Proposal intended to stop refugees reaching southern Europe, according to draft document seen by the Guardian

 

                                                                                              
 369 migrants crammed into a heavily overcrowded wooden hulled boat which was located in the waters just north of Libya. Photograph: MOD/REX Shutterstock

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels, and Patrick Kingsley in Istanbul

Monday 6 June 2016 20.36 BST  Last modified on Monday 6 June 2016 21.00 BST

Europe is considering whether to forge ahead with a plan to work with repressive African regimes in an attempt to stem migration flows, according to the draft version of a policy expected to be finalised by European officials on Tuesday.

To stop refugees reaching southern Europe from Africa, Europe is mulling whether to partner with Sudan, whose president is wanted for war crimes, and Eritrea, whose government is accused of crimes against humanity by the UN.

Both countries are a significant source of refugees in Europe, while Sudan is also a major migration thoroughfare for people moving between east Africa and the Libyan coast, the springboard for most people-smuggling missions to Italy. Over 150,000 people reached Europe from Libya in 2015 – only slightly fewer than the record of 170,000 in 2014.

In a draft document seen by the Guardian ahead of its official release by European civil servants on Tuesday, the EU has pledged to go ahead with a project that could see Europe provide Sudan’s security services with more equipment and funds to stop refugees, as well as assisting Eritrea’s judiciary.

The text has yet to be finalised, and EU sources could not confirm that the sections concerned would be kept in the text when it is officially published on Tuesday. The plans are only the latest iteration of a new EU migration strategy still being fleshed out by European leaders.

The proposed strategy also includes sending more aid and technical assistance to about 20 countries including Jordan, Lebanon, Niger, Libya and Ethiopia, in a bid to persuade their governments to do more to curb irregular migration.

Following a fall in the number of people reaching Europe from Turkey, European leaders are now trying to curb migration from elsewhere in the region. Favourable trade deals and visa liberalisation programmes are among the suggested ways of winning the acquiescence of target countries. Vague reference to legal pathways for refugees to Europe, as well as increased job opportunities for refugees left behind in Africa and the Middle East, are also included among the so-called “country packages”.

But buried deep within the draft document, the most eye-catching announcement concerns the EU’s “Better Migration Management” project, which the draft suggests “will start this summer”.

The project was first floated publicly in December, and according to documents released at the time could involve the provision of cars, equipment and possibly aircraft to the Sudanese government – as well as “capacity-building” for Eritrean judges, whom the UN accuses of aiding and abetting President Isaias Afwerki’s despotic regime in Asmara.

The proposals have been met with fury by some rights campaigners and leftwing MEPs. Barbara Spinelli, an Italian MEP from GUE/NGL, a leftwing coalition in the European parliament, said: “These ‘country packages’ would make us complicit with dictatorships and deny basic fundamental rights to people fleeing wars, famine and extreme poverty … The commission should be ashamed of this proposal.”

Sara Tesorieri, a policy adviser at Oxfam, accused EU leaders of compromising European values, should the proposals come to pass on Tuesday. She said: “The EU needs to reconsider very carefully exactly how much it is willing to sacrifice on the altar of migration, because right now, they are headed down a road where they will have a foreign policy that consists of a single objective. And they will be bargaining with regimes that they have held at arm’s length.”

She added the EU “should be rethinking its approach. It needs to return to reframing migration as an opportunity. The reality is that migration is increasing globally and Europe is going to be part of that.”

A spokesperson for the European commission said: “There are also no [concrete] plans at this stage to provide equipment to the Sudanese government. Any decision to provide civilian equipment will be taken on the basis of a forthcoming appraisal mission to Sudan from the EU and the consortium of EU member states.”

The German development minister, Gerd Müller, last week told the Guardian that Germany had no plans to send money to Sudan, contrary to reports in Der Spiegel and statements within EU policy documents, including the draft seen by the Guardian.

