Migration reached a peak in 2015, when more than a million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. That number declined to 123,300 in 2021. However, the U.N. refugee agency says more than 3,200 died or went missing at sea last year, an increase of nearly 1,000 over recorded fatalities in 2018.

In addition to the rising death toll at sea, UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo says even greater numbers may have died or gone missing along land routes through the Sahara Desert and remote border areas.

She says deaths and abuses most commonly occur in and through the countries of origin and transit, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Libya.

“UNHCR has continuously been warning of the horrific experiences and dangers faced by refugees and migrants who resort to these journeys,” said Mantoo. “Many among them are individuals who are fleeing conflict, violence, and persecution. The data visualization focuses specifically on the route from the East and Horn of Africa to the Central Mediterranean Sea.”

Mantoo says refugees and migrants have few options but to rely on smugglers. She says they are exposed to a high risk of abuse from smugglers, whether they take the land route across the Sahara Desert or cross the sea from Libya and Tunisia toward Italy or Malta.

“In many cases, those who survive the journey through the Sahara and attempt the sea crossings are often abandoned by their smugglers, while some of those leaving Libya are intercepted and returned to the country, where they are subsequently detained,” said Mantoo. “Each year, thousands perish or go missing at sea without a trace.”

The UNHCR is urging greater action to prevent deaths, provide alternatives to the dangerous journ

Source: https://www.voanews.com/a/6613275.html

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View of damages in a supermarket in Valencia, Carabobo State, on May 5, 2017, the day after anti-government protesters looted stores, set fire to cars and clashed with police, leaving at least five people injured and one dead. Ronaldo Schemidt | AFP | Getty Images

Wasted oil riches

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The report by the U.N.’s internal watchdog says about $11 million alone is being spent on a recount of the South Sudanese who poured into Uganda, to weed out potentially hundreds of thousands of “ghost refugees.”

More than a million South Sudanese fled to neighbouring Uganda after fresh fighting broke out in July 2016, causing a scramble by the U.N. and other humanitarian actors to help them find food and shelter.

Uganda has been praised internationally for welcoming refugees but has faced scrutiny over corruption in the refugee process.

U.N. refugee and Ugandan spokespeople did not comment.

The Associated Press

Source: https://www.citynews1130.com/2018/11/29/un-says-millions-misspent-on-africas-biggest-refugee-crisis/

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Meanwhile, in Brussels, European politicians were arguing about how to curb the flow of refugees and immigrants who were escaping conflicts and hunger in their home countries in search of opportunities for a better life across the Mediterranean.

After marathon talks at an EU summit lasting nearly 10 hours, the leaders agreed on a text that tried to appease all sides but without actually solving the crisis, pushing it into extra time and more uncertainty. Leaders agreed EU countries should help migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to alleviate the burden on Italy and Greece, who are the most common first landing points, but the details about how and who would help remained unclear.

The issue of migrants stranded at sea caught the world’s attention when Italy closed its ports to rescue ships, leaving hundreds of desperate people adrift, until Spain stepped in to help. Recognizing the seriousness of the situation and the dilemma it puts Europe in legally and morally, leaders agreed there should be “a shared effort,” but “only on a voluntary basis.” Countries will take in rescued migrants and establish processing centers to assess asylum claims on their soil.

There, “rapid and secure processing” would sift economic migrants from refugees with a potential right to asylum, “for whom the principle of solidarity would apply.” So, does that mean we will see “detention centers” in Europe for migrants who are refused entry?

Leaders also backed plans, broadly agreed by all members, to tighten the EU’s external border, and give more money to countries such as Turkey and Morocco to help prevent migrants leaving for Europe. The EU accord also said governments should “take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures” to stop refugees and migrants crossing Europe’s internal borders — but what does that actually entail?

However, the bloc dodged an agreement on controversial refugee quotas, as a quartet of central European countries who are anti-immigration completely rejected any language on EU-wide responsibility.
The summit exposed Europe’s long-standing divisions on migration between Central Europe, which refuses to take any refugees, versus western countries, which are seeking “solidarity.”

Trying to find consensus, EU leaders called for migrant processing centers in North African countries — such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia — which are already overwhelmed and unable to handle the influx of migrants attempting to illegally reach Europe. EU leaders agreed to “swiftly explore the concept of regional platforms in close cooperation” with non-EU countries, the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

As World Cup progresses, worried migrants will watch the EU immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations.

