United Nations Refugee Agency - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

In 5 months, 41,000 migrants have sought asylum in Mexico, 16 more than in all of last year

Mexico News Daily — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 21:59:55 +0000

For many, Mexico is becoming a destination rather than a transit country.

More migrants are choosing to stay here rather than seek entry into the US

Mexico is on track to record its highest ever number of asylum requests as growing numbers of migrants choose to stay in the country rather than seek entry into the United States.

The Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar) registered 41,195 applications for asylum in the first five months of the year, 16 more than in all of 2020, when migration fell due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The figure is 68% higher than that recorded in 2019, when Comar received 24,551 requests between January and May. New records for asylum applications were set in March, April, and May this year with more than 9,000 requests in each month.

Mexico is becoming a destination rather than a transit country for a growing number of migrants, said Marcos Tamariz, deputy head of mission for Doctors Without Borders in Mexico and Central America.

“We’re seeing statistics that are going to exceed the historic record of 80,000 refugees [in one year],” he said, adding that many of those who are seeking asylum are living in precarious conditions in migrant shelters, detention centers, and makeshift camps.

Migrants earlier this year waiting to be processed in Tapachula, Chiapas.

In a new report entitled Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2020, the United Nations Refugee Agency said that out of 549,200 internationally displaced Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans, 78,600, or 14%, sought asylum in Mexico.

“While the intended destination of people on the move from these three countries generally remains the United States, some are increasingly settling in Mexico, and a much smaller number go south to Costa Rica and Panama. These countries are also becoming major transit countries for nationals from within the subregion and from outside the region,” the UNHCR said.

Comar says it has received asylum requests from citizens of 78 countries but that just six — El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Cuba, and Haiti — typically account for 90% of applications. It has processed just over 13,000 applications this year and ruled in favor of granting asylum in almost three-quarters of the cases.

While it is busy assessing asylum applications, the National Immigration Institute (INM) is equally busy detaining and deporting migrants. The INM reported on June 6 that it had detained 90,850 undocumented migrants this year and deported 42,067 — 46% of the total — to their country of origin.

Some 12,000 INM officials and members of security forces, including the military and National Guard, are deployed to control the flow of migrants, record numbers of whom have arrived in Mexico in recent months on their way to the United States.

Mexico and the United States signed an agreement earlier this month to work together to address the lack of economic opportunities in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, where poverty, violence, climate change, and two devastating hurricanes late last year have triggered an exodus of people.

National Guard forces repelling migrants trying to cross the Suchiate River into Mexico from Guatemala. FILE PHOTO

The federal government deployed large numbers of security force members to stop migrants in 2019 in order to appease former United States president Donald Trump, who threatened to impose blanket tariffs on Mexican goods if Mexico didn’t do more to stem illegal migration.

The United States has scrapped many of Trump’s harshest immigration policies, but Vice President Kamala Harris nevertheless told would-be migrants not to travel to the U.S. during a trip to Guatemala earlier this month. She later softened her message, saying that she was “committed to making sure we provide a safe haven for those seeking asylum, period.”

President López Obrador told Harris in May that his administration agreed with the migration policies the U.S. government was developing and would aid in their implementation. “You can count on us,” he said.

Both Mexico and the U.S. say they are committed to addressing the root causes of migration in Central America, which history shows have been notoriously difficult to combat.

With reports from EFE

Source: https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/in-5-months-41000-migrants-sought-asylum-in-mx/

[Disclaimer]

The post In 5 months, 41,000 migrants have sought asylum in Mexico, 16 more than in all of last year first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to U.S. to a record low

Abigail Williams and Saphora Smith — Wed, 21 Oct 2020 12:00:50 +0000

The Trump administration intends to admit up to 15,000 refugees into the U.S. in the 2021 fiscal year down from a cap of 18,000.

Central American migrants ride atop a freight train during their journey toward the U.S.-Mexico border, in Ixtepec, Oaxaca State, Mexico, in April 2019. Moises Castillo / AP file

The Trump administration has proposed to further slash the number of refugees admitted to the United States in the coming fiscal year to a record low.

The administration intends to admit up to 15,000 refugees in the 2021 fiscal year, the State Department said in a statement late Wednesday.

