a push-back operation on June 11, 2016.

EU politicians and institutions will publicly express their sorrow about the many fatalities. They will call for policy-changes and the further militarisation of the sea. They will again blame the smugglers and seek to reinforce deals with authoritarian regime. However, every shipwreck and every death of the past years is a consequence of exactly these European actions and inactions.

The EU and Death at Sea: The calculated and monitored dying in the Central Mediterranean

While Idomeni camp is evicted and the Aegean route is blocked: Another mass dying as direct consequence of EU migration politics?

Following accounts given by the survivors, why was a rescue operation not immediately started by the Turkish Coast Guard after it first arrived on scene at the GPS location?

Arrivals by boat on the Greek islands have increased again in the last two weeks

Those threatened by deportation, detention and border violence have risen up in self-organised protest. Also we are not getting tired to raise our voices against those dehumanising practices and will continue to struggle for the opening of borders and the freedom of movement for all.

We cannot find words to express our anger, grief and disbelief about these current developments in the Aegean region. More forceful than ever, the EU deploys every means available to deter migration movements and, in the process, is responsible for the unabated dying at sea, and human rights violations within and beyond European territory on a mass scale.

While the European Union, its border agency FRONTEX and NATO have launched a war against unwanted migrants in the Aegean region, people on the move remind European leaders “we are human beings”, and ask them to open borders, as in a recent protest in a camp in Lesvos.

Statist attempts have caused yet another fatal shipwreck: On Sunday the 6th of March, at least 25 travellers died off the Turkish coast, after their wooden vessel had capsized

More and more people are currently arriving in Idomeni and with difficult weather conditions the situation will further worsen if Macedonia, under the pressure of EU member states, remains unwilling to open its borders to allow people to move on.

One traveller died on the 19th of February, when the Moroccan navy rammed a boat while trying to intercept it.

We ask for that in order to respect the dignity of the victims/survivors but also to maintain dignity ourselves, so that we can create a community and society in which the privacy and dignity of all people are valued and respected.

For the Freedom of Movement and Equal Rights for All! Campaign Newspaper from the transnational Project Alarmphone

"Many of the protesters voiced the demand for ‘Ferries for all!’ which is also a slogan of a campaign that the Alarm Phone has now relaunched: ‘Ferries not Frontex’."

"On a daily basis, reports about capsized boats and drowned travellers reached us and in several cases the Alarm Phone was directly alerted to shipwrecks with dozens of fatalities."

Perspectives on struggle and solidarity

In the past week, the Alarm Phone was alerted to 37 distress cases in the Aegean Sea and to 1 case in the Western Mediterranean Sea.

Despite the desperate attempts of the European Union to re-stabilize its crumbled border regime, it seems to us that only bad weather conditions can prevent people on the move from crossing the sea border to the Greek islands – and not national border guards or Frontex’ forces.

Dozens of travellers died when seeking to overcome the Aegean Sea this week.

In the last two weeks, we were informed about or directly witnessed at least 7 maritime accidents, with more than one hundred deaths, including many children. Not least due to the EU-enforced presence of Turkish police forces at the coast, travellers are forced to take ever more lengthy and dangerous routes

Alarm Phone demands immediate transfer of all refugees stranded on the Greek military island Farmakonisi – Travellers stuck on the island face inhumane conditions

Around 13 pm we received information through "Caminando Fronteras" Twitter account that 11 dead bodies had been found by the Moroccan authorities and feared them to belong to the missing boat.

The situation on the island of Farmakonisi is particularly dramatic, as the island is uninhabited except for the military stationed there. Without any reception infrastructure on the island, arriving people are neither fed, nor given water or shelter.

Establishing a connection to a Smartphone on the boat would enable us to document and thus scandalise push backs. As the Strait of Gibraltar where people try to cross is only 14 kilometres and has internet coverage, establishing such a crucial connection is possible!

As the rescue vessel had arrived at the spot prior to the accident, why did it not act immediately but waited for almost an hour until the boat had capsized?

We dealt with 38 emergency situations in the Aegean Sea and 1 in the Western Mediterranean Sea. On Wednesday the 11th of November, yet again, many people died at sea. 14 refugees, including 7 children, drowned in Turkish waters when their vessel capsized.

Most importantly, both the distress situations at sea and those on land can be avoided. Once again, the Alarm Phone wants to call for a radical change in European border politics: Only the possibility to enter Europe through safe ways will end the deaths in the Mediterranean.

Last week’s dramatic events have once again demonstrated that there is no alternative to opening the borders of Europe in order to stop the numerous and unbearable deaths at sea.

In a shipwreck on Wednesday 14-15 people went missing near Samos and are feared dead and on Sunday a vessel collided with a rock near Lesvos and the bodies of 1 woman and 2 children have already been found and 10 more are still missing. There have been circulating news account of more tragedies, including six more deaths and another person gone missing. Another gruesome tragedy occurred in the Central Mediterranean Sea, presumably with more than 70 casualties. At least 43 bodies were washed up on Libyan shores and another 30 people from the shipwreck are still missing, also feared dead.

Welcome to Europe and Alarm Phone Statement about the Situation on Lesvos Island / Greece

"In the past two weeks the Alarm Phone witnessed awful and inacceptable forms of violence committed against travellers at sea. In the Western Mediterranean we directly witnessed how several groups of travellers were forcefully intercepted and detained, with one group being even deported to the Moroccan border to Mauretania. In the Aegean Sea, travellers informed us about six attacks on boats in Greek territorial waters."

"When governments shut down train lines, people started to march instead, occupying highways, breaking through police lines, and thereby enacting their freedom of movement."

This long summer of migration in 2015 has clearly shown that barbed wire fences, military forces and other measures of deterrence cannot stop human mobility. The recent crossings of ten thousands of people have demonstrated the permeability of borders and have led to the (maybe only momentary) collapse of the Dublin system and other control mechanisms of the border regime of the European Union

Alarm Phone Press Release, 5th of August 2015 Distress at sea and endangered lives due to coastguard actions? Evidence shows attacks on migrant boats in the Aegean Sea where engines were removed and boats punctured by coastguards