MEDITERRANEAN: New Joint Report Highlights Extreme Violence on Land Routes Towards Africa’s Mediterranean Coast ― NGO Appeals to Cypriot Courts on Behalf of People Trapped in Buffer Zone ― Greek Court Acknowledges Racist Motives in 2018 Anti-Migrant At…

• The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration and the Mixed Migration Centre have published a new joint report in which they highlight the extreme violence directed against people moving along land routes towards Africa’s Mediterranean coast.
• The NGO Migration, Asylum, Racism, Discrimination and Trafficking (KISA) has appealed before the Cypriot courts on behalf of the people who are trapped in the buffer zone that divides the island to denounce the serious violations of their human rights and their right to asylum by the Government to competent international and European bodies.
• A Greek court has issued convictions to 21 people for racially-motivated violence against protesters on the island of Lesvos in 2018.
• The Council of Europe has published a report in which it has urged Greece to treat refugees and migrants with dignity and humanity and to stop pushing people back and mistreating them in detention.
• An investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) has revealed correspondence which details failures by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to report abuses that have taken place on the Albania-Greece Border.

On 5 July, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC) published a joint report in which they highlighted the extreme violence that is routinely directed against people moving along land routes towards Africa’s Mediterranean coast. The report includes the estimation that twice as many people die on land routes in Africa than crossing the Mediterranean – the deadliest sea route in the world. Commenting on the report, the UNHCR’s special envoy to the Mediterranean (and one of its co-authors), Vincent Cochetel, said: “regardless of their status, migrants, refugees, seem to face serious human rights violations and abuse along the route”. “We cannot lose our capacity to get outraged by this level of violence,” he added. The abuses described by the 32,000 interviewees included torture, physical violence, death, kidnapping for ransom, sexual violence and exploitation, enslavement, human trafficking, forced labour, organ removal, robbery, arbitrary detention, collective expulsion and refoulement. Cochetel stated that the main perpetrators of the various forms of abuse were criminal gangs and armed groups, security forces, police, military, immigration officers and border guards. This follows an EU clampdown on smuggling, with the creation of global alliances, the stationing of European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) agents in third countries, and the provision of assistance to partner countries’ authorities, most recently in Egypt, Mauritania and Tunisia. “I think it’s safe to conclude that Europe’s migration policies have done the exact opposite,” said MMC director, Bram Frouws. “Yes there are places where [smugglers] are the main perpetrators of violence, also places where they’re not”, he added. The three organisations have warned that current international responses and humanitarian action is inadequate. They have called for concrete “routes-based” protection responses to save lives and reduce suffering; a push to address the root causes of displacement and drivers of irregular movements through positive action on peacebuilding, respect for human rights, governance, inequalities, climate change and social cohesion; and the creation of safe pathways for migrants and refugees which span countries of origin, asylum, transit, and destination.

On 11 July, the NGO Migration, Asylum, Racism, Discrimination and Trafficking (KISA) X posted that it had appealed before the Cypriot courts on behalf of the people who remain trapped in the buffer zone that divides the island to “denounce the serious violations of their human rights and their right to asylum by the Government to competent international and European bodies”. “Many of the 37 refugees who have been trapped in the buffer zone and prevented from the Government of the Republic of Cyprus to access their right to asylum for about two months were arrested in the government-controlled areas, interrogated and subjected to humiliating treatment by the Cyprus Police, before being forcibly taken to the “no man’s land” with “instruction” to return from where they came from!” KISA wrote. The UNHCR has warned that the physical and mental well-being of the trapped people is “worsening due to their prolonged stay”. “They’ve been intercepted in their attempt to seek asylum,” explained UNHCR communications officer, Emilia Strovolidou. “They find themselves in limbo, they’re in these precarious conditions (…) And we are asking – the whole UN community is asking – the government of Cyprus to allow these people access to asylum procedures, and access to dignified living conditions”. When asked why the Cypriot government was blocking the asylum seekers, Strovolidou said: “What they have said is that there is no obligation because this is a buffer zone. But we know – and this is confirmed also by the European Commission – that EU law applies also in the buffer zone”.