That is 3,000 less than the 18,000 cap the United States set for the fiscal year of 2020, which was already the lowest number since the start of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

New U.S. citizen Jad “Jay” Jawad, owner of the Crepe House Cafe, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from war-torn Iraq, in September in Phoenix.Ross D. Franklin / AP file

The president’s proposal “reflects the Administration’s continuing commitment to prioritize the safety and well-being of Americans, especially in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” the state department said in the statement.

This year’s proposed refugee resettlement program includes specific allocations for people who have suffered or fear persecution on the basis of religion; for Iraqis; for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; and for refugees from Hong Kong, Cuba, and Venezuela, according to the state department.

The proposal will now be reviewed by Congress, where there are strong objections to the cuts, but lawmakers will be largely powerless to force changes.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

President Donald Trump suspended new refugee admissions in March amid the coronavirus pandemic, but some of those who were already part-way through the process were able to continue their applications.

Data for the 2020 fiscal year shows that the U.S. resettled around 11,800 refugees out of the 18,000 limit. It remains unclear if that is the final total for the fiscal year.

In comparison, nearly 85,000 refugees were resettled in the U.S. in the last year of the Obama administration.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted Wednesday that the U.S. remains the most generous nation in the world when it came to alleviating the refugee crisis.

“We continue to be the single greatest contributor to the relief of humanitarian crisis all around the world and we will continue to do so,” Pompeo said during a visit to Rome, stepping in to address a question from the press directed at Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. “Certainly so long as President Trump is in office I can promise you this administration is deeply committed to that.”

There were at least 79.5 million people around the world who were forced to flee their homes at the end of 2019, including 26 million refugees, 45.7 million internally displaced people, and 4.2 million asylum-seekers, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.

That represents more than one percent of the global population, the U.N. said.

In June, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the coronavirus crisis had further exposed refugees’ vulnerabilities, stripping away their hope for a better future.

The Trump administration anticipates receiving more than 300,000 new refugees and asylum claims in the 2021 fiscal year, according to the State Department’s statement.

The president’s proposal accounts for the backlog in asylum cases by prioritizing those who are already in the country seeking humanitarian protection and for the arrival of refugees whose resettlement was delayed due to the coronavirus crisis, the state department said.

The state department said the U.S. was focused on ending conflicts that drive displacement in the first place and provided humanitarian assistance to protect and assist displaced people.

“In line with the U.S. National Security Strategy, we are working to assist refugees and other displaced people as close to their homes as possible,” the statement said.

Abigail Williams reported from Washington D.C., Saphora Smith reported from London.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Abigail Williams

Abigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.

Saphora Smith

Saphora Smith is a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-plans-slash-refugee-admissions-u-s-record-low-n1241672

[Disclaimer]

The post Trump plans to slash refugee admissions to U.S. to a record low first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

As World Comes to Halt Amid Pandemic, So Do Migrants

Kirk Semple — Thu, 28 May 2020 09:48:22 +0000

Laborers have not just stopped traveling in search of work. Many have also headed back to their home countries.

Credit…Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters

MEXICO CITY — A migrant shelter in southern Mexico called La 72 has for years been a popular way station for those traveling from Central America to the United States. Last year it received a record number of visitors, sometimes sheltering more than 2,000 a month.

In recent weeks, however, that traffic has come to a grinding halt and even gone into reverse.

Since late March, amid the coronavirus pandemic, no more than 100 migrants have passed through the shelter. And nearly all were heading south, trying to get back to their homes in Central America.

“We’ve never seen this before,” said Ramón Márquez, the former director of the shelter. “I’ve never seen anything slow migration like the coronavirus.”

Border closures, suspended asylum programs, interruptions in global transportation, and stay-at-home lockdowns have drastically curbed migration around the world, particularly from poorer nations to rich ones.

In Latin America, once-crowded migratory routes that led from South America, through Central America and Mexico and to the United States have gone quiet, with the Trump administration seizing on the virus to close the border to almost all migrants.

But the phenomenon extends well beyond the Americas. The number of East Africans crossing the Gulf of Aden to seek work in the Gulf States has plunged. Farms in western Europe are contending with severe labor shortfalls as travel bans have blocked the movement of seasonal migrant laborers from Eastern Europe.

