Source: https://www.unhcr.org/refugeebrief/latest-issues/

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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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On 26 February at an event in London, we will be presenting results from a major project responding to the current crisis of refugee support in Greece and Serbia. The results of our project suggest that changes in EU border management have limited refugees’ movement across Europe, and as such, have resulted in the outsourcing of refugee settlement and care to states previously described as ‘transit’ countries along the Balkan Route(s): Serbia, Greece and Bosnia.

Following Donald Tusk’s 2016 speech in which he spoke ‘to all potential illegal economic migrants wherever you are from: Do not come to Europe… It is all for nothing. Greece or any other European country will no longer be a transit country’, his intention had been to reduce the numbers of refugees along the route. However, whilst the number of refugees arriving into the countries of South Eastern Europe has decreased overall since 2015, the flow of people nevertheless continues, with 139,300 arriving via the Mediterranean Route in 2018 according to the UNHCR. Importantly, new arrivals are not able to transit through South Eastern Europe and are increasingly getting ‘stuck’ in transit countries, which is leading to overcrowding in refugee camps and reception centres and limited resources to ensure standards of care and adequate accommodation.

‘Samos Jungle’ additional housing outside of the Vathy Reception Centre, Credit: Gemma Bird

Our report analyses the problems related to refugee support services and accommodation in these countries and along the Balkan Routes towards Western Europe. It highlights the disparity of refugee services, housing and living conditions across the region, and acute and ongoing humanitarian crises. There are several key factors affecting poor living conditions for refugees, including: overcrowding, fragmentation of services along the routes, and a lack of consistency in camp management. Subsequently, there are a range of other refugee housing options existing in transit countries: including informal and makeshift camps, squats, hotels and UN-supported housing schemes known as ‘urban shelters’, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Key conclusions

There are six key conclusions from our project. First, we found that population size and levels of overcrowding are one of the fundamental factors affecting provision and quality of life in all types of refugee housing. Mainland camps, as well as, informal housing provision such as squats, are able to control the number of residents they have whereas island reception centres have far less control and as such are overcrowded with people stuck in these spaces for as long as 18 months.

Second, relationships between camps, reception centres and third sector provision plays a key role in determining access to healthcare, sanitation, psycho-social support and community spaces and whether these are provided inside or outside of accommodation spaces. In areas where the relationship between camps and NGOs is good, refugees can benefit from women and children centres, language lessons, healthcare, laundry, clothes distribution and improved shower facilities within the boundaries of the camp. In areas where this relationship is less co-operative these services can only be accessed outside of reception centres and often less frequently.

Third, lack of clarity and transparency surrounding asylum procedures leads to an increased anxiety about the process. A lack of knowledge about how the process works, what happens at each stage, and what each decision means, leads to refugees, particularly unaccompanied minors, breaking rules that they did not realise were in place, making them more vulnerable.

Fourth, different forms of housing support are dependent on individual circumstances; however, there is a lack of flexibility, particularly surrounding vulnerable cases where a ‘one size fits all’ approach is not suitable. In cases where people have suffered trauma moving them out of camps and into apartments seems like the best solution. Yet for some people sharing apartments with other equally traumatised people can make the situation worse rather than better.

Fifth, refugees are driven towards informal housing such as squats and makeshift settlements for two main reasons: poor camp conditions or overcrowding, and uncertainty over the asylum process, including long waits for asylum interviews in Greece. Improving both the conditions of formal housing provision and the transparency of the asylum process will help to reduce reliance on activists and voluntary organisations to provide informal housing.

Finally, there is a lack of formal support for people living in informal accommodation, particularly healthcare, food and sanitation. Whilst informal housing is still used by refugees, with some squats even declaring themselves full and relying on a waiting list, greater recognition is needed for these forms of accommodation to ensure refugees still have access to healthcare that would normally require an address to register for.

Recommendations for policy change

We have five recommendations for policy change. First, there is an urgent need to manage the numbers of people living in the island reception centres by increasing the number of transfers to mainland Greece or elsewhere in Europe and improving mainland living conditions and provision.

Second, greater transparency and increased dialogue between some reception centres and third sector provision is required. Third, there should be an urgent increase in capacity to process asylum registrations in Greece and thus reduce current waiting times and overcrowding in reception centres. More, and better quality information for refugees about each stage, predicted waiting times and what each stage means is needed in the early stages of the asylum process to reduce anxiety for people living in reception centres.

