SIEVX-NEWS: The other asylum statistics

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THE OTHER ASYLUM STATISTICS
Media Release
Independent Race & Refugees News Network (UK)
29 July 2003

http://www.irr.org.uk/2003/july/ak000013.html

GOVERNMENTS COUNT THE NUMBERS COMING IN. BUT WHO COUNTS THE NUMBERS 
THAT DO NOT MAKE IT?

Research  by the Institute of Race Relations has found that, in the 
last 18 months, at least 742 lives have been lost on Europe's 
militarised borders. The actual number of deaths is certainly much 
higher, as only officially verified deaths have been counted in this 
figure. In spite of the vast human tragedy taking place on Europe's 
periphery, the total number of people dying is not known, as no EU 
body takes responsibility for monitoring these deaths.

The deaths have taken place by air, sea and land. There are those who 
have frozen in the wheel-bays of aeroplanes. There are those who have 
drowned as their rickety, overcrowded vessels attempted to escape 
detection. And there are those who have trekked across perilous land 
routes, falling victim to landmines or suffocated in the back of 
sealed containers.

The majority of those who have died are Africans, but also included 
in the grim tally are Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, Albanians and South 
Asians.

These deaths barely register on Europe's conscience. Instead, the 
problem is thought of in criminological terms, focusing on the links 
with organised crime, rather than the rights of refugees. Those who 
die are dismissed as 'illegal immigrants', part of the 'invading 
army' which newspapers eagerly warn us against.

But policies of deterrence, which assume that tougher penalties and 
tighter border controls can reduce the movement of people, do not 
work. Instead, such policies effectively create a market for the 
services of traffickers and smugglers, which are now essential for 
refugees who want to enter the EU.

The result is that, every time the authorities close off one route of 
entry, the traffickers open a new one elsewhere - one which is more 
circuitous and hazardous than before. EU policy is thus funnelling 
people to their deaths.

The example of Spain
Nowhere is this clearer than on the southern tip of Spain, where 
Africa's desperate and displaced peoples attempt to seek entry to 
Europe. At first, sub-Saharan Africans would trek across the Sahara 
to Morocco and then on to the Spanish North African enclaves of Ceuta 
and Melilla. Then Spain, aided by the EU, responded with a £24.5 
million programme to prevent the crossing from Morocco to Spanish 
territory. But still the desperate came, only now in the boots of 
cars, or hid under life-rafts, or in the narrow pipes and drains that 
carry waste into Bomba gully, the natural frontier between Morocco 
and Spain.

But, more often than not, they sought to enter by crossing the 
Mediterranean Sea to mainland Spain, or crossing from the African 
coast to the Canary Islands. Again, Spain responded by installing an 
expensive surveillance system and deploying the military to patrol 
the seas for clandestines. And, again, the death toll rose - only now 
the 'nautical graveyards' were inceasingly in African territorial 
waters, ensuring that the problem was further hidden from European 
view. Yet, almost daily, bodies wash up on Spain's holiday coastline.

Liz Fekete, author of the research and deputy director of the 
Institute of Race Relations, said: 'The asylum policies introduced in 
Europe from the 1980s onwards have set the tone for an ill-informed 
debate. Intelligent discussion on the reasons for forced migration 
and refugee flight has been curtailed and compassion for the 
desperate derided. The result is that the human cost of the EU's 
asylum policy is forgotten.'

The research 'Death at the border - who is to blame?' is published in 
issue number 44 of the European Race Bulletin.
http://www.irr.org.uk/2003/july/ak000013.html



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