“As of December 14, 2021, the Libyan coast guard had intercepted 30,990 migrants and refugees and returned them to Libya, almost three times the total number of people returned in 2020,” wrote UN Secretary General António Guterres in an internal report to the UN Security Council.

According to UN figures, in 2020, 12,000 migrants were officially intercepted by the Libyan coast guard and returned to Libya. The actual numbers of those detained in Libya is estimated to be much higher.

The numbers of those reported dead and missing on the Mediterranean route between North Africa and the EU also increased. According to figures from the UN Migration Agency IOM’s Missing Migrants Project, more than 1,300 people were reported dead or missing on that route in 2021. That makes the Mediterranean route one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world.

Also read: Libyan coast: More than 160 migrants died in crossing attempt

Mediterranean arrivals
The numbers of those who reached countries like Italy, Malta and Spain from North Africa also rose in 2021. Across the whole of the Mediterranean, which also includes those arriving from Lebanon and Turkey via Greece and Cyprus, as well as those arriving in Italy, Spain and Malta, 2021 saw 122,485 arrivals. The UN also registered 1,971 people dead or missing.

According to the UN Refugee Agency UNHCR’s figures, the numbers of those arriving in 2021 had returned almost to pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, 123,663 migrants arrived in the Mediterranean and 1,335 were reported dead and missing.

The numbers of those dead and missing are thought to be much higher than the official figures suggest, since many migrants do not tell their families when they are about to make a crossing, or even where they are. Migrants who have made it have told InfoMigrants that often they don’t want to admit to their families and friends how bad their situations really are, so sometimes their families might not hear from them for months on end.

Migrant nationalities
The IOM’s migrant flow monitoring website shows that the majority of migrants arriving in Europe in 2021 came from Tunisia (15,675). Moroccans accounted for the next largest group (14,015). Migrants from various countries in Sub Saharan Africa were next (13,491) and Algeria and Egypt, followed by Bangladeshis. Those from Iran, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan and Iraq accounted for the rest of the top ten arrivals in descending order.

Also according to the IOM, 2017 was the last time that Europe saw so many people migrating through its borders. In 2017, arrivals stood at 187,499 and in 2016, 389,976. The great majority of people arriving that year came from Syria.

In 2021, the Italian authorities registered more than 67,000 arrivals. Spain registered over 43,000 new arrivals, the vast majority, as in the case of Italy, arrived by sea. Spain’s figures also include migrants arriving over the Atlantic route from West Africa towards the Canary Islands.

With dpa and AFP

Source: https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/37976/numbers-of-migrants-intercepted-by-libyan-coast-guard-almost-tripled-in-2021

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International Organization for Migration (IOM) spokeswoman Safa Msehli said the new deaths have brought the death toll this year for the central Mediterranean route to about 1,500 migrants drowned.

On Friday, a wooden boat capsized off Libya with at least 102 reported dead, Msehli said. At least eight people were rescued and returned to the shore.

On Saturday, the Libyan coast guard discovered and retrieved at least 62 bodies of migrants from a second shipwreck that had occurred.

Also on Saturday, a wooden boat holding at least 210 migrants aboard was intercepted by the coast guard.

In Libya, particularly around the capital city of Tripoli, thousands of migrants have been arrested, and several were shot in October, according to the France 24 Observers news outlet.

Some arrested migrants were placed at the Ain Zara detention center, which has food, shelter and medical care, according to guards and Libyan officials at Ain Zara, but migrants said the facility lacked those supplies, Reuters reported.

Another detention center, Ghut Shaal, quickly ran out of food and water, France 24 Observers added.

Recent months have seen a surge in crossings and attempted crossings from Libya as authorities accelerated their deadly crackdown on migrants in the capital of Tripoli.

Around 31,500 migrants have been intercepted and returned to Libya in 2021, compared to nearly 11,900 migrants in the previous year, according to the IOM. Around 980 migrants were dead or presumed dead in 2020, the U.N. agency added.

Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The oil-rich country plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Human traffickers have benefited from chaos in the nation and have smuggled migrants through the country’s lengthy border with six nations. They pack desperate migrants into ill-equipped rubber boats then embark on risky voyages through the perilous Mediterranean Sea.

Those returned have been taken to detention centers rife with abuses, including forced labor, beatings, rape and torture. The abuse often accompanies efforts to extort money from families before migrants are allowed to leave Libya on traffickers’ boats.

U.N.-commissioned investigators said in October that abuse and ill treatment of migrants in Libya could amount to crimes against humanity.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/over-160-migrants-have-drowned-off-libya-this-past-week-more-try-crossing-europe-1661826?piano_t=1

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UN officials estimate that as many as 1,600 people have died or are missing in the Mediterranean Sea this year alone.

