| | | | The Migrants' Files
March 2015 update
As the refugee crisis continues, the politics in Europe take a considerable turn away from openness and towards nationalism. The number of refugees who came to Europe has increased, compared to the same time last year. | | | | | | | | The human and financial costs of Fortress Europe
443 people have died or gone missing trying to reach Europe since the beginning of this year, 417 of them in January and February
 | | The migration routes have changed ‒ in 2016, the overwhelming majority of refugees came into Europe from Turkey, crossing the narrow straits between Anatolia and Greek islands nearby.
The number of deaths on the Eastern Mediterranean route has increased significantly, compared to previous years, as more asylum seekers attempt to cross the Aegean, despite the bad weather conditions. However, the mortality rate of this route has not changed significantly compared to previous years. About 1 person in 500 die while crossing, compared with 1 in a hundred on the Central Mediterranean route, which remains the most deadly of all. 
The EU responded by tightening border controls and delegating the responsibility to tackle the crisis to Turkey
At the EU-Turkey summit of 7 March, European governments agreed to drop the 1951 convention on refugees. They accepted to push back all new arrivals from Turkey, a direct violation of the non-refoulement principle of the international law [EU Council, Mar 7]. This measure was agreed between the EU and Turkey back in December 2013 [BBC, Dec 16 2013]
4 NATO ships from Germany, Turkey, Greece, and Canada patrol the Aegean since mid-February. The avowed goal is to disrupt smuggling rings. If refugees are rescued by these ships, they will be deported to Turkey [AP, Feb 22].
You can enjoy the epic photos on their Facebook page [link].
Preventing refugees from leaving Greece is said to be welcomed by some EU officials. It could imply preparations for large-scale refugee camps in Greece [WSJ, Feb 25]. This is in line with the decision by the EU to allocate €700m of aid to Greece [Guardian, Mar 2].
If implemented, this measures will mechanically push refugees towards Albania and, from there, by sea to Italy.
The EU has pledged to give €3 bn to Turkey [BBC, Nov 15], while Turkey started giving work permits to Syrians currently staying in the country [Reuters, Jan 11].
Frontex funding increased by 76% compared to 2015, but is still only €250m, a fraction of the overall funds dedicated to preventing people from coming or staying in Europe, as the 2015 Migrants' Files investigation showed [Euronews, Feb 23].
German and Turkish police cracked down on the people facilitating the under-the-radar movement of the refugees, seizing blank passports [Daily Sabah, Feb 3]. Journalists conducted in-depth investigations of the networks that organized the "Blue Sky M" and "Merkur 1" voyages. [ Correct!v, Dec 11, La Libre Belgique, Mar 3]. Fake lifejackets have become a thriving industry in Turkey. In Izmir, lifejackets of varying quality can be found in every shop, including the butcher's [Ekathimerini, Feb 4].
The Schengen Treaty is durably suspended. While we do not know about the amount of government money spent on the policing of these borders, there are estimates of the price of closed borders for the European economy: about 1% of total GDP [Telegraph, Feb 7].
Macedonia has closed its border with Greece ‒ something it has been threatening to do for the last weeks, while Greece is running out of place to host the numerous refugees on its soil [BBC, Mar 1].  [view online]
Belgium has reintroduced border controls after France has demolished parts of the Calais "Jungle" camp, pushing refugees to seek asylum elsewhere [Telegraph, Feb 23].
Greece recalled its ambassador to Austria after Vienna hosted a Balkan summit on migration without inviting Athens. This is the second time a member state of the European Union recalls its ambassador in another member state [Ekathimerini, Feb 25].
Germany, Denmark and Austria have extended their current border controls. This information was gleaned from the media, and not the European Commission, which is officially in charge of monitoring the Schengen Treaty Zone.
Reports by international NGOs consistently blame European member states for their poor management of the current situation and their violation of international law [Amnesty International, Feb 23, Human Rights Watch, Jan 20]. | | |
Missing refugee children in Europe ‒ the story of shifting the blame.
On January 31st, Europol reported that 10,000 refugee children in Europe were missing. The number was quickly picked up by politicians across Europe to make the case for more controls, all in the name of protecting children. In this opinion piece, for instance, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown assumes that the 10,000 children were enslaved [Guardian, Feb 4].
To us, the number seemed extremely high. We asked Europol for their methodology. After refusing to give us their precise methodology twice over email, their spokesman gave us a call. On the phone, he acknowledged that they did not know of any actual cases of transnational criminal organisations exploiting child refugees. If they were not abducted, where were the 10,000 missing children? Europol patched up the figure from reports by EU member states. In such report, a child is missing if she fails to report to the shelter she was first registered at. In Italy, 5,000 unaccompanied minors went off the radar in 2015, Europol said. Does that mean that they were trafficked? No, it doesn't.
In fact, the 5,000 figure of missing children in Italy is not even accurate ‒ according to the official records quoted by Save the Children Italy, the number of children reported as missing in Italy in 2015 was 6,135. 5,000 is the number of unaccompanied children from Syria and Iraq that arrived to Italy by sea. Save the Children Italy told us over the phone that many children refuse to register with the local authorities (they want to move to another European country). And then they are double-counted every time they cross a border or stay in a shelter. Another thing that makes the underage refugee statistics less trustworthy is the fact that the authorities have no way of assessing a person's age. Some trust the children's declaration, others look at the child's teeth, pubic hair or "bone age", all vastly unreliable methods. What about trafficked children? Save the Children Italy said that underage victims of trafficking are never registered with the authorities ‒ they pose as adults, and are accompanied by their traffickers, who pretend to be their elder relatives. Such cases happen mostly with West African children, not with Iraqis and Syrians. [BBC documentary, Sep 17 2015]
Child trafficking is a serious problem, but Europol does not measure it. Instead of acknowledging their lack of data, they put wrong numbers in the public sphere; numbers that support a political agenda (that all facilitators are odious criminals). The attempt to shift all the guilt on the people who help refugees get through the European borders has worked: On February 22 Europol has announced the launch of the European Migrant Smuggling Centre, dedicated to fighting the "criminal organisations" that organise illegal movement through the borders. [Europol, Feb 22 2016]
The lack of transparency is the main reason why we, to this day, do not have any reliable quantitative information on the numbers of refugees coming to Europe. It is also the reason why independent organizations and consortia must continue to engage in data collection and analysis. We compiled a list of such projects below.
Independent data collection and analysis on refugees
The 19 Million Project ‒ a project bringing together specialists from across the board to better understand the current crisis and develop new ways to tell the stories of refugees.
The MigraHack ‒ a hackathon by Institute for Justice and Journalism that brought together journalists and developers to tell stories of immigration with the use of open data.
Watch The Med is tracking refugee ships in the Mediterranean and alerting the coastguard and other vessels nearby.
Border Deaths collects the official, state-produced data from the borders of Southern Europe. | | | Follow us on Twitter to get our latest updates,
The @MigrantsFiles Team | | | The Migrants' Files was financed in part by journalismfund.eu.
Coordination: Journalism++.
This newsletter was edited and curated by Daria Sukharchuk
The Migrants' Files is an ongoing project. It aims to further improve the quality of its data, to shed more light on the situation of migrants seeking refuge in Europe and to consistently track European asylum and migration policy. If you wish to contribute, please contact us by email debug@themigrantsfiles.com or via Twitter @MigrantsFiles.
Photo credit: Syria Freedom Flickr [link] | | | | | |
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