Fourth, greater flexibility is required in the provision of housing, especially for vulnerable cases where the needs of individuals differ greatly. To achieve this, greater resources are necessary. Finally, there is a need for increased funding and support for the UN ESTIA ‘Urban Shelter’ scheme which transfers refugees from camps and settles them in apartments, as well as increased capacity of non-camp housing, and creation of incentives for local authorities reluctant to cooperate with the scheme.

Our recent visits to Athens and Samos have reiterated the need for these changes. The Reception Centre on Samos has an official capacity of 700 people, yet between December 2018 and January 2019 an estimated 5,000 people were waiting on the island for an asylum decision. Such overcrowding leads to long queues for food, for showers, for laundry facilities and for legal information and support, as well as increased risks of gender based violence, sickness and trauma. Squats and informal housing providers in Athens are also now forced to declare themselves full with limited space available to house people and one squat talking about a waiting list of over 400 people. South Eastern Europe is witnessing an ongoing crisis, a crisis of support and provision.

The authors of this article are part of the IR_Aesthetics project which, in collaboration with The Foreign Policy Centre, will be presenting a report at Portcullis House in London on 26 February responding to the current crisis of refugee support in Greece and Serbia, and making key suggestions for change based on field research carried out in the region between 2017-2019.

Source: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/02/20/rethinking-refugee-support-responding-to-the-crisis-in-south-eastern-europe/

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Migrants and asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean now face an even deadlier journey then they have in the past, the UN refugee agency has warned.

In a report, the agency says that while the number of people arriving in Europe has fallen significantly, the number of deaths has risen sharply.

Traffickers are having to take greater risks as there is more surveillance from the Libyan coastguard, it says.

More than 1,600 people have died trying to reach Europe so far this year.

In the central Mediterranean, one person died or went missing for every 18 people who crossed to Europe between January and July 2018, compared to one death for every 42 people who crossed in the same period in 2017, the report said.

Seven of those incidents have been since June alone, the UNHCR said.

• Who is responsible for migrants at sea?
• Med migrant crisis: A mess – or cynical politics?

As the number of those trying to cross falls, Europe should focus less on managing numbers and instead on saving lives, the agency says in its report.

Smugglers ‘cutting costs’

On the central Mediterranean route (from northern Africa to southern Europe) so far this year, there have been 10 separate incidents in which 50 or more people died – most after departing from Libya.

Libya’s coastguard intercepts more and more boats carrying migrants, increasing the likelihood that those on board may die during the Mediterranean journeys, the UN refugee agency says.

“The reason the traffic has become more deadly is that the traffickers are taking more risk, because there is more surveillance exercised by the Libyan coastguards,” said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR’s special envoy for the central Mediterranean.

“They are trying to cut the costs: it costs them more to keep those people here longer in their warehouses, under captivity.”

• Is Italy taking in thousands of ‘non-refugees’?

Matt Saltmarsh from the agency said much more needed to be done.

“We are calling for the European authorities in particular to come up with a co-ordinated strategy whereby boats can be systematically disembarked in different parts of Europe and where asylum claiming conditions and reception centres are in place ready to receive those people who arrive,” he told the BBC.

‘Guantanamo’ option rejected

The EU has stepped up co-operation with the Libyan coastguard to intercept migrant boats. But people-smuggling gangs have flourished in Libya’s chaos, charging desperate migrants thousands of dollars per head.

The EU Commission has proposed “regional disembarkation platforms” in North Africa, where the UN and other agencies could screen those who have a genuine claim to asylum in Europe. Those not eligible would be offered help to resettle in their home countries.

But processing centres outside the EU must not become a “Guantanamo Bay” for migrants, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos warned.

The EU also aims to beef up its Frontex border guard force to 10,000 staff by the end of 2020.

Source: https://www.businessghana.com/site/news/politics/171608/Migrant-crisis-Mediterranean-crossings-deadlier-than-ever-UNHCR

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“When I give a presentation like this I often ask the audience which country is the largest host for refugees in the world? And the answer is rarely Turkey”, said Matthew Saltmarsh, the Senior Communications Officer at UNHCR, the UN’s Refugee Agency.

The number of refugees in Turkey amounts to more than 4% of the country’s total population and the Turkish government has spent over €25.1 billion on humanitarian aid -proportionally more than any other nation in comparison to Turkey’s GDP.

The UNHCR is currently working on a ‘global compact’ that will be proposed in the 2018 annual report to the UN General Assembly, which would serve as a framework for spreading out responsibility and enable countries to cooperate more effectively in their response to the large-scale migration of refugees.

