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- INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
UNITED NATIONS: UNHCR: Thousands of Central African refugees to return home from DRC – UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, helped hundreds of refugees currently living in the Democratic Republic of Congo to return home to the Central African Republic - launching the first voluntary repatriation programme from DRC for around 172,000 people forcibly displaced from CAR since 2013. Some 400 refugees and their belongings left in a convoy of four trucks and light vehicles from Mole refugee camp to Zongo in Sud Ubangi Province, northern DRC. They continued their journey by boat to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.
SEARCH & RESCUE: AP: Italian coast guard: migrant bodies washed ashore or in sea – Italian authorities have retrieved the bodies of five people after a boat with 169 people on board heading towards the Italian shore capsized in harsh weather conditions off the coast of Lampedusa. On Saturday, the Italian coast guard said it had rescued 149 and is still looking for those missing. A fisherman had alerted Italian authorities to the boat in distress.
SEARCH & RESCUE: DW: NGO rescue ship disembarks 213 migrants in Italy – The rescue vessel Ocean Viking, jointly operated by the NGOs SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), was allowed to disembark 213 people in the Italian port of Messina. The group had been picked up in three rescue operations between Tuesday and Thursday. Italy, Germany, France and Malta jointly applied to the European Commission to initiate the redistribution of those rescued, applying and agreement on disembarkation and relocation mechanism between the countries for the first time since it was agreed in Malta in September.
SEARCH & RESCUE: EURONEWS: Italia ofrece un puerto seguro al Open Arms para el desembarco de 62 migrantes rescatados [Italy offers a safe port to the Open Arms for the disembarkation of 62 rescued migrants] – Italy has offered a safe port to the rescue vessel Open Arms to disembark 62 people it rescued last week. The vessel rescued 73 people at the Mediterranean on Wednesday of which 11 have been evacuated by Italian authorities for medical reasons. Another rescue vessel, the Aita Mari, run by the NGO Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario, received permission to disembark 78 people it rescued in the Italian port of Ponzallo.
EU BORDERS: ECRE: Schengen – A club where fundamental rights (do not) matter? – In its latest policy note, ECRE assesses the extent to which fundamental rights compliance at the EU’s external border is addressed by the Schengen framework, using the example of recent discussions on Croatia’s readiness to join the Schengen area. It argues that any further consideration of Croatia’s Schengen membership should be conditional on an end to violence at Croatia’s borders and the setting up of a mechanism to prevent, address and remedy human rights violations. It makes recommendation on how the Schengen Evaluation and Monitoring Mechanism should be improved to ensure it supports fundamental rights compliance, as well as on the use of EU funding.
GERMANY: Tagesschau: Deutschland nimmt weitere Flüchtlinge auf – Germany informed the European Commission that it will offer 5500 places for resettlement in 2020 under the global resettlement programme headed by UNHCR. 3000 of these places are reserved for resettlement under the EU-Turkey statement. For the last two years 2018 and 2019 Germany pledged 10.200 places, which have not yet been implemented.
GREECE: RSA: Rejection of 28 asylum seekers from African countries due to the lack of interpreters – A group of legal aid organizations operating on the island of Lesvos express their concern over recent developments in the asylum procedure on the island, where the Regional Asylum Office (‘RAO’) has, without any prior notice, served negative asylum decisions on 28 asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan African countries without conducting the legally mandatory asylum interview given the inability to secure interpretation for the languages spoken by the asylum seekers. The omission of the personal asylum interview for the cited reason constitutes a violation of EU law, the organisations stress.
SERBIA: AYS: AYS Special: A large-scale police operation sweeps refugee squats in Northern Serbia– AYS has documented a large-scale police eviction in Šid, Serbia on the 22nd of November, aimed to remove all undocumented people in transit from the streets of Šid. The action targeted approximately 150 people in and around Šid. Justified as a measure to meet the security concerns of the local population, AYS considers the operation as part of a larger scheme of internal displacement being implemented throughout Serbia during the past week.
Dahrendorf Forum: A reset of the European Union’s approach to migration? – In this blog post Leila Hadj Abdou & Andrew Geddes argue that a reset of the European Union’s migration policy is unlikely to occur under the new Commission. Instead, as migration politics is now driven by politicisation of migration as a European concern, it is probable that we will see more horizontal ‘Europeanisation’ of like-minded governments, and a continued and intensified quest for external arrangements with countries and regions outside of Europe to find policy solutions to immigration.
The Conversation: Why return from Europe is causing problems for The Gambia – Two Researchers examine the changing attitude of the Gambian government regarding cooperation on the return of Gambian nationals from the EU. Since the democratic regime change in 2017, the new government had first intensified cooperation with the EU on returns but has now imposed a moratorium on any further deportations of its nationals from the EU, reportedly for political reasons, including popular resistance.
The Intercept: “We Are Still Here”: Native Activists In Arizona Resist Trump’s Border Wall – The intercept reports on the struggles of resistance against the construction of a border wall in Arizona implementing the plans of U.S. President Donald Trump. Building a wall along the southern edge of Organ Pipe, the U.S. government is draining a desert aquifer in service of a political vanity project, cutting a protected ecosystem in two, and adding a new chapter to its long and shameful history of disregard for native peoples, the author writes.
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With kind regards,
Hannah Berwian
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Hannah Berwian
Communications Assistant
p: +32 2 234 38 22
a: Rue Royale 146, Brussels
e: hberwian@ecre.org
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the information of the press review is taken from publicly available information provided by media companies, organisations and blogs. All the sources are clearly ascribed and ECRE is not claiming any authorship over the content. The Press Review does not necessarily reflect the views of ECRE. This document is just a relay to the original articles and makes it easier to find stories concerning asylum issues. If you are the publisher of some of the information and would like it removed from this document, or if you would like to see a particular story published in the Press Review, please email: hberwian@ecre.org
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