In contrast, just 35 migrants have died or remain missing in the Channel since the start of 2021.

This year, the busiest and deadliest migrant route to Europe is the central Mediterranean, where people travel in crowded boats from northern Africa.

The route has become the main gateway to Europe for migrants trying to enter the continent with the help of human smugglers.

On Thursday, Italy’s coastguard reported that they had rescued nearly 300 migrants off the coast of Lampedusa.

The authorities said the overcrowded boat had run into problems in difficult sea conditions, and some people had already fallen in the water. Eight children were among the 296 people rescued, the coastguard said.

The death toll in the Mediterranean this year is higher than 2020 but by no means unique.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates that 23,000 people have perished since 2014 while trying to reach Europe from northern Africa, including more than 5,000 people in 2016 alone.

In the same seven-year period, about 166 people have died in the English Channel.

Just last week, 85 people died in two separate incidents while trying to reach Italy from Libya, said the IOM spokesman in Italy, Flavio di Giacomo.

“I think the media attention of what happened between UK and France is also because this is new,” di Giacomo said.

“Europe is not used to [this] inside the continent, usually, it’s on the external borders,” he added.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, around 60,000 people have arrived in Italy by sea this year.

Meanwhile, an estimated 1,200 have died or disappeared on the journey, partly based on information from survivors of shipwrecks.

Migrant traffic has also increased on the even more dangerous Atlantic Ocean route to Spain’s Canary Islands.

IOM has registered 900 deaths on the Canaries route this year, di Giacomo said, but the true number could be double “and no one is paying a lot of attention.”

More than 400 people were rescued just this week while trying to reach the island group.

Human rights groups often criticize European governments for not doing more to rescue migrants trying to reach the continent on unseaworthy vessels.

In recent years, Europe has placed more emphasis on training and equipping the Libyan coast guard to intercept migrant boats before they can reach European waters.

But critics say Europe is turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Libyan detention centres for migrants.

Source: https://www.euronews.com/2021/11/25/migrant-deaths-in-european-waters-not-new-over-1-600-have-died-this-year-iom

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The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and migration agency (IOM), have stepped up their response to the crisis and are launching a joint appeal for $1.79 billion, to fund a regional plan for supporting the increasing needs of the refugees and migrants from Venezuela, and their host communities across 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

COVID factor
Violence, insecurity and a lack of food, medicine and other services in Venezuela had forced millions of people to flee the country, creating one of the largest displacement crises in the world, according to the UN refugee agency.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has further aggravated the already delicate living conditions of refugees and migrants from Venezuela. In addition to serious health impacts, the health crisis has caused economic disruptions and exacerbated protection risks,” said Eduardo Stein, Joint UNHCR-IOM Special Representative for Venezuelan refugees and migrants.

The agencies noted that the pandemic had amplified a situation that was already precarious in terms of growing unemployment and poverty and access to education and basic services.

Serious protection risks arising from their lack of regular status, and closed borders due to the pandemic, have led to Venezuelans resorting to using informal routes.

These journeys are often taken on foot, and at great personal risk involving extreme climate conditions, natural hazards, threats from human traffickers or exploitation and abuse by smugglers.

Giving back
“Those who have left Venezuela are ready to contribute and give back to the communities that have welcomed them,” the joint representative said, noting that support from the international community remains crucial to helping the refugees and migrants and their host countries to ensure that “no one is left behind”.

This year’s response plan brings together 192 partner organizations involved in the response, including United Nations agencies, international and national non-governmental organizations, civil society, and refugee-led, migrant-led and community-based organizations.

Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1107522

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ROME – The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that deaths among maritime migration routes to Europe have more than doubled in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2020.

The organization said Wednesday that at least 1,146 people died attempting to reach Europe in the first six months of 2021. Most of those who died were attempting to cross the Mediterranean.

The total number of attempted crossings is also on the rise. More than 31,500 people were intercepted or rescued by North African authorities in the first half of 2021, compared to just over 23,000 in the same period last year.

FILE – Migrants queue to embark on a ferry to the mainland, in the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italy, June 23, 2021.

Many of the migrants departed from Tunisia, headed for Italy.

Italy’s interior minister, Luciana Lamorgese, said on Italian national television that arrivals from Tunisia multiplied in July due to that country’s deep economic crisis. Because they are economic migrants, she added, they cannot stay in Italy and will be repatriated, likely in early August.