Maha Akeel

They tried to persuade the North African countries with a promise of EU funds to help establish and manage the processing centers, but so far none of them have agreed, while a couple have ruled themselves out.

Even the UN vision for the scheme clashes with those of some EU leaders, who stressed on closing borders and stopping arrivals. Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, called for a “strong border” to stop what he called an “invasion” of migrants. Due to its geographic location, Hungary is one of the main transit countries of irregular land migration toward other EU member states, with most of the asylum seekers being Syrians, Afghans and Kosovars.

After the spike in numbers in 2015, the Hungarian government constructed fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia and enacted a series of legal amendments intended to reduce irregular migration through Hungary, resulting in a drop of over 90 percent in 2016. The message is clear: Fences work. Austria is now threatening a similar measure.

This would mark the end of the EU’s iconic passport-free Schengen Area. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said at the EU summit in Brussels that migration could “decide the fate of the EU.”

The UN and IOM have called for “strong leadership from European Union member states on upholding the right to asylum and the rights of migrants,” while stressing that the EU could not outsource the problem by pressuring African countries to keep asylum applicants within their borders. What if these countries also decided to shut their borders in the face of fleeing refugees?

Refugees and immigrants are humans and deserve a chance to live a better life and achieve their dreams and aspirations, both for themselves and the country they settle in. Can you imagine the French team that won the World Cup in 1998 without its superstar Zinedine Zidane? Many of the players in the French team at the current World Cup are descendants of Arab and African migrants, including rising star Kylian Mbappe. Almost every Western European team has at least one player of Asian or African origin.

But such achievements are not limited only to sports. Many famous names in medicine, literature, technology and other fields, whether in Europe or the US, are unmistakably of non-European origin.

Fans watched Belgium win their match with Brazil on Friday to advance to the semi-finals, and on Tuesday they will meet France. Worried migrants will also watch the immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations, with the coming days and weeks seeing more meetings between Germany, Austria, France and Italy.

• Maha Akeel is a Saudi writer. Twitter: @MahaAkeel1

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Zaineb, from Aleppo in Syria, with one of her three children at an apartment funded by the EU, in Livadia. Photograph: DG Echo

When the mayor of the Greek city of Livadia, Giota Poulou, supported the construction of a mosque for the benefit of refugees and asylum seekers from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan, she was, she says, accused of being “a member of jihad”.

It was at the height of the crisis in 2016, when thousands of migrants and asylum seekers were arriving in Greece fleeing war and deprivation and seeking security in Europe.

The city, with a population of 33,000, had been presented with a plan by the ministry of defence to locate a new refugee camp there. There were “terrible” protests and, Poulou admits, some “racist reactions”.

“The summer of 2016 was not a pleasant task. There was no summer for us. In this room there were a lot of discussions and there were great tensions,” Poulou tells a small group of European journalists at the town hall in Livadia, “the city on the water”, about 120km northwest of Athens.

Delay tactic

In what she describes as a “tactic of delay”, the municipality proposed instead to find 40 vacant apartments within 15 days so that it could join a then pilot apartment rental scheme for asylum seekers operated by the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, in Athens and Thessaloniki.

It succeeded, to even the agency’s surprise, and the town has now successfully provided accommodation for more than 700 asylum seekers in rented apartments, with the support of a local organisation that also runs a care-for-the-elderly project.

Poulou outlines how she won over the citizens of Livadia, hit hard by the economic meltdown, convincing them that welcoming the migrants was the right thing to do.

Citizens of Livadia and elsewhere in Greece were “living in the limits of poverty”. It was “inconceivable” for them to see that refugees would have heating in their houses, when some of them did not have heating themselves.

“We told them we wanted to host the refugees based on solidarity and to offer them humane living conditions,” Poulou says.

Key element

This Emergency Support to Integration and Accommodation (Estia) accommodation rental programme is now the key element of the EU’s emergency support for Greece funded by the directorate for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Operations (DG Echo).

Facilitated by an emergency instrument passed two years ago to enable EU assistance in member states heavily affected by the influx of migrants, it is also the first time the EU has provided such a humanitarian response within its own borders.

Some €440 million in emergency funding has so far been provided in support measures for Greece, including €151 million in 2017 for Estia.

