Blog: Updates from the Ground

Earlier today, Collective Aid and a number of other signatories from humanitarian organisations sent a letter to Greek and EU authorities, warning them that they risk seriously violating the human rights of refugees and asylum seekers who will be accommodated in the soon-to-open Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) in Vastria, Lesvos.

The letter calls for freedom of movement for all people on the move, and demands the following:

• Immediate cessation of the Vastria CCAC’s construction 

• The termination of all related plans for its opening

• The immediate end to the unlawful practice of containing asylum seekers in inhuman conditions on the Greek islands in CCACs

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There is no cause for celebration in this anniversary. This blog brings together writing from a week of commemoration to mark the 20-year anniversary of the European Border and Coastguard Agency, commonly known as Frontex. It considers some of its impacts across the project locations Collective Aid works in, before turning to consider matters further afield.

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In Part 1 of this series, we looked at how the legal criminalisation of people on the move is linked to and supported by the institutional language used by the Coast Guard in its official reporting. Analysing report titles on the Coast Guard's news page between September 2023 and September 2024, we observed a growing trend of framing Search and Rescue Operations as ‘anti-smuggling’ efforts, using increasingly harsher language. 

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This two-part blog considers the increasing criminalisation of migration in Greece from the dual perspectives of state and media reporting. Part one is below, and part two will follow early next week.

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Today, Collective Aid joined a coalition of NGOs working in Northern France to send an open letter to the French authorities, demanding urgent action to improve access to WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) facilities for refugees and displaced people, as recommended by the United Nations in 2023.

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Almost every week, the bodies of people on the move are being recovered from Bosnia-Herzegovina’s borders. On the week beginning August 19th, these bodies included that of a baby girl called Lana, no older than nine months, and her mother. 

Lana and her mother drowned after their boat, which was reportedly carrying around thirty people, capsized on the Drina River marking the border between Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The boat capsized on August 22nd and to date twelve bodies have been recovered from the disaster, among them 15-year-old Mustafa and 20-year-old Ammar, both from Syria. 

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Since 2015, Luke Ćelovića Park, known colloquially as ‘Afghan park’, has been a significant hotspot for people on the move in the centre of Belgrade. With asylum centres around the area either closed or refusing to host displaced people that have not registered an asylum claim in Serbia, Afghan park has provided a meagre but crucial space for people to get some respite and wait until they continue on their journeys towards the EU.

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In Bulgaria, asylum can be claimed either on the territory, at the borders, or in detention centers, and must be referred to the State Agency for Refugees (SAR) within six working days. Upon arrival, individuals who claim asylum can choose to stay in one of the state facilities or in private accommodation on Bulgarian territory. 

While staying in one of the state camps gives the asylum seeker access to healthcare in form of the on-site medical staff and a regular meal - the drawbacks of staying in the badly maintained buildings put people under a lot of stress.  

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Early July saw legislative elections in both France and the UK, resulting in wins for parties on the left on both sides of the Channel. We call upon the newly elected MPs to work on policies based on solidarity and dignity instead of continuing the current discriminatory practices and militarization of the border.

In the UK, the new Labour government has fortunately scrapped the disgraceful Rwanda scheme. They have also disapplied parts of the Illegal Migration Act, meaning that asylum claims from people that arrived after 20 July 2023 can finally be processed. However, Labour is continuing to put forward migration policies based on repression. Rather than creating safe routes to apply for asylum, Keir Starmer has announced the creation of a new Border Security Command with 'counter terrorism-style’ powers.

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In Mytilini, Lesvos the spring and summer months are accompanied by soaring temperatures, often reaching 30 to 40 degrees celsius. For the 890 (UNHCR, 2024a) people on the move currently staying at the Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) in Mytilini, a site which has encountered persistent infrastructural failures (IRC, 2023) and lacks adequate provisions, day-to-day life can be completely unbearable during the hottest months.

The CCAC in Mytilini, CCAC Mavrovouni, suffers from a severe lack of shade, non-functional or completely absent air-conditioning units, infrastructural failures, scabies outbreaks and unequal provision of sun protection items. To further exacerbate this, the CCAC is located on the coast, isolated a one hour walk away from the city, where its lack of vegetation leaves it completely exposed to the elements. 

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It has now been over five months since Collective Aid’s WASH centre in the city of Calais was closed by the authorities on March 18th. We have been fighting this decision, filing both an emergency and a substantive appeal at the administrative court in Lille. We have now received a decision from this court on our emergency appeal which sadly was negative. The court has rejected our emergency appeal on the grounds that they did not consider the situation urgent - despite the obvious importance of having access to clean clothes for reasons of health and hygiene. 

