In a statement issued today, REMDH describes how the reluctance of European countries to accept refugees fleeing Syria drives refugees to unscrupulous smugglers. Their lives are further placed in jeopardy by the, “criminal behaviour of European border police; at the Greek-Turkish border. Several organisations have found evidence of systemic and violent push-backs of refugees, including of families and children, which have in some cases also led to incidents and deaths at sea,” the organisation writes.
Such mass push-backs are illegal under international in order to protect the right of irregular immigrants to seek political asylum. However according to the report by the human rights groups cited by an article in To Vima (link in Greek), the Greek Coast guard routinely tows vessels with immigrants back towards Turkey, “often in a violent manner and without recognizing the presence of refugees.”
The report describes an account provided by a Syrian father who claims that the Greek Coast Guard confiscated all of his belongings before abandoning him, his wife and their baby at sea. They were left stranded for 24 hours before being rescued by Turkish authorities.
According to the report, the European Frontex force has recorded 27 incidents of human rights abuses including push-backs yet continues to provide the Greek authorities with practical support in patrolling the land and sea borders. These include planes, ships, thermal imaging cameras, training and assistance with identifying refugees.
Frontex’s continued participation in joint operations in the face of these repeated and systematic abuses render it an accomplice in the crimes according to the president of Migreurop, Olivier Clochard.
The groups also condemn the ‘deplorable conditions’ in which asylum seekers and refugees are held in Greece (often arbitrarily and for extended periods) which it also describes as violations of international law.
Since the effective closure of the land border between Turkey and Greece in 2012 through the upgrade of Frontex forces, the number of refugees attempting to make sea crossings into Europe has skyrocketed. In 2012 the Frontex force detained 3,307 immigrants making the sea voyage while in 2013 that number jumped to 10,427.
The human cost is continually rising given Europe’s policy of only accepting a relative handful of refugees fleeing the brutal Syrian war. From September 2012 until last month 18 vessels transporting immigrants sank killing nearly 200 people and with another 33 missing. That’s not even including similar tragedies off the coast of Italy such as the Lampedusa disaster when 366 immigrants were drowned. Yet European efforts to tackle the problem or remain pitiful – or perhaps pitiless.
The majority of the victims were from Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia or Eritrea. “If those vessels has succeeded in reaching the beaches of the European Union those people would have certainly been granted asylum,” the Human Rights groups underline. Europe’s response in particular to the war in Syria is described as ‘shameful’ by the groups, with Europe offering to resettle only less than 1% of the Syrian refugee population in 2014, or 32,000 people.
But it appears that an increasingly heartless and selfish Europe can only shut its doors and turn a blind eye to the suffering on its doorstep, not realizing that it is sacrificing its own soul in the process.