Speakers from the different organisations stressed the need for the international community to financially and morally support hosting countries while noting that the European Union has only paid half of the €6 billion promised in its 2016 refugee agreement with Turkey.

The number of places allocated for resettlement has steadily declined since the agreement was signed, with only 75,000 places available in 2017, which comes at a time when the living conditions of refugees in Turkey are precipitously deteriorating.

Child labour and human trafficking is also a significant problem are becoming more common as more people are forced out of desperation to work on the black market. Early marriage is also becoming more prevalent at a time when educational rates have fallen.

A study conducted by Emergency Social Safety Net shows that 19% of the Syrians in Turkey are living below the extreme poverty line.

“Where Turkey differs slightly from the other countries in the region is that the government very much takes the lead in the refugee response, coordinating the efforts of the UN agencies, unlike Jordan or Lebanon,” Saltmarsh said.

Ankara offers temporary protection to refugees and gives them access to free healthcare, education, and in some cases, provides work permits. Facilitating access to work may reduce the financial burden but Abby Dwommoh, a public information officer and spokeswoman for the International Organisation for Migration highlighted the challenges of integrating so many people into the labour market, especially in Turkey where unemployment rates have been rising over the last two years and where the economy is in deep crisis following the collapse of the national currency, the lira.

The lack of places for resettlement in the EU means that refugees settle in Turkey and some cities, including Kilis near the Syrian border, host more Syrians than Turks.

“The latest Regional Refugees and Resilience Plan report shows that while you have 3.5 million Syrian refugees, you have a population of 8 million local citizens in Turkey who have been negatively affected by the inflow of migrants,” said Saltmarsh.

Without greater support from Europe, the situation for both Syrians in Turkey and Turks, themselves, will become increasingly difficult over the coming years.

Source: https://www.neweurope.eu/article/turkey-needs-greater-burden-sharing-managing-syrian-refugee-crisis/

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A barbed wire fence sits on the Greek-Turkish border [File: Reuters]

Athens, Greece – A growing number of refugees and migrants are reaching Greece via land routes from Turkey, with Greek authorities increasingly accused of carrying out illegal pushbacks on the land borders.

On Friday, the Greek police said that 1,658 refugees and migrants were detained in March after crossing into Greece through the Evros River, which is situated on the Turkish border.

That number was more than five times higher than the same period in 2017, which saw only 262 people detained on the country’s frontier with Turkey, the Greek daily Ekathimerini reported.

The new data comes just two months after the Greek Council for Refugees published a report alleging that Greek authorities were increasingly conducting “systematic pushbacks” in the Evros region.

Eva Cosse, a researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said pushbacks are considered a violation of both international refugee law and human rights law.

“We’ve been monitoring the issue of pushbacks,” Cosse told Al Jazeera.

“Pushbacks at sea stopped when the [Syriza] government came to power [in January 2015], but pushbacks on land have never really stopped,” she added.

“People should have the opportunity to seek asylum but pushing back people can put them in danger.”

While Greece has been widely criticised for pushbacks and the declining humanitarian conditions for tens of thousands of asylum seekers trapped in camps, migration minister Dimitris Vitsas has defended the government’s approach to the crisis.

“One of our central priorities for the immediate future is the implementation of major infrastructure projects in the islands, in cooperation with the local government, aiming at enhancing everyday life of the inhabitants who are in the front line during the ongoing refugee crisis,” he recently told reporters.

Vitsas added that the Greek government “will continue to vigorously defend the values of humanity and solidarity”.

‘Dangerous’

Yonous Muhammadi, head of the Greek Forum of Refugees, also said the number of people crossing via Evros is “increasing”.

“We have people coming four or five times, entering Greece and then being pushed back to Turkey,” he told Al Jazeera by telephone.

Describing the land route as “dangerous”, Muhammadi cited a string of reported deaths along the Evros River, where rising waters made the journey perilous.

Meanwhile, the number of refugees and migrants reaching Greek islands by crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Turkey was ostensibly on the rise again.

According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), more than 16,595 people have reached European shores by making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean so far this year.

During that period, at least 501 people died or went missing, UNHCR noted.

Between January and March, one person out of every 14 crossing the Mediterranean died, compared with one death in every 29 people who made that journey during the first three months of 2017, the UN recently said.

On March 17, a boat carrying refugees capsized en route to Greece from Turkey. The Greek coastguard subsequently found 16 bodies, among them children.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/180413132840764.html

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