New evidence exposes Frontex role in pushback operations in AlbaniaBorder Violence Monitoring Network has gathered new reports from migrants that confirm Frontex’s continued involvement in pushback operations on the Albanian border. Interviewees maintained they were threatened with firearms, a development reflecting a new regulation allowing Frontex personnel to bear arms. The reports confirm that Frontex is using firearms, response vehicles and surveillance equipment to reduce the movement of migrants from Northern Greece, impacting people primarily from the Middle East and Maghreb regions. Another independent report published in July 2020 on the accountability and transparency regime of Frontex finds that, despite the continued expansion and strengthening of monitoring and accountability mechanisms since 2016, the agency still lacks an effective system for monitoring, investigating, addressing, and preventing fundamental rights violations at Europe’s external borders. Statewatch report shows more deportations, fewer rights in new EU migration policiesA new Statewatch report looks at how recent and forthcoming EU reforms aim at increasing the number of deportations while reducing or eliminating rights and protections. It focuses in particular on the combined effects of the new Return Directive, the interoperability regulations and the new regulation expanding the role of Frontex. New UNHCR report shows extent of violence and deaths along North African migration routesA new joint UNHCR - Mixed Migration Center report on violence and deaths of migrants along the North African route suggests that at least 1,750 people died on these journeys in 2018 and 2019. Violence incidents are also rife. Sexual violence incidents were reported to be primarily the responsibility of smugglers, but security forces, police or military personnel were reported to be primarily responsible for the incidents of physical violence, mostly in West Africa. The report further finds that many survivors attempting to cross the Mediterranean are brought back to Libya (over 9,000 in 2019), where there are insufficient mechanisms to identify survivors of abuses and provide them with protection. Slovenian court condemns illegal pushbacks to CroatiaIn a case concerning a Cameroonian national who was expelled to Croatia, the Slovenian Administrative Court found that the Republic of Slovenia violated several dispositions of the EU Charter on Fundamental rights, including the prohibition of collective expulsions and the principle of non-refoulement. The court established both that the applicant was subject to gross violations, and that these are systematic practices affecting thousands of asylum seekers every year in Slovenia and Croatia. Once the judgment becomes final, the Slovenian authorities will be obliged to allow the applicant to enter the country and file an application for international protection, as well as provide €5,000 in compensation. Civil society investigates IOM emergency returns from Libya and NigerCivil society organisations Brot für die Welt and Medico International have published research which was carried out by researcher Jill Alpes into emergency returns of migrants from Libya and Niger to countries of origin, operated by the International Organisation for Migration. Introduced as an immediate response to protection concerns for people in Libya and Niger, these emergency returns were found to fail to address structural vulnerabilities of migrants and create new protection concerns after arrival. |