Lamorgese added that areas have been identified where the migrants can be tested for COVID-19 and placed in quarantine, including on a large ship.

The IOM data shows that the migrant deaths occurred because of insufficient search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and on the Atlantic Route to the Canary Islands, even though interceptions off the North African coast have increased for the second consecutive year.

IOM Director General Antonio Vitorino called on countries to take urgent measures to prevent loss of life, such as increasing search and rescue efforts and ensuring access to safe and legal migration pathways.

The IOM also said over 15,300 people were returned to Libya in the first six months of 2021, almost three times higher than the same period last year. However, the organization said, migrants who are returned to Libya are subjected to arbitrary detention, extortion, disappearance, and torture.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/middle-east/deaths-soar-migrants-attempt-reach-europe-sea

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Calls in early May for EU states to help relocate asylum seekers from Italy have largely been ignored.

The European Commission had appealed for national capitals to help Italy, after some 1,400 people arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

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Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, said in a letter to Bosnian officials that a lack of action and coordination between the country’s multiple governments could have serious effects for migrants and asylum seekers left without housing, food, and medical care.

Ethnically-divided Bosnia has become a transit route for migrants and refugees from Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa since European Union countries shut their borders to new arrivals in 2015. Many have made their way to Bosnia’s northwest hoping to slip into EU member Croatia just to the west.

There are up to 10,000 migrants in Bosnia now, a quarter of whom sleep rough in the woods, abandoned buildings, and by roadsides, keen to move on westwards because Bosnia has few resources to provide them.

In October, the authorities in the northwestern town of Bihac closed its biggest migrant centre and moved hundreds of people to the Lipa camp 50 miles away, which was already full.

The International Organisation for Migration, which oversees all migrant facilities in Bosnia, on Friday stopped funding the Lipa camp because the authorities have failed to ensure the necessary conditions to make it suitable for winter, IOM head Peter Van der Auweraert told N1 television.

He said the government needed to provide an alternative centre for some 1,500 people from the camp, otherwise they would have to join another 1,500 people already sleeping rough.

Bosnia’s authorities cannot agree on where to accommodate the migrants. All migrant facilities are in the autonomous Bosniak-Croat Federation, while the other region, the Serb Republic, refuses to take in any migrants.

The European Union delegation has also urged action amid the coronavirus pandemic to avert a humanitarian crisis.

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ANKARA

The fourth month of 2020 saw numerous environmental disasters that impaired climate change and vice versa, including severe flooding in Afghanistan, landslides in Papua New Guinea and Kenya, and wildfires in Ukraine and Poland.

Here is a look at the global environmental disasters during the previous month.

April 2: 

– Approximately 700,000 people across 28 districts of Zambia are affected by floods over recent weeks, the country’s Disaster Management and Mitigation Unit says in a statement.

April 4:

– A wildfire breaks out in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Ukraine, with authorities saying two days later that it had been extinguished and radiation levels were normal.

April 7:

– The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) warns that much of southern England and Wales will be hit by high levels of air pollution in the month.

April 10: 

– Indonesia’s Anak Krakatau volcano, between Java and Sumatra islands in Lampung province, erupts, spewing ash columns up to 500 meters (1,640 feet) above the craters.

April 12:

– At least six people die, hundreds of homes are damaged after storms cause tornadoes and flooding across southern US states of Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.

April 13:

– The death toll in the Deep South from violent storms and tornados continues to mount as authorities raised the number of fatalities to at least 19.

April 14:

– At least seven die, 300 are displaced between April 10-14 as floods hit 18 provinces of Iran, according to UN Humanitarian Affairs Office.

– 10 people die after heavy rain causes deadly landslide in Papua New Guinea’s Chimbu province.

April 17:

– At least 24 people are killed, more than 10,000 homes are displaced in separate floods in the Democratic Republic of Congo, authorities say.

April 18:

– 11 people die, 13 are missing after heavy rain and strong winds struck parts of Luanda province in Angola, the country’s news agency reports.

– A strong hailstorm hit China’s Pingtang County in the province of Guizhou, causing damages to properties and power outages, according to reports.

April 19:

– At least four people die, 24 are missing and 4,000 displaced following landslides that hit western Kenya, according to local reports.

April 20:

– The death toll from flooding in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo rises to 40, according to authorities in Uvira city in South Kivu province.

– Authorities in Afghanistan warns that more than seven million people are still at risk as at least 56 people die from severe flooding over the past weeks.

April 21:

– Air pollution starts to return to China, as coronavirus measures including lockdown is eased in the country, according to analysis.