The Guardian view on Eritrea: a regime of terror

Editorial: The EU may be saving lives in the Mediterranean but it is turning a blind eye to the political repression in Africa’s worst dictatorship

Tuesday’s policy paper is only the latest attempt by the EU to stem the flow of people arriving on Europe’s shores. At a summit in Valletta last November, the EU promised to give 23 African nations a share in a €1.8bn (£1.4bn) “trust fund”, money for employment projects and border controls to dissuade people from travelling to Europe.

Some countries would like to see the EU go further, with a tougher approach to refugees. Austria’s foreign minister, Sebastian Kurz, has called for asylum seekers to be kept on islands rather than having direct access to the continent. In an interview with Die Presse on Sunday, he urged the EU to follow the Australian model, where migrants and refugees are sent to Pacific island detention centres, where they are held indefinitely, while their asylum applications are processed.

Hungary, a staunch opponent of plans to redistribute refugees around the bloc, had already proposed that refugees be restricted to “closed and protected” centres beyond the EU’s borders.

Source=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/06/eu-sudan-eritrea-migration

World | Mon May 30, 2016 8:33am EDT

 

 

A German rescuer from the humanitarian organisation Sea-Watch holds a drowned migrant baby, off the Libyan cost May 27, 2016. Christian Buettner/Eikon Nord GmbH Germany/Handout via

Reuters

 

ROME A photograph of a drowned migrant baby in the arms of a German rescuer was distributed on Monday by a humanitarian organization aiming to persuade European authorities to ensure safe passage to migrants, after hundreds are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean last week.

The baby, who appears to be no more than a year old, was pulled from the sea on Friday after the capsizing of a wooden boat. Forty-five bodies arrived in the southern Italian port of Reggio Calabria on Sunday aboard an Italian navy ship, which picked up 135 survivors from the same incident.

German humanitarian organization Sea-Watch, operating a rescue boat in the sea between Libya and Italy, distributed the picture taken by a media production company on board and which showed a rescuer cradling the child like a sleeping baby.

In an email, the rescuer, who gave his name as Martin but did not want his family name published, said he had spotted the baby in the water "like a doll, arms outstretched".

"I took hold of the forearm of the baby and pulled the light body protectively into my arms at once, as if it were still alive ... It held out its arms with tiny fingers into the air, the sun shone into its bright, friendly but motionless eyes."

The rescuer, a father of three and by profession a music therapist, added: "I began to sing to comfort myself and to give some kind of expression to this incomprehensible, heart-rending moment. Just six hours ago this child was alive."

Like the photograph of the three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan lying lifeless on a Turkish beach last year, the image puts a human face on the more than 8,000 people who have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014.

Little is known about the child, who according to Sea-Watch was immediately handed over to the Italian navy. Rescuers could not confirm whether the partially clothed infant was a boy or a girl and it is not known whether the child's mother or father are among the survivors.

Sea-Watch collected about 25 other bodies, including another child, according to testimony from the crew seen by Reuters. The Sea-Watch team said it unanimously decided to publish the photo.

"In the wake of the disastrous events it becomes obvious to the organizations on the ground that the calls by EU politicians to avoid further death at sea sum up to nothing more than lip service," Sea-Watch said in a statement in English distributed along with the photograph.

"If we do not want to see such pictures we have to stop producing them," Sea-Watch said, calling for Europe to allow migrants safe and legal passage as a way of shutting down people smuggling and further tragedies.

At least 700 migrants may have died at sea this past week in the busiest week of migrant crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, the UN Refugee agency said on Sunday.

The boat carrying the baby left the shores of Libya near Sabratha late on Thursday, and then began to take on water, according to accounts by survivors collected by Save the Children on Sunday. Hundreds were on board when it capsized, the survivors said.

(Editing and additional reporting by Mark John in London)

Source=http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-baby-idUSKCN0YL18P

MA

In an email, the rescuer, who gave his name as Martin but did not want his family name published, said he had spotted the baby in the water "like a doll, arms outstretched".