On 9 July, a Greek court issued convictions to 21 people for racially-motivated violence against protesters on the island of Lesvos in 2018. On 22-23 April, approximately 150 individuals attacked more than 200 migrants, including a number of children, who had gathered in Sappho Square in Mytilini to participate in a peaceful protest against the inadequate living conditions and medical care at the Moria Reception and Identification Centre. Two of the defendants were sentenced to six years imprisonment for multiple offences, including “threats and dangerous bodily harm with racist motives”, while two others were sentenced to five years and nine months imprisonment for the same offences. All four sentences were suspended for three years and convertible to a fine of € 5 per day. Seventeen other people received one year prison sentences (apart from one who was sentenced to nine months on account of his age at the time the crimes were committed) for “disrupting the peace”. The defendants have said that they will appeal their convictions. ECRE member organisation HIAS Greece, which was representing the victims, issued a press release in which it expressed its satisfaction with the convictions, particularly the fact that “Mytilene Court recognized a racist motive in the criminal acts for the first time”. The organisation added that although “the case on trial may not reflect the full extent of the unprovoked and organized violence that took place against the refugees and their families” (…) it sends a strong message against impunity: instances of vigilante groups ‘taking the law into their own hands’ are unacceptable in a lawful state”.

On 12 July, the Council of Europe (CoE) published a report in which it urged Greece to treat refugees and migrants with dignity and humanity, and to stop pushbacks and the mistreatment of people in detention. A delegation from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) made an ad hoc visit to Greece in November-December 2023. It visited six of the seven pre-removal detention centres, several police and border guard stations in different regions, and, for the first time, closed controlled access centres (CCACs) on the Aegean Islands of Lesvos, Kos, and Samos. The CPT received “several credible and consistent allegations (…) of deliberate (…) ill-treatment of detained foreign nationals by police officers in certain police stations” and “allegations of ill-treatment by coast guard officials who intercepted small boats at sea”, including “blows with batons and the butt of a rifle, as well as kicks, punches and slaps (…) verbal abuse, racist insults and aggressive behaviour”. The CPT also found that the living conditions for many detainees “could only be described as inhuman and degrading”. All centres had outbreaks of scabies and bed bugs, and some even had “piles of faeces all over the floor”. Detainees were also “deprived of their liberty way beyond the time limits provided by law and without benefiting from the legal safeguards related to detention, including access to a lawyer and interpreters”. Regarding pushbacks, the CPT received “consistent and credible allegations of informal, often violent, forcible removals of foreign nationals across the Evros river or at sea to Türkiye” which occurred “without consideration of their individual circumstances, vulnerabilities, protection needs or risk of ill-treatment when returned (“pushbacks”)”. Although the Greek authorities have continued to maintain that “violent forcible informal removals from Greece to Türkiye do not occur”, in a X post about the CoE report, ECRE member organisation Fenix – Humanitarian Legal Aid wrote: “given the numerous reports of pushbacks on the Greek border, this is yet another call on Greece to respect its human rights obligations”.

An investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) has revealed correspondence which details failures by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to report abuses that have taken place on the Albania-Greece Border. BIRN shared the contents of several Frontex internal communications on failures to issue serious incident reports (SIRs) (i.e. mandatory reports of possible violations of people’s fundamental rights committed by border guards or its own officers). In February 2023, Frontex’s fundamental rights officer, Jonas Grimheden, wrote to the agency’s then acting head, Aija Kalnaja, to inform her about a “very troublesome account” from a Frontex officer who had just returned from a deployment on the Albania-Greece border. Grimheden wrote that the officer had said that he and his colleagues had “implicit instructions not to issue SIRs” and that pushbacks were “a known thing within Frontex”. When BIRN asked Frontex if rights violations were being underreported, it was informed that such claims were “completely and demonstrably false”. However, Jonas Grimheden also told it that underreporting remained a “highly problematic” issue within the agency.

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