Rescued or saved, migrants face uncertain future in Europe
Rescued or saved?
As thousands of migrants from war-torn or destitute countries are pulled from the sea en route to Italy, they are filled with hope for new lives.
But that is only the beginning of a struggle that could still end in deportation, violence or destitution.
On Thursday the European Union agreed to double its emergency aid to Italy and other states receiving boatloads of migrants that capsize into the Mediterranean in numbers far too high for current rescue efforts. France, Germany and Britain have volunteered ships and helicopters for lifesaving missions.
The International Organization for Migration has estimated that the death toll this year could exceed 30,000.
EU leaders also pledged to “identify, capture and destroy” boats used by the smugglers who transport the migrants, often run by brutal gangs in Libya.
That may clip the burgeoning numbers of migrants embarking on dangerous journeys. But the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, says “without realistic and substantial alternative channels for people to reach safety,” the crackdown is unlikely to be effective — merely more dangerous and expensive.
Rescued migrants tell the stark story. Those who reach Italy alive have often suffered extortion, threats, beatings, torture, rape, and the trauma of witnessing unspeakable violence and death of others.
“These are not shiftless people. They are highly organized and motivated,” says Matthew Gibney of University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre. “Making a move in these circumstances is a very risky entrepreneurial endeavour.”
Once in Europe the hurdles the migrants face are bureaucratic, political, economic and human. And they are steeled for them.
In Italy, says UNHCR’s Rome-based spokesman Federico Fossi, the journey begins at reception centres, where new arrivals are given emergency aid for the first 48 hours, and their identification is checked.
What happens from there is murky.
Those who apply for asylum in Italy are sheltered until they can be interviewed by experts from Italy’s territorial commissions. Those with credible stories of personal persecution win refugee status for five years. Others, who are fleeing war and violence, get permits for a three-year stay.
Instead, many head north to European cities to rejoin relatives or seek jobs. A routine that is frustrating countries like Germany and Sweden, the two biggest recipients of migrants on the continent.
“It’s a very frequent scenario,” says Fossi. “In Italy the numbers of asylum requests in 2014 were in the minority.” Of 170,000 people who arrived, only 63,500 applied.
The rest disappear by any route they can find. “In the summer of 2014, when the first Syrians began to arrive, their relatives were waiting at the port in cars to take them away,” says Fossi. “Or they would arrive in Catania (Sicily) and take the train.”
Even those without family to join have reason to leave quickly.
“There’s grave danger for people who can’t establish themselves with a case for asylum,” says Leonard Doyle, media and communications director of the IOM in Geneva. “They know there are jobs or relatives in northern Europe. They want to wait until they get there to declare themselves.”
Those slated for deportation are sent to detention centres that often lack basic necessities and have been described as “appalling.”
Most would rather flee than take their chances. Escape is made easier by Italy’s light touch with fingerprinting, officials say. In theory it should be done on arrival, and the results sent to a central European data bank. In practice, many migrants refuse.
Italy argues, with some justification, that it is not equipped for screening the massive influx of sea-going migrants — the biggest humanitarian crisis Europe has seen since the early 1990s, when wars broke out in the Balkans and the Soviet Union dissolved.
It also has good reason to look the other way. The Dublin Regulation, which sets the standard for asylum claims in the EU, puts much of the onus on the country where would-be refugees first land. Greece and Italy, some of the biggest arrival countries, have complained when asylum-seekers were sent back.
Those who make it to more northerly countries face struggles to gain jobs and benefits — and the biggest hurdle of all, to blend into new surroundings when their religion, skin colour, customs or language make them outsiders.
In a number of European countries refugees and migrants have been attacked and verbally targeted, as the political climate chills during a time of austerity and fear of terrorism. Xenophobic political parties have gained ground. At the same time, financially pinched citizens resent supporting swelling numbers of foreigners.
In Britain, media rhetoric has become so contentious that UN human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein called out tabloid newspapers for hate speech, saying the “nasty underbelly of racism” was apparent in the EU’s response to the humanitarian crisis of massive migration.
Its emphasis on stopping desperate people from leaving countries where their lives are in danger is an attempt to change the conversation, says Gibney. It follows weeks of horrifying images of drowning migrants.
Although the EU boosted its support for search and rescue missions, “it’s a way of making a humanitarian issue compatible with migration control,” he said. “It doesn’t deal with the underlying causes that lead people to get into the hands of smugglers.”
Meanwhile, rickety new boats are setting off toward Italy through turbulent political seas.