– Heavy rain and floods in Moyen-Chari Province, Chad, damages or destroys shelters in displacement camps, reports by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

– Several wildfires occurred across Scotland in the last few days due to dry weather, according to reports.

April 22:

– At least eight people die, estimated some 18,000 houses and approximately 110,000 people are affected by heavy rain in Djibouti.

– Thousands of hectares of Biebrza National Park, Poland’s biggest national park, are burned from wildfire.

April 23:

– Three people die after severe storms in Vietnam brings strong winds, lightning, and heavy rainfall especially in northern provinces.

April 24:

– Five different species of birds — one critically endangered — in Australia are negatively affected by unprecedented bushfires that raged across the country last summer, according to BirdLife International.

April 26:

– Thousands of people are displaced, affected by flooding and mudslides in Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions, northern Tanzania, over the last past days, according to local media.

April 27:

– Over 2,000 people are affected by flooding in several provinces of Indonesia over the past few days which also leads to evacuations in Penang State, Malaysia.

April 28:

– Since April 20, tens of thousands of people are affected or displaced from flash flooding, caused by heavy rain, according to reports from the UN.

April 29:

– At least three people die and four go missing following flash floods in northern Laos, local media reports.

Source: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/environment/environmental-disasters-across-world-in-april-2020/1825200

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Fahrudin Radoncic, the Bosnian security minister, is warning the European Union that there might be up to 100,000 migrants heading to Western Europe through Greece in the coming weeks.

“Our border is very permeable. We don’t have enough (guards) or material resources,” said Radoncic, explaining why Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot serve as a buffer that would stop the influx of migrants.

In the meantime, Greece also paints a grim picture of the situation. As most of the migrants coming to Europe enter the continent in Greece, local government forecasts an increase in newly arrived migrants.

According to Greece’s migration ministry secretary Manos Logothetis, Greece expects about 100,000 new migrants this year as well.

At the end of last year, Hungary also announced that it is preparing for the 100,000 immigrants who are gathering in the Western Balkans and are ready to enter deeper into Europe.

Bosnia and Herzegovina, which could help to stop some of the migrants lacks at least 1,200 border guards to be able to monitor the borders sufficiently, stated Radoncic, adding that currently for every 25 kilometers of the border, there is only one police officer.

Besides, the situation in Bosnian migrant camps is getting so much worse as the camps struggle with enormous overcrowding, reported Austrian tabloid Kronen Zeitung.

An example of the bleak situation is the Vucjak migrant camp near the border with Croatia. Many criticized the camp for unsatisfactory conditions with the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organization labeling the camp a “dangerous and inhumane place.”

The government decided to clear the camp in December 2019 and transfer the migrants to another area near Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) regional coordinator Peter Van der Auweraert, when the weather in the area gets better, some migrants might get on the move, especially as Bosnia and Herzegovina is just a transit country.

However, other parts of the Balkan route have noticed an increase in activity. In January, for example, 3,400 migrants attempted, some of them violently, to cross the border between Serbia and Hungary despite the border fence.

Source: https://rmx.news/article/article/bosnian-minister-100-000-migrants-on-their-way-to-the-eu

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Victoria Macchi and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.

NEW YORK – U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to dramatically curtail claims for asylum in the United States — cheered by the administration’s supporters and condemned by immigration rights advocates — is unprecedented on America’s southern border but not unique on the world stage.

Europe, in particular, has imposed restrictive rules for asylum-seekers that predate this year’s flurry of activity in the United States.

Recent months have brought sweeping changes in how the U.S. handles asylum claims at the border. Those changes are expected to preclude asylum for the vast majority who seek it.

Washington has forged pacts with Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, designating them as asylum destinations where claims are to be filed before protection is sought in the U.S. The accords work hand-in-hand with a Trump administration policy, temporarily greenlighted by the U.S. Supreme Court, stipulating that non-Mexicans must seek asylum in a third country they transited on route to the U.S. border before filing a claim in the U.S.

The result, according to critics, is a de facto asylum ban that forces people to file claims in some of the most impoverished and violent nations in the Americas.

“No one is seeking protection in countries from which everyone is fleeing,” said Helena Olea, an international human rights lawyer, and Alianza Americas human rights adviser.

President Donald Trump addresses a campaign rally, Oct. 10, 2019, in Minneapolis.

For his part, Trump on Thursday proudly touted his immigration agenda at a political rally in Minnesota, saying, “My administration is taking historic action to secure the border. We have reduced illegal border crossings by over 60% since May, and we are building the wall [between the United States and Mexico] faster than anyone ever anticipated it could be built.”