"I took hold of the forearm of the baby and pulled the light body protectively into my arms at once, as if it were still alive ... It held out its arms with tiny fingers into the air, the sun shone into its bright, friendly but motionless eyes."

The rescuer, a father of three and by profession a music therapist, added: "I began to sing to comfort myself and to give some kind of expression to this incomprehensible, heart-rending moment. Just six hours ago this child was alive."

Like the photograph of the three-year-old Syrian boy Aylan lying lifeless on a Turkish beach last year, the image puts a human face on the more than 8,000 people who have died in the Mediterranean since the start of 2014.

Little is known about the child, who according to Sea-Watch was immediately handed over to the Italian navy. Rescuers could not confirm whether the partially clothed infant was a boy or a girl and it is not known whether the child's mother or father are among the survivors.

Sea-Watch collected about 25 other bodies, including another child, according to testimony from the crew seen by Reuters. The Sea-Watch team said it unanimously decided to publish the photo.

"In the wake of the disastrous events it becomes obvious to the organizations on the ground that the calls by EU politicians to avoid further death at sea sum up to nothing more than lip service," Sea-Watch said in a statement in English distributed along with the photograph.

"If we do not want to see such pictures we have to stop producing them," Sea-Watch said, calling for Europe to allow migrants safe and legal passage as a way of shutting down people smuggling and further tragedies.

At least 700 migrants may have died at sea this past week in the busiest week of migrant crossings from Libya towards Italy this year, the UN Refugee agency said on Sunday.

The boat carrying the baby left the shores of Libya near Sabratha late on Thursday, and then began to take on water, according to accounts by survivors collected by Save the Children on Sunday. Hundreds were on board when it capsized, the survivors said.

(Editing and additional reporting by Mark John in London)

AFP · 26 May 2016, 13:42

Published: 26 May 2016 13:42 GMT+02:00

Up to 30 people are feared dead after a shipwreck off Libya, while some 50 migrants have been rescued from the waves, the EU's naval force said on Thursday.

TesfaNewsMay 25, 2016 | 316 | http://www.tesfanews.net/?p=45730">2 Comments | Deportation of Migrants, Eritrean Migrants, Migrant Crisis, Refoulement, Sudan, UNHCR

The UNHCR spokesperson said none of those intercepted in northern Sudan while heading towards the Libyan border to reach Europe are asylum seekers and Sudan may be within its legal right to pursue deportation of these Eritrean migrants from its territory. (Photo: Maram Mazen IRIN)

By Kristy Siegfried | for IRIN,

Authorities in Sudan have launched a crackdown on Eritrean migrants – arresting those living in the capital, Khartoum, and intercepting hundreds travelling north through the country towards Libya, the launching point for smugglers’ boats heading for Europe.

 

Reports that 900 Eritreans were rounded up in Khartoum on Monday and that a further 400 arrested en route to Libya have been deported to Eritrea, come amid recent revelations in the British and German media that the EU is planning to deepen its cooperation with a number of African countries, including Sudan and Eritrea, to stem migration towards Europe.

Kibrom (not his real name), a 16-year-old Eritrean refugee who used the route through Sudan and Libya to reach Europe in 2015, told IRIN that his twin sister was among a group of 130 Eritreans captured by Sudanese soldiers in the town of Dongola, about halfway between Khartoum and the Libyan border, earlier this month.

“I passed the same way. When we were travelling, we had to bribe the police. My sister used the same smuggler, but when he tried to bribe the police, it didn’t work,” he said.

Kibrom’s sister, along with the rest of the group, were taken to a prison in Khartoum where they spent three days. Kibrom said he tried to alert the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, but failed to make contact.

“Only the Eritrean Embassy was informed. They took them in an open truck at night time to the Eritrean border,” he said. “From there they were taken to a prison located in my city – Tesseney.”

Leaving Eritrea without permission is a criminal offense and Kibrom is extremely concerned about his sister, who was trying to evade military conscription, as well as his mother and two younger brothers who are still living in Tesseney.