Credit…Paul Ratje/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“The pandemic has essentially — not absolutely, but essentially — stopped international migration and mobility dead in its tracks,” said Demetrios G. Papademetriou, co-founder and president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington.

In some places, migratory flows have seemingly made a U-turn, as migrants no longer able to earn a living abroad have decided to return home, even if their home countries are mired in political conflict and economic ruin.

Thousands of Venezuelans who had sought sanctuary and work in Colombia in recent years have crossed back into Venezuela, Afghans have returned home from Iran and Pakistan and Haitians from the Dominican Republic.

“We’re finding mass numbers moving back to their countries of origin because they cannot survive,” Gillian Triggs, the assistant high commissioner for protection at the United Nations Refugee Agency, said in an interview.

Many of those who are returning barely had a toehold in the informal labor sector in their adopted countries and were denied access to social safety nets. “They are the people who are at the bottom of the pyramid,” Ms. Triggs said. “And they are almost always the first to go.”

In recent years, one of the world’s busiest migration corridors has run through Central America and Mexico, with tens of thousands of people reaching the southwest border of the United States every month, either to apply for asylum or try to slip undetected into the country.

Arrests of undocumented migrants at that border have long stood as a measure, however imperfect, of changes in the regional migration flows.

In March, the American authorities arrested 29,953 migrants there, a slight drop from the previous month’s total. But migration experts say April’s numbers, when they are finally published, may reflect a significant decrease in migration.

Credit…Daniele Volpe for The New York Times

Shelter managers and migrants’ advocates throughout the region said they had seen migrant traffic slow to a trickle in recent weeks.

The Rev. Pat Murphy, director of Casa del Migrante, a shelter in the Mexican border city Tijuana, said that only about 10 people had shown up at his door in the past two weeks looking for a place to sleep — and that most had just been deported from the United States rather than traveled from the south.

Latest Updates: Global Coronavirus Outbreak

But Father Murphy and most other shelter operators in Tijuana and elsewhere have closed their doors to new arrivals as a way of protecting quarantined residents. And some shelters in the region have shut down entirely for fear of becoming places of contagion. One shelter, Casa del Migrante Nazareth in the Mexican border city Nuevo Laredo, suspended operations after it suffered an outbreak that sickened at least 15 residents.

Most of the migrants who have reached the southwest border of the United States in the past year have been from Central America, but advocates say that the particularly stringent lockdown and border-control measures throughout that region have persuaded some to delay their departures until the situation eases.

Migrants have also been discouraged by the Trump administration’s decision last month to severely tighten border restrictions. Citing the threat of the coronavirus, the administration instituted a new policy under which it has been quickly deporting people who illegally cross the southwest border of the United States. The administration also halted the processing of undocumented migrants at ports of entry.

The changes have effectively blocked access at the southwest border for migrants seeking asylum.

“I would hazard to say that the only migration that’s working now is migration with smugglers,” said Mr. Márquez, the former director of La 72 migrant shelter, which is in Tenosique, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

The United States is not an outlier. All over the world, governments have temporarily closed their doors to refugees seeking protection.

Credit…Raul Arboleda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Ms. Triggs said that of more than 120 countries that have ordered some form of border closure, only about 30 of them are giving any consideration to the claims of asylum seekers. Most countries, she said, “have closed their borders, terminated their asylum process, and are pushing back.”

And resettlement of refugees she said, “has stopped for all practical purposes” because of limitations in air travel.

In recent weeks, boats loaded with hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been turned away from ports in Malaysia by officials citing border closures related to the pandemic, according to human rights groups.

But while opportunities for migration and protection have been severely curtailed in many places around the world, deportations have continued over the objections of migrant advocates — sometimes with damaging public health consequences.

Scores of deportees sent back to Guatemala from the United States in the past several weeks have tested positive for Covid-19, Guatemalan officials said. The United States government sent a C.D.C. team to Guatemala to test deportees and found some of them were sick, Guatemalan officials said.

At the time, American officials said that all deportees were given a “visual screening” and had their temperature checked before boarding chartered deportation flights.