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The small road leading to Ušivak, the family camp on the outskirts of Sarajevo, has an air of sleepiness as usual. Collective Aid volunteers are attempting to shelter themselves from the sweltering afternoon sun and waiting for people to come and collect their non-food item (NFI) orders.

Three teenage boys with shy smiles soon arrive to pick up their clothes, which were packed by our volunteers that morning at the warehouse. They accept our offer of hot, sugary tea and walk unhurriedly back to the camp.

A couple more camp residents pass by, and we inform them about our distribution service. Then it is time to head to the much busier men’s camp, Blažuj, which is just a short drive away.

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The further outsourcing of the EU’s migration controls under the new Pact on Migration is likely to have significant impacts on people on the move in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), making an already dire situation worse. Our team on the ground in Sarajevo continues to hear harrowing stories of illegal pushbacks and border violence in Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria. Instances of illegal pushbacks - where migrants and refugees are 'pushed', or forced, back across a border they have crossed without due process - remain commonplace and often involve considerable cruelty, humiliation, and violence. Survivors of these traumatic experiences are left with lasting scars – both physical and psychological. We recently spoke with a 30-year-old Moroccan man who had experienced multiple violent pushbacks on the Balkan route.

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For decades now, but especially since the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of 2015, EU migration policy has framed migration as a security threat and has increasingly focused on border externalisation. This is a strategy whereby the EU and its member states seek to prevent people on the move from reaching, or staying on, EU territory by outsourcing migration management and border policing to non-EU states.

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Whenever someone dies attempting to cross the Channel and thus the Franco-British border, you will see a statement from senior members of the UK government saying how sorry they are for this loss of life. But this condolence is often swiftly followed by messaging around stopping illegal immigration and emphasising that the real problem is not the UK’s broken asylum system, but human traffickers based in France. After the deaths of five people in the Channel in April of this year, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said “this is what tragically happens when they [criminal gangs] push people out to sea…”.

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There have been people on the move living in and around the French city of Calais since the early 1990s, prompting the Red Cross to open the first official welcome centre in the neighbouring town of Sangatte in 1999 (Alcalde and Portos 2018). This centre was used to provide support to any displaced persons who were passing through the city. However, it was closed down three years later because politicians claimed that the existence of the centre was attracting more forced migrants. The closing of the centre resulted in the settlement that would become known as “the Jungle”. It developed out of discarded tents and wooden pallets, anything that could be used to construct a make-shift shelter. It was then completely evacuated under the orders of President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.

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Fluttering through the thick air of division and discord within the auditorium, the last protest directed at the MEPs in Brussels unfolded prior to the most significant vote in the EU Parliament in years. Coordinates marking the location of shipwrecks and deceased people on the move (POM) at the EU's external borders were written on paper planes launched by demonstrators. The uninvited guests, clad in white, shouted, "This Pact kills - vote no!” However, the outcry merely served as an intermezzo in an eight-year cacophonous quarrel, which reached its resolution on a knife-edge after the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, managed to restore order in the auditorium and supported the passing of the Pact's ten legislative texts - which were narrowly approved - while the names of the dead lay scattered upon the floor. With the formality of the Council's adoption of the Pact on the 14th of May, the reform is now completed, and the Commission will present an implementation plan in June.

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There have been people on the move based in Calais since the late 1990s seeking to enter the UK via irregular routes. Methods to deter those based here have varied, from the destruction of the established living site known as ‘The Jungle’ in October 2016, to increased funding of the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) - the police force who are deployed for riot and crowd control and have a stronghold in Calais to police the beaches, employing brutal methods to prevent crossings like slashing boats and deploying tear gas. In April 2022, the Conservative Government announced the ‘Rwanda Policy’ - an immigration policy that could see those who had sought asylum via irregular routes at risk of being deported to Rwanda, to have their asylum case heard there and to resettle there as a refugee. This policy has caused significant distress to those who seek to cross, who have previously viewed the UK as a place of safety and that respects human rights.

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In the weeks leading up to Bulgaria’s Schengen accession an episode of political and social unrest occurred with the championing of anti-migrant rhetoric and demonstrations on the streets of Sofia.

The protests came three days after a video a was published by the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party, which falsely claimed to show migrants attacking a group of young Bulgarian citizens. Bulgaria’s political climate, dominated by right leaning and nationalist parties, was stirred by the release of the video which circulated  widely on social media.

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On the 31st of March, Bulgaria - alongside Romania - joined Schengen as a partial member by air & sea. The inclusion of land crossings for full accession of these countries was blocked by an Austrian veto over concerns(1) that it would lead to an increase in people wanting to claim asylum in the EU.

What is significant about Bulgaria becoming a Schengen member is that, what has been seen in the lead up, and what we will see following accession, is a new precedent of aggressively fortified borders set for the EU’s external Schengen borders. Which in turn may shape EU wide standards for border management.  

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