The remainder has been channelled through 18 projects to address other humanitarian needs such as primary healthcare, education, programmes for unaccompanied minors, drop-in centres for women such as the Faros centre in Athens, and non-formal education initiatives such as the one run by Unicefand its partner Elix.

DG Echo has also provided over €57 million for a cash assistance programme, delivered by the UNHCR, to help the asylum seekers and refugees to cover their basic needs.

Finding empty apartments is not a problem; many have become vacant since the economic crisis, says the vice mayor of Athens, Lefteris Papagiannakis. “We have more than 100,000 empty apartments in the region and you have to do something with them.”

Speaking at the Athens Co-ordination Centre for Migrant and Refugee Issues, funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Papagiannakis says the EU emergency funding will almost certainly come to an end at the end of 2018 and suggests the Greek government will need to seek alternative supports.

No plan for recognised refugees

Settled refugees will not be able to remain for more than a year in the EU-funded rental accommodation once they have been granted status, and Papagiannakis notes there is no social housing in Greece.

“Unfortunately there is no plan for the recognised refugees. But in order to house recognised refugees you need to offer social housing to everyone or it’s a disaster.”

EU commissioner for humanitarian aid, Christos Stylianides, said the Estia programme has been an “enormous success” and a “game-changer”.

By last month, more than 19,300 people had been accommodated in Greece and cash assistance is being provided to about 35,000 people every month.

“Estia has opened a new chapter in the lives of those who benefit from it. It has offered refugees a path towards dignity, stability and a more normal life. Its impact is tangible in refugees’ everyday lives,” says Stylianides.

It is expected that up to 27,000 urban accommodation places will have been created by the end of this year – up to 2,000 of them located on the islands and the rest in cities and towns on the mainland.

Eight municipalities have signed up to the scheme – Athens, Thessaloniki, Livadia, Trikala, Larissa, Karditsa, Crete and Nea Filadelfia. Three more are “in the pipeline”, says Stylianides.

Poulou says she is in touch with other mayors and is trying to convince them “they don’t have to be afraid of such a programme”. “It can have lots of significant benefits for local society.”

Recent arrivals

More than 8,000 people arrived by the Mediterranean route last month to Spain, Italy and Greece from countries such as Syria, Nigeria, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco and Algeria – nearly 2,000 of them to Greece.

About 45,000 migrants are currently stranded in Greece awaiting decisions on their status. More than a million people have arrived in the country since 2015, about 40 per cent of them children.

The total number of sea arrivals in 2017 was 172,301, down from over a million people in 2016. UNHCR figures published last Wednesday estimate 382 people attempting to reach Europe by sea so far this year are dead or missing.

Hoping for family reunification in Germany

Tucked down a quiet street in Livadia in an apartment up a flight of stone steps, Zaineb, who arrived in Greece from Syria is making her new home with her three young children.

She stands while a small group of journalists and support staff from the UNHCR and European Commission crowd into her living room.

The Kurdish flag hangs vertically down one wall, surrounded with tiny fairy lights.

Through a translator, the very softly spoken Zaineb says she left Aleppobecause of the war and destruction and also because she had divorced her husband. She is a Kurd and also a member of the minority Yazidi community, which the UN has said has been subjected to genocide in Syria in Iraq by the Islamic State terror group, through murder, rape, sexual slavery and torture.

She does not remember the day she left Syria and says she forgets some things about her journey to Greece. “In this period I was a little bit sick so I could not know,” she says.

She is seeking family reunification with her brother in Germany. Almost all her family are now living there and were granted asylum about 2½ years ago.

Asked if her children had any problems with other children in Greece who are from different backgrounds in Syria, she says, yes, but “they are kids, so they adapt”. “There are some difficulties, but they interact,” she says.

Zaineb says the €400 monthly cash assistance she has been given as part of the programme is not enough to live on. The rent on the apartment is paid through the Estia programme.

“I buy food, I buy medicines, I buy some clothes for my family but this is not enough money,” the young woman says.

The allowance is pegged to the Greek emergency social safety net and is distributed to each household proportionate to the family’s size. It ranges from €90 for an individual to €550 for a family of seven or more.

* Elaine Edwards’s visit to Greece was funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations

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Source: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/how-greece-got-to-grips-with-a-relentless-refugee-crisis-1.3411638

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