In some places, stranded migrants are crammed into shelters, encampments, and overcrowded hotel rooms, unable to practice social distancing or easily protect themselves against infection.

A group of about 2,500 migrants, many of them Haitians, are stuck in government migration centers in southern Panama because the border with Costa Rica is closed, impeding their trip toward Mexico and the United States, said Marcelo Pisani, the regional director of the International Organization for Migration for Central America, North America, and the Caribbean.

Credit…Luis Robayo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At least 23 of those migrants have tested positive for the coronavirus, he said.

As economies continue to crater, sowing poverty, food shortages, and desperation, the drive among the neediest to relocate will most likely soar once again, experts said.

The International Labour Organization estimated this week that nearly half of the world’s workers are at risk of losing their livelihoods. Job losses have already begun to cause a drop in remittances — the money migrants send back home — with potentially devastating impacts in the developing world.

Erol Yayboke, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said he anticipated that even once the pandemic fades, protectionist impulses among some leaders in wealthy nations may continue, thwarting a complete resumption of longstanding migration patterns.

Instead, Mr. Yayboke said, flows may be greater than normal between developing countries that pose fewer restrictions on migration.

“I think that once you turn the faucet back on, it’s not going to immediately flow,” he said. “And when it does flow, it’s not necessarily going to flow in the same direction.”

Mr. Papademetriou offered another possibility: In spite of border restrictions in wealthy countries, the pent-up demand might drive desperate people to start surging across borders, as Central Americans have done recently in migrant caravans, and Syrians and others did in 2015 during the European migration crisis.

This would pose political and philosophical tests for liberal-minded governments, he said.

“What do you do then?” Mr. Papademetriou said. “That’s going to challenge the countries that have been using the rhetoric of human rights, of solidarity, of cooperation. It’s going to challenge that kind of rhetoric. How will they react?”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/world/americas/coronavirus-migrants.html

[Disclaimer]

The post As World Comes to Halt Amid Pandemic, So Do Migrants first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

These Migrants Stuck in Tent Cities on the Border Just Had Their Hopes Dashed by the Supreme Court

Emily Green — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 11:22:52 +0000

The court said the Trump administration can continue its “Remain in Mexico” program. Migrants say they’re “in a complete state of limbo.”

MATAMOROS, Mexico — More than 1,700 people live nearly on top of one another steps from the U.S.-Mexico border, squeezed into tents crammed together like Tetris blocks. Many of the mostly Central American migrants have been living here for months, terrified of venturing outside in this city the Gulf Cartel calls home.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court said the Trump administration can continue its “Remain in Mexico” program that has, to date, sent some 60,000 asylum-seekers to Mexico to wait for five-plus months while their immigration cases are decided. The decision reverses an appeals court decision that said the policy, officially called Migrant Protection Protocols, violates the law and is causing “extreme and irreversible harm.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t weigh in on the legality of the policy but allows it to continue while lower court challenges continue. But as the legal battle plays out, the asylum-seekers living through the consequences of the policy are in a paralyzing state of limbo. Most are likely to still live in this Matamoros tent camp when the spring rains hit and turn the ground they’re sleeping on into mud.

TENTS LINE THE AREA NEAR THE RIO GRANDE AT A MIGRANT CAMP IN MATAMOROS, MEXICO ON MARCH 3, 2020. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

The ambiguous legal landscape has compounded the sense of helplessness. And the administration is also staying ahead of the courts, ramping up ever more restrictive policies to keep out migrants. They include sending asylum-seekers to Guatemala to seek protection there and fast-tracking the deportation of Mexican asylum seekers.

“One day they put a law in place, and the next day they take it away,” said Alejandro, an asylum seeker fleeing political persecution who asked to withhold his last name for fear he would be returned to Nicaragua. “We have no idea if the U.S. is going to actually review our cases, or if they’re just going to send us to Guatemala or Honduras. We are just waiting, in a complete state of limbo.”