“My mother can’t even try to see my sister or she will be arrested as well,” he told IRIN over the phone from Sweden where he has applied for asylum. “I’m so worried what’s going to happen to them.”

A spokesperson with UNHCR’s office in Khartoum confirmed that a number of migrants, including Eritreans, had been intercepted in northern Sudan heading towards the Libyan border. Of those being held at the Aliens Detention Centre in Khartoum, UNHCR had only identified six individuals who had previously sought asylum and been recognized as refugees.

None of those six had been deported and the spokesperson did not comment on the other deportations but said:

“If an individual does not apply for asylum through the channels provided and subsequently does not express a wish to seek asylum, Sudan may be within its legal right to pursue deportation of irregular migrants from its territory.

“For UNHCR, the principle prohibiting forcible returns or non-refoulement only takes centre stage when the affected individuals are persons of concern to UNHCR, which does not appear to be the case in this particular instance.”

It is unclear whether UNHCR had access to all of the Eritreans detained in Khartoum prior to their deportation. Meron Estefanos, an Eritrean activist based in Sweden who has been in touch with the relatives of some of the deportees, told IRIN that another group of around 300 Eritreans arrested while making their way to Libya were deported last Friday.

Sudan has a prior record of deporting Eritreans without allowing them access to asylum procedures, a practice that UNHCR has condemned in the past as amounting to refoulement.

Increased Border Controls

In addition to the arrests of migrants in Sudan, Estefanos said there has also been a noticeable increase in controls on the Eritrean side of the Sudan-Eritrea border in the last two months. “Leaving Eritrea to Sudan is becoming hard now,” she told IRIN. “People are being intercepted and sent back.”

Last year, a UN inquiry found evidence that Eritrea is a totalitarian state responsible for “systemic, widespread and gross human rights violations” including a system of indefinite national service that amounts to forced labour.

Eritrean soldiers are instructed to shoot at anyone they discover trying to leave the country illegally, a policy that hasn’t prevented thousands from fleeing across the border every month. While the majority of Eritreans remain in camps in Sudan and Ethiopia, over 70,000 applied for asylum in Europe during 2014 and 2015, according to EuroStat figures.

Source=http://www.tesfanews.net/sudan-and-eritrea-crackdown-on-illegal-migrants/

 

GENEVA (23 May 2016) – Ahead of the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Independence of Eritrea on Tuesday 24 May, the United Nations expert Sheila B. Keetharuth, urges the Eritrean Government to implement the 1997 Constitution.

- See more at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20001&LangID=E#sthash.IHr2wlfh.dpuf

Source=http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20001&LangID=E

Over the past two days, Thursday and Friday, a small group of activists and researchers on Eritrean studies gathered in Geneva with the aim of stocktaking on the post-independence experience of Eritrea (on the occasion of the country’s 25th year of independence). A conference like this should have ideally taken place in Eritrea. As is known to many, due to the sad political reality in Eritrea, this was not possible; thus, the conference had to take place in exile. The conference featured a very proactive engagement, lively discussions, and most of all civilized discourse among participants. Given Eritrea’s highly polarized political landscape, and the fact that some of the speakers at the conference subscribe to fundamentally divergent views with those of others, did not come as an obstacle for a civilized discourse (as some observers may have anticipated).

In the afternoon hours of Thursday, the 19th of May, we had an Opening Speech by Mr. Manuel Tornare, Member of the Swiss Parliament (National Council) and former Major of Geneva, among other things. This was followed by a Panel Discussion with Tanja Müller, Selam Kidane and Salih Nur (with Daniel R. Mekonnen as moderator and discussant). In the evening hours, there was a Welcoming Dinner for presenters, speakers and invited guests.

