Last days the Afrique-Europe-Interact-caravan went from the malian capital to the mauretanian border. Find reports in the News-section of the projects homepage.
Many of the new posters and flyers against Frontex have been distributed in these days in Bamako, Nioro and Gogui, the long frontexplode-banner was present everytime and stickers with „Abolir Frontex“ could be found (not only) at the plates near the borderpost to Mauretania.
Continue reading ‘Frontexplode in Mali and Senegal’
From February 6th to 11th, 2011 the 11th World Social Forum will take place in Dakar, the Senegalese capital. This is why from mid-January bus and car caravans will start their journey to Dakar from several places in Africa.
One of those caravans is the ‘WSF Citizens’ Caravan for Freedom of Movement and Equitable Development’, which will begin in Bamako. It expects 200 to 400 participants mainly from African (especially West African) countries. There will be several actions, for example against the EU’s border protection agency Frontex and illegal deportations from Mauretania to Mali, which are sponsored by the EU (read more about the Caravan).
To support the actions, the Frontexplode-Campaign printed posters and flyers.
On Jan. 17, on the 97th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, a conference on migration policy was held at the Kazimierowski Palace featuring keynote speakers Ilkka Laitinen, Executive Director of Frontex and former British Home Secretary Charles Clarke and attended by various Eurocrats and migrant hunters. Although we found out about this only at the last minute, some people from ZSP and RAS (Radical Solidarity Action) were able to get into the closed conference and made an extended confrontation.
Although we don´t share the opinion of the authors concerning the role of the “traffickers”, this article gives a good overview about the situation in Evros region:
Greece wants to erect a fence on its border with Turkey to stop illegal immigrants from crossing into the EU. But the ruthless people traffickers in Turkey will do whatever it takes to get those dreaming of a better life into Europe – no matter what the danger to the immigrants.
What should we say? We are missing words, that you guys seem to be so proud of your operation that you even publish videos of your hunting. However, the target cross makes things easier for you?
On December 18 a mobilisation was organized at the Evros region. Early on the afternoon there was a protest outside the Fylakio detention centre and later a demonstration in Orestiada, where the Frontex headquarters are located.
Friday, 17.12.2010: The dead bodies of two sans-papiers immigrants who tried to cross the greco-turkish border were discovered near Nea Vissa village. The two men from Africa froze to death, while a third one was found almost dead and transfered to the Didymoteicho hospital. Nea Vissa is close to the city of Orestiada, were Frontex headquarters are located.
Update I (20.12.2010): Another immigrant that has frozen to death was discovered in the Nea Vissa region. He was between 25 and 30 years old, from Africa.
Update II (7.1.2010):Two more immigrants were found dead in the Evros region. They probably drowned, trying to cross Evros river.
Frontex: Blood on your hands, now also in Evros region. In the end, not really surprising… Oh, you are just a coordinator?! What do you guys in Warsaw and at the border think, whose cameras and patrols forced the dead to hide themselves so long and so far from urban terrain that they froze to death?
Greece-Turkey: Border police chase refugees in minefield
The treatment of refugees on the border between Greece and Turkey shocks German policemen. The policemen who are engaged there in the European Frontex unit, report to information from SPIEGEL shootings and inhumane detention centers.
Hamburg – The treatment of refugees on the Greek-Turkish border touches even hard-boiled German policemen who are deployed there in the European police force Frontex. People would be prevented with physical force from crossing the border, German officials report to SPIEGEL information; some of them were chased away by gunfire while hunting them in an area with anti-tank mines. Detainees were transported in dilapidated vans with no seats and windows to the reception centers, where they were housed and interrogated under inhumane conditions. The sanitary conditions there were so bad that officials wore masks and gloves. Since methods and conditions were contrary to German law, the responsible officer has already directed his men not to participate any longer in certain missions. At the end of November, federal interior ministry officials flew to Greece in order to get a picture of the conditions. “Germany watches the development with concern and Greece has been asked to improve the situation of refugees,” said a spokesman of the Ministry
Update II:
Frontex annouced that a decision has been signed to extend the RABITs Joint Operation 2010 in Greece until March 2011. The RABIT Teams have been deployed at the Greek-Turkish land border since the 2nd of November and initially were to stay for two month.
Besides the European Commission provides an additional package of €9.8 million to Greece for further technical support on asylum and border issues.
Update I:
In total, 175 border-control specialists have been made available by the 26 Member States and Schengen-Associated Countries participating in the first ever RABIT deployment.
The assets made available from Member States’ commitments to Frontex’s Centralised Record of Available Technical Equipment (CRATE) are as follows:
- Helicopter (Romania)
- 1 Bus (Romania)
- 5 Minibuses (1 Romania, 2 Austria, 1 Bulgaria, 1 Hungary)
- 19 Patrol cars (4WD) (7 Romania, 3 Austria, 2 Slovakia, 7 Germany)
- 9 Thermo Vision Vans (2 Austria, 2 Bulgaria, 4 Germany, 1 Hungary)
- 3 Schengen buses (1 Austria, 2 Hungary)
- 3 office units from Denmark
Greece requested the European Union to send armed so called Frontex Rapid Border Intervention Teams (RABITs) to the Greek-Turkish border. This became public on Monday the 25th of October 2010. Greek government statistics state that irregular migration has been increasing in the Evros-Region where the land broder to Turkey stretches over 12 km. According to the Greek Minister of Citizens’ Protection Christos Papoutsis only during the first October weekend of this year 1,400 refugees have been intercepted in that region.
Frontex PRESS KIT: Rapid Border Intervention Teams
Rough translation of the Network for social support to migrants and refugees announcement on RABIT’s operation at Evros:
The development of Frontex’ Rapid Border Intervention Team in Evros region is not a blessing, European help or “solidarity”. A modern military unit to confront not an opposing army but of the fugitives of poverty, imperialist wars and climate change, is not only a threat for asylum rights in Europe, a fact that raises the risks in migration routes and the possibility of deportation to a country where migrants’ lives are threatened. It is a threat to the whole society, a society even more addicted to “state of emergency” policies, policies of stigmatization and collective responsibility, mass deportation and detention, policies emanating from the darkest periods of European history. It is clear: the “solidarity” of European governments is on exporting repression mechanisms, on rights restrictions and on enforcement of anti-social policies. It proves the ideological proximity between Papandreou, Berlousakoni and Sarkozy, a common effort to redirect social rage on immigrants, who are becoming scapegoats of economic crisis. We insist: it is not migrants who threaten the income, employment and security of local people. It is the illegalization and precarization policies which make migrants vulnerable to labor exploitation and social exclusion. It is the denial of any reception fascilities and the dismantling of existing hospitality structures. It is the violation of the right to political and umanitarian asylum proceedures. It is the policies which assign immigration policy to police and repressive mechanisms. That’s why we resist to the efforts of the government and the media to create the image of immigrants as a threat. We resist Frontex, the most developed part of european militarism which directs against the “new enemy” created by the European neo-racism.
Unwelcome migrant hunters of Frontex!
Solidarity with migrants!
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