A GROUP OF CHILDREN PLAY “PAPA CALIENTE,” OR HOT POTATO, WITH A BASKETBALL ON MARCH 3. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

Many of them have been living for months in shelters and overcrowded tent camps in cartel-controlled territory, mere feet from the U.S. border. Their informal shelters dot the U.S.-Mexico border, stretching from Tijuana to Matamoros. As the U.S. has turned its attention to the coronavirus and 2020 elections, their ongoing plight is a stark reminder of how President Donald Trump has effectively pushed the immigration crisis to foreign soil, out of sight and mind for the American public.

In Matamoros, the tent camp was supposed to be a short-term fix to address the pile-up of thousands of asylum seekers with nowhere to live. Instead, it’s become a permanent make-shift city with no clear oversight, leader, or authority in control.

MIGRANTS AT A CAMP IN MATAMOROS, MEXICO PLAY GAMES AND RELAX ON MARCH 2. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

The United Nations refugee agency says Mexico’s National Institute of Migration oversees the camp, noting that it installed portable toilets and metal tarps. But the Migration Institute denies it holds the role. Asked who is in charge, the agency’s spokesman told VICE News, “the migrants themselves.”

The encampment is also not considered a refugee camp, as those are managed under strict guidelines for sanitary conditions and security. Instead, the camp has an ad-hoc structure with self-appointed leaders. No one knows exactly how many people are living here.

CARLOS TORRES AND ANTONIO MARTINEZ PLAY CHECKERS AT THE CAMP IN MATAMOROS ON MARCH 3. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

“We have serious concerns about security at the settlement and welcome the efforts of the Mexican authorities to address these,” said Sibylla Brodzinsky, spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency in Central America and Mexico.

At least 50 parents have sent their children across the border on their own, knowing that was the only way their children would be allowed into the U.S. But the decision has been gut-wrenching.

“Seeing my kids walk across the bridge by themselves, I felt like my heart was being taken out of my body,” said Luz Torres, who sent her 11-year-old-daughter and nine-year-old son into the U.S. alone at the beginning of February. Torres’ daughter is mentally and physically disabled, and Torres said she was terrified for her safety.

A MAN SELLS SNACKS IN THE MIGRANT CAMP. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

“What choice did I have? I couldn’t keep them here, sleeping in a tent on the ground. I can handle it but not them,” Torres said between sobs.

No one knows how long the camp will last. As time has passed, aid groups from Unicef to small nonprofits have stepped in to provide food, medical services, and some classes.

ERIKA TAMARILLO PREPARES TAMALES INSIDE A TENT AT THE CAMP ON MARCH 4. ERIKA LIVED IN NORTH CAROLINA FOR NEARLY 20 BUT RETURNED TO MEXICO TO TRY TO HELP HER FAMILY IMMIGRATE. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

The number of Central American asylum seekers has declined in recent months, but that’s been offset by a growing number of Mexicans fleeing violence in the state of Guerrero. While Mexicans are not subject to Migrant Protection Protocols, they are waiting on average around two months to cross into the U.S. and make an asylum claim in a process known as “metering.”

The fear of a public health emergency is never far. Even as international health leaders are urging people to wash their hands frequently and not touch their faces because of the coronavirus, the camp is overflowing with people but short of sanitation facilities.

The roughly 1,700 asylum seekers — including 400 kids — share 90 portable toilets. Families sleep 10 people in a tent. Respiratory illness is more common than not.

WOMEN POUR CLEAN WATER INTO A BUCKET AT THE CAMP ON MARCH 2. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS.

“This is racism and xenophobia in its maximum expression,” said Alonso Villegas, looking at the tent camp. He fled political persecution in Venezuela and has been waiting in Matamoros since September with his three-year-old son for a judge to decide their case.

Villegas is better off than most of the migrants here. He found a job working as a mechanic and rents a small apartment, so his son has a bed to sleep on while they wait for a resolution in their case. Still, when he heard about the appeals court decision striking down Migrant Protection Protocols, he ran to the port of entry hoping to enter the U.S.

But by the evening, the court had said its decision wouldn’t take effect until the Supreme Court could weigh in. Villegas was despondent.

“I would rather die in Venezuela than here,” Villegas said. “At least there I have my family.”