On Friday, the 20th of May, we had the following presentations:

Mother Tongue versus Arabic: The Post-Independence Eritrean Language Policy Debate, by Abdulkader Saleh M Ohammad
Eritrea’s Wrong Start in 1991: How It Contributed to Where and What It is Today, by Wolde Ammar
Authoritarian Resilience in Eritrea: The Dual Role of Nationalism, by Goitom Gebreluel & Daniel R. Mekonnen (presented by Daniel)
Dynamics of Post-liberation Politics – Interrogating Aspirations and Political Space in Eritrea, by Tanja R. Müller
Making Sense of Post-independence Eritrea: A Late African Postcolonial State or a Misunderstood African Exceptionalism?, by Salih Nur
Civil Society Space in Post-Independence Eritrea, by Wegahtabrhan Sereke
By Way of Patriotism, Coercion or Instrumentalisation: How the Eritrean Regime Makes Use of the Diaspora to Stabilise its Rule, by Nicole Hirt & Abdulkader Saleh Mohammad
Collective Trauma: A Major Component of the Eritrean Refugee Crisis, by Selam Kidane
Legal Battles in Eritrean Transnational Communities, by Tricia Redeker Hepner & Daniel R. Mekonnen (presented by Daniel)
Leaving Eritrea and Looking for a Safe Haven: Reflections from the Experiences of Eritrean Refugees in Selected Eritrean Diaspora Communities, by Sadia Hassanen & Beyan Negash (partly presented in the form of a video presentation of Sadia)

The above contributions will make part of a forthcoming conference proceeding (edited volume) that will be refined in the coming months. Other contributors who showed initial interest in participating at the conference but were not able to make it to Geneva have also submitted full version papers that shall make part of the forthcoming edited volume. These include Gaim Kibreab’s “The Military in Post-Independence Eritrea” and Joseph Venosa’s “Liberating Eritrea from Abroad: Diaspora Activism on the eve of Eritrea’s War of Independence, 1958-62.”

The successful finalization of the conference would not have materialized without the active participation and involvement of everyone who played a role in different ways, and in particular the presenters, speakers, commentators and funders. As Convener of the Conference, I am deeply indebted to all of these stakeholders. While the conference may have had its own limitations in some ways, on balance, I am glad to see it coming to fruition the way it did. My effort of the last several months (starting from October 2015) has paid off satisfactorily, thanks to all who have helped in many ways, some of whom are already tagged in this posting; others are unfortunately not on Facebook. Some more colleagues, whose names I see on Facebook, and who deserve a word of thanks include the following: Michael Guggenheimer, Veronica Almedom, and Awet Kidane.

Den 24 maj 1991 är mycket speciell dag för Eritreaner. När vi firar/minns denna dag, så tänker vi på många saker. En del av tankarna och verkligheten som vi kommer att tänka är följande:

-          24:e maj förverkligade drömmen om fritt Eritrea, och slutade den långa lidande av beväpnadekampen för friheten.

-          24 maj var starten för nytt dröm liv för Eritreaner.

-          24 maj var starten för de lidande som eritreanska befolkningen befinner sig i.

-          Om 24:e maj 1991 inte hade hänt med alla dessa händelser, vad skulle vi ha gjort det?

Här med skickar vi Eritreanska Socialdemokrater (Eritreanska S-föreningen) inbjudan till Er alla som vill fira tillsammans, 25 års Eritreas självständighet.

Program

1. Sport aktiviteter/fotboll match mellan ungdoms klubbar i Rinkeby idrotts Plats (Mellan kl. 10:00 – 16:00).
2. Information/pratstund om självständighet, vad måste göras för att komma ut ur stagnationen med de eritreanska politiska frågor och annat som hör hemma till dagensagenda.
3. Att välkomna de nyanlända eritreanska flyktingar det senaste året. Information om integration i Sverige - från Socialdemokratiska politiker.
4. Kultur utbytte/kultur kväll – Musik.
5. Mat och dryck finns.

De som vill ha mera information så kan ni kontakta följande telefon nummer. Eritreanska S-Föreningen, Tel: 070-7223287 - 073-5515638 – 070-4306169

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Med vänliga hälsningar,

Eritreanska S-Föreningen,

Obs: Vi kommer att skicka mera Information fram över: via sms, publicmedia och annat.