Border policies ⁄ Page 15 ⁄ Open Migration

A fundamental legal guide to rescues at sea

July 19, 2017 - Open Migration

How do search and rescue missions at sea really work? Is saving lives at sea an obligation, and for whom? Why did private vessels had to be involved? Which norms apply at sea, on board in ships and in harbours? The CILD legal guide to solidarity provides the answers.

The people helping migrants stranded between Serbia and Hungary

June 26, 2017 - Marco Marchese

Subotica, Serbia, is one of those places where though migrants continue to arrive, few manage to continue their journey. There is a wall on the Hungarian border to the north that they try to cross over and over again. On this side of the wall, between the rail tracks and a squalid camp, the only people helping the migrants are volunteers. Here they are creating a network of human relationships to alleviate their suffering, as well as providing them with essential goods. Marco Marchese spent some time with this small and diverse community of people.

Training the Libyans is not enough to stop migrants

June 7, 2017 - Francesco Floris

On the night of May 23, 2017, the captain of the Iuventa, a ship from the German NGO Jugend Rettet, reported a new attack at sea by a Libyan motorboat: the crew had shot at some boats overloaded with refugees, then brought two of them back towards Libya. Was it the Libyan Coast Guard? How is Italy training them, and to what end? And how many Coast Guards actually exist in Libya? Francesco Floris takes us into the details of training in Libya and its historical precedents.

How the humanitarian Ngos operate at sea

May 22, 2017 - Giacomo Zandonini

Hours and days of searching, run-ins with coast guards and people smugglers, overloaded wooden ships: increasingly frequent in the media, it’s all part of an ancient history of fleeing wars, dictatorships and poverty. But acts of solidarity are also part of this story - the very lifeblood of a fragmented Europe that now is clashing (as it has in the past) with state reasons and its willingness to build barriers, and that gives us a glimpse into where the roots of the funding of many Ngos are. What follows is an historical overlook with some essential data to understand some of the controversies of the last few months.

Accusations against Ngos at sea: what is false or misleading in that smear campaign

May 19, 2017 - Francesco Floris and Lorenzo Bagnoli

“Too smart for their own good” (Matteo Renzi). “Taxi cabs for migrants” (Luigi Di Maio). Northern League secretary Matteo Salvini said there was a “secret service dossier” on them. Their chief accuser is Catania’s prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro, according to whom their intervention “renders investigations into facilitators of criminal organisations useless.” After weeks of hearings, though, the defense commission in the Italian Parliament has cleared them of all suspicions. But who are they? Humanitarian Ngos, carrying out search and rescue operations in the waters between Sicily and Libya, are the target of a relentless smear campaign. The European border control agency Frontex has designated them the main “pull factor” for the rising number of migrant boats (and deaths) in the Mediterranean. How much truth, and how much untruth, is there in such accusations?

The eight thousand migrants saved at Easter: logbook of a rescue mission

May 11, 2017 - Giulia Bertoluzzi

During the four days of the Easter weekend, 8,300 people were rescued in the Mediterranean: 1,300 by Frontex (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) and the others by several NGOs in coordination with the Italian Coast Guard. The small Iuventa ship alone assisted 2,147 people, both taking them on board and with its life jackets and rafts. The Iuventa is a small fishing boat that has been adapted for rescue missions by the German NGO Jugend Rettet, one of the smallest organisations involved in humanitarian operations in the search areas of the Mediterranean. While much of the media and some politicians echoed the generic accusations of Catania’s prosecutor according to whom NGOs "attract" and sometimes even collaborate with smugglers controlling the flow of migrants, thousands of lives were saved from certain death by drowning, hypothermia, hunger, and thirst on the open sea. Our reporter Giulia Bertoluzzi was on board the Iuventa and kept a logbook for Open Migration.

Why the new Italian law on immigration and asylum is not good news at all

April 28, 2017 - Open Migration

“There are many ways to build a wall: with concrete or with laws.” The words of Lorenzo Trucco, president of the Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration (ASGI), illustrate the much-criticised bill on immigration and asylum drafted by ministers Minniti and Orlando, which recently became law. Here is what the new law says and the main criticisms regarding the “legislative wall” it has in turn erected: now migrants officially have fewer rights.

Tunisian women fight for their sons and husbands gone missing on their journey to Europe

April 7, 2017 - Sara Manisera & Arianna Pagani

Nabil, Walid, Wissem, Hamza, Ghassem, Samah, Housemdine: these are names, not numbers. In words and images, Sara Manisera and Arianna Pagani tell us the stories of the Tunisian women seeking truth and remembrance for their sons and husbands who have disappeared while attempting to reach Europe.

« Previous Page

Border policies