A GROUP OF BARBER SHOP STUDENTS OFFER FREE HAIRCUTS TO MIGRANTS STAYING AT THE CAMP IN MATAMOROS. PHOTO: SERGIO FLORES/VICE NEWS

Source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jgekxg/migrants-stuck-in-tent-cities-on-the-border-just-had-hopes-dashed-supreme-court

[Disclaimer]

The post These Migrants Stuck in Tent Cities on the Border Just Had Their Hopes Dashed by the Supreme Court first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

What Refugees Face on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route

Seema Jilani — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 07:39:06 +0000

Refugees and migrants are rescued by aid workers of the Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms, after leaving Libya trying to reach European soil aboard an overcrowded rubber boat, Feb. 18, 2018. Olmo Calvo/Associated Press

Stinging, salty waves crashed over the deck as frantic figures climbed on board. It was midnight in November, and we were 30 miles off the coast of Libya, where our small ship was quickly filling with scores of terrified, freezing refugees whom we had rescued from the chilly waters. I stepped over an elderly paraplegic man sprawled on the deck so I could wrap blankets around a teenage Egyptian boy battling hypothermia. His eyes rolled back in his head as he tried to stay awake.

“Doctor, my name is Rafiq,” he told me in broken English. “I am alone. I am 15 years old. If I die, please tell my family.”

I peeled his clothes from his clammy body and wrapped my arms around him to try to keep him warm. I felt his heartbeat flutter and wondered if he would make it until morning. Beside him, the paraplegic man searched in vain for his small knapsack, which he had lost during the rescue. Nearby, a Sudanese mother cradled a wailing, emaciated 40-day-old baby covered in lumpy skin lesions.

These refugees, and others like them, risked everything to make this treacherous journey because the lives they left behind posed an even greater danger than the sea. The Syrian war has displaced millions who are desperately seeking an existence free from barrel bombs and chemical weapons. Others travel thousands of miles over land and water to escape poverty and authoritarian governments. Most of these migrants flow through Libya in the hope of making it to Italy by boat across the Mediterranean Sea — since 2015, nearly half a million have reached the Italian coast. From there, many continue their travels into Europe.

This migration route is not only the most trafficked in the world; it is also the deadliest, with more than 15,000 deaths recorded since 2014. In 2018, more than 550 people have already died or are missing trying to cross the sea. Refugees still pay enormous sums of money for space on a cramped and unsafe vessel that may not withstand the journey, and nongovernmental organizations in patrol boats remain one of the few forms of protection for those being ferried over the Mediterranean by human traffickers. But even these rescues are becoming harder and more dangerous to make. One in every 14 people has died this year crossing the sea from Libya to Italy, compared to one in 29 people for the same period in 2017, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency

Though the media coverage of the global refugee crisis has waned, violence and unrest continue to displace thousands of people every month. In crucial ways, the European Union has taken action against the waves of migrants arriving on its shores as the political environment around migration routes has become more perilous and toxic than ever.

Under international law, if an NGO like ours, Proactiva Open Arms, finds refugees in international waters, it must transport them to the nearest safe port, which used to be Italy. Last year, however, the European Union struck a deal with Libya to curtail the flow of migrants to Europe. Italy now provides the dysfunctional Libyan military — which works with militias and human smugglers — with patrol boats, training and intelligence. Aid groups have watched helplessly as Libyan coast guardsmen beat migrants pulled aboard their ship and delivered them back to inhumane conditions.

Just last month, the Libyan coast guard threatened to kill the crew of Proactiva Open Arms, the same ship I volunteered on in November, in international waters if they didn’t turn over the refugees on board. The crew refused. Once they reached land, Italian police officers closed in, impounded the boat and placed the captain and mission head under investigation for facilitating human trafficking. Their crime? Rescuing 218 refugees from a leaky dinghy in the Mediterranean Sea.

These tense conditions have led larger NGOs to stop their rescue efforts, leaving maritime rescue operations to smaller groups that cruise the African coastline helping people escape slavery, war, poverty and grim futures back home. It’s a risky mission that brings together a motley crew of tattooed, chain-smoking sailors and volunteers like me for a few weeks.