For all the attention the White House’s border initiatives have drawn, the United States is not alone in forging regional asylum deals in which nations share responsibility for processing claims filed by people fleeing persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations.

The “safe third” model

It has been 29 years since the European Union adopted its first “safe third country” asylum initiative, known as the Dublin Regulation. In its present-day form, any migrant who requests asylum at an E.U. country’s borders, having entered from another E.U. country (or Norway or Switzerland), is refused entry.

The procedure was intended to share the burden of asylum-seekers among nations party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

As the Syrian refugee crisis has worn on, leaders representing some of the involved nations have grown weary of burden-sharing responsibilities. Denmark, a member of the E.U., declined to participate in the Malta Agreement, a stop-gap effort to expedite screenings and redistribute migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea. The pact was signed by Finland, France, Germany, Italy, and Malta in September.

On Oct. 4, Italy signed a decree designating 13 non-E.U. countries across West Africa and Eastern Europe as “safe countries of origin.”  The move gave Italy greater discretion to examine and reject asylum claims from those countries.

The U.S., meanwhile, has had a “safe third country” agreement in place since 2004 — with its northern neighbor, Canada. Like its recently signed agreements with Central American countries, the U.S.-Canada pact requires asylum-seekers who transit through either country to seek protection there first, regardless of their preference for an ultimate destination.

Economic migrants

In its interim final rule — the basis for the current U.S. asylum ban — the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) questioned whether some “aliens genuinely fear persecution or torture, or are simply economic migrants seeking to exploit our overburdened immigration system.”

Trump has long said that U.S. immigration law contains loopholes for economic migrants.

That sentiment, too, has reverberated among right-wing voters in Europe opposed to accepting asylum-seekers in their countries. In January, Italy’s then-Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said his country had taken in “too many fake refugees.”

Some see a more complicated dynamic — “mixed flows” of people fleeing both violence and economic distress — at a time of heightened migration overall.

“In the U.S. now, and Europe during their crisis, the entire human rights apparatuses were never designed to actually deal with that level of people,” said Cristobal Ramón, immigration project senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “[They] crumbled under the weight of all this.”

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) New York director, Ninette Kelley, says the agency has been working on a “holistic approach” with partners in the Central American region to address asylum capacity.

“We need to invest in trying to help the governments get control of their countries and impose law and security in accordance with human rights principles and, at the same time, reinforce asylum systems along routes so that we don’t see this mass exodus in an unmanageable way for any country,” said Kelly.

Acting Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kevin McAleenan reacts while protesters interrupt his remarks at the Migration Policy Institute annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference in Washington, Oct. 7, 2019.

Funding asylum pacts

According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, planned efforts to increase regional asylum capacity include $47 million in aid to Guatemala through the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

“The goal is to build the shared capacity to extend asylum protections in partner countries in the region and ensure that those who need protection from persecution for political, racial, religious, or social group membership can seek them as close to home as possible, without putting themselves or their family in the hands of dangerous smugglers,” Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan wrote in prepared remarks for an immigration policy conference that was interrupted by protesters.

According to UNHCR’s 2018 Global Trends Report, 3.5 million people were awaiting decisions on their asylum applications by the end of 2018, while an additional 1.7 million had submitted new claims.

The U.S. was the world’s largest recipient of new individual applications (254,300). Peru, with a population one-tenth the size of the U.S., received 192,500 claims, followed by Germany (161,900), France (114,500), and Turkey (83,800), according to UNHCR.

A policeman observes the scene as immigrants who arrived aboard a cargo ship from Turkey queue for meals in a basketball arena where they have been given temporary shelter in the town of Ierapetra, Crete, Nov. 28, 2014.

In Turkey — where 1 in 22 people is a refugee — a March 2016 deal with the European Union determined that Syrian refugees on the Greek Islands could be returned to Turkey. In exchange, Europe would accept Syrian asylum-seekers already in Turkey.

Like the U.S.-Central American pacts, human rights activists have decried the E.U.-Turkey deal. Human Rights Watch reported in July that Turkish officials have been forcibly returning Syrian asylum-seekers to Syria, under the pretense of voluntary return.

The Bipartisan Policy Center’s Ramón says the U.S. should learn from the experiences of other nations that have sought to redirect flows of asylum-seekers.

“If there isn’t any capacity [in Central American nations], they [asylum-seekers] will likely just look at the situation, and say, ‘You know what? I’m not being processed. I’m going to try to go back to the United States,’ or in some cases, [they] may go back home,” Ramón said.

Source: https://www.voanews.com/usa/immigration/us-not-alone-restricting-asylum-eligibility

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