Seventy years ago, my grandfather was like these refugees. A persecuted Muslim in pre-Partition India, he left Hyderabad in the middle of the night, fleeing north toward Pakistan. He eventually sent for my father, then a toddler traveling with relatives. They boarded a boat in India and sailed north to become some of the first citizens of the newly created Pakistan. Reunited with my grandfather, they immigrated to England and, later, America, but they could have just as easily become bodies floating in the sea.

Over the past few years, I watched the refugee crisis upend continents. In these acts, I recognized my family story and had to help them.

On our first patrol on Open Arms, a 120-foot salvage tugboat transformed by a Spanish aid group into a refugee-rescue ship, we picked up more than 420 people, but for several hours we had nowhere to take them. Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island close to the North African coast that routinely takes in refugees, was too small to accommodate so many people. On the bridge, the captain made call after call on the static-filled radio as he tried to find a place where we could safely debark.

Every rubber boat we encountered meant more desperate souls: refugees with open wounds and oozing crimson skin on their feet, burns from the diesel fuel that leaked into the flimsy dinghy. On the crowded deck, we passed out blankets, diapers, sanitary pads, baby formula and food. It was not lost on me that I was the only doctor on board. If anyone froze to death, if anyone died silently before dawn while hidden beneath their blankets, it was on me to call their time of death; it was my name on the death certificate and my conscience I had to live with.

We were already carrying a body, transferred to our rescue ship from another. We were told her name was Lula and that she was a 28-year-old who had fled Eritrea for Libya, where she gave birth to her rapist’s child at six months. The child was stillborn. Then Lula herself died trying to cross the Mediterranean. That’s all we knew about her. We didn’t want her body to become just another buoyant ghost that haunted the sea. She deserved dignity, even in death, so we wrapped up her body and laid it on the top deck, until we could hand it over to authorities.

After several hours, our port was finally decided: Augusta, Sicily. It was nearly a two-day journey. Two days is a long time to keep 423 frail, traumatized people alive. We had two bathrooms, and our supplies dwindled quickly. Our passengers crowded in every corner of the ship. We moved the ones most likely to die to the workshop, the warmest place on board.

They then settled into groups. The Moroccans, most of them seeking better job opportunities in Europe, crowded in one corner under makeshift tarps set up to protect them from crashing waves enveloping the deck. The Syrians, mostly women and children, were on the lower deck. It eventually became impossible to walk across either deck. People were spread out everywhere. The paraplegic man tugged at my sleeve whenever I walked by. I had worked in refugee camps and war zones around the world but never experienced anything quite like being aboard this dystopian Noah’s Ark.

Migrants look out from the deck of the Proactiva Open Arms vessel as they wait to reach the Italian coast, Sept. 7, 2017. Bram Janssen/Associated Press

Throughout the journey, the migrants slowly started telling their stories from their homelands: Cameroon, Egypt, Senegal, Mali, Algeria. Some had crossed the Sahara. Some had fled militias or narrowly escaped slave markets. Others recoiled at every loud noise on the boat, traumatized by years of war. All had tragedy engraved in their minds; some had it etched, literally, on their backs.

As the sun came up on the second day, the picturesque Sicilian coastline came into view. The refugees caught sight of land and spontaneously broke into song; some had fashioned their blankets into head wraps and clapped out a beat as the boat crept into the coast. They waved and whistled as we approached Sicily. I imagined they were songs of freedom and liberation.

Rafiq, the Egyptian boy, looked up at me and gave me a thumbs up. We’d made it, at least this far. I wanted to tell them that the days ahead would be free of poverty and desperation, that their lives were certain to get better. As the granddaughter and the daughter of refugees, I wanted to tell them that they could find a better life in the West, but I knew this was a new era. I knew that their next journeys were likely to be rougher than the seas we’d just passed, and that many of them would be turned back. Some refugees would be detained and spend weeks or months in the refugee center. Others would be deported back to their countries of origin immediately. For most, they still had hundreds of miles to traverse over land, by any means possible — hopping trains or buses or even crossing the Alps on foot — to reach their final destination. Nothing was guaranteed, even now, not even survival.

Instead, I said nothing and allowed their songs to fill me with a few minutes of necessary hope.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/magazine/refugees-mediterranean-rescue.html

[Disclaimer]

The post What Refugees Face on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.