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Over the past decade, the Sicilian fishing town of Mazara del Vallo has had a front-row seat to witness escalating EU efforts to curb migration across the Mediterranean, but its fishermen have paid their own high price for Europes strategy and its dealings with Libya.

Mazaras fishermen have rescued thousands of asylum seekers and migrants in distress. They have also been targeted by the Libyan Coast Guard for fishing in waters that Libya considers its own.

Pietro Russo, a 66-year-old fisherman from the town, has been sailing the central Mediterranean since he was 17. Even we, as EU citizens, have experienced the brutality of the Libyan Coast Guard on our own skin, so we know what migrants desperate to leave Libyan prisons feel, Russo told The New Humanitarian.

2021 is shaping up to be the deadliest year in the central Mediterranean since 2017. At least 640 people have drowned or gone missing following shipwrecks, and more than 14,000 asylum seekers and migrants have reached Italy a ratio of one death for about every 22 people who survive the crossing.

In comparison, around 1,430 people had died or disappeared in the central Mediterranean by the end of May 2017, and more than 60,000 had arrived in Italy a ratio of 1 death for every 42 arrivals.

This year, more than 8,500 asylum seekers have also been intercepted by the EU-backed Libyan Coast Guard and returned to detention centres in Libya, European navies have largely withdrawn from search and rescue activities, and NGOs trying to help migrants facing numerous bureaucratic hurdles are struggling to maintain a consistent presence at sea.

As weather conditions for crossing the sea improve heading into summer, Mazaras fishermen find themselves increasingly alone, caught in the middle of a humanitarian crisis that appears to be getting worse and facing a hostile Libyan Coast Guard.

Many of the fishermen feel their government has abandoned them in favour of maintaining good relations with Libyan authorities (an accusation Italian authorities refute), and are frustrated that Italy appears to be turning a blind eye to the risks of partnering with Libya to curb migration risks the fishermen have witnessed and experienced first hand.

Last September, 18 fishermen from Mazara were captured by forces aligned with Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar while fishing in a disputed area of the sea. They were held in a detention centre in Libya for more than 100 days. Dozens of fishermen from the town have been similarly detained in a series of incidents stretching back to the 1980s.

More recently, at the beginning of May, the crew of a Libyan Coast Guard boat donated by Italy opened fire at three fishing vessels from Mazara wounding one fisherman for allegedly entering the disputed waters.

Italys government acknowledges that maritime boundaries need to be more clearly defined to avoid future incidents, but with the focus on other priorities from the COVID-19 pandemic to controlling migration thats not likely to happen any time soon.

Meanwhile, Mazaras fishermen are frustrated that tens of millions of euros of Italian taxpayer money is being used to support a group that attacks and detains them, and they are increasingly speaking out about their experiences and about what they say is Italy and the EUs Faustian bargain with Libya in the central Mediterranean.

If [Libya] is not safe for us, who are Italian citizens and can have protection, how can it be [safe] for vulnerable asylum seekers? Roberto Figuccia, a Mazara fisherman who has been detained by the Libyan Coast Guard twice since 2015 and has rescued more than 150 asylum seekers and migrants at sea, told The New Humanitarian.

Located on the western edge of Sicily, Mazara del Vallo is around 170 kilometres from Tunisia and 550 kilometres from Libya about the same distance the town is from Rome. Home to around 50,000 people, it is a melting pot of Mediterranean cultures. Since the 1960s, thousands of Tunisians have settled in the area to work in the fishing sector, and many now hold dual citizenship. About seven percent of the towns current population was born abroad a relatively high number for a small Italian town.

Russo, however, has roots in Mazara that stretch as far back as anyone in his family can remember. He was born and raised in the town, and never left.

He recalled setting out on a pristine early autumn morning in 2007 from Mazaras port, steering his fishing boat out into the shimmering waters of the central Mediterranean. Russo and his five-man crew were preparing the fishing nets as the sun inched higher in the morning sky when someone spotted an object shining on the horizon. The crew soon realised it was a help signal from a boat stranded at sea.

Russo piloted his trawler towards the people in distress. As he drew closer, he saw a deflating rubber dinghy packed with asylum seekers and migrants. There were 26 people onboard, mostly from Chad and Somalia. It was the first time Russo had rescued anyone at sea, and the event is seared in his memory.

Back then before numbers started soaring in 2014 and 2015 and the wider world suddenly started paying attention it was still common for anywhere from around 17,000 to 37,000 asylum seekers and migrants to cross the central Mediterranean to Italy in any given year. No one was really keeping track of how many people died.

Italian authorities would often call on fishing vessels from Mazara like Russos to assist in rescues and stabilise the situation until the Italian Coast Guard or Navy could arrive. Since we were often closer to the scene, they would tell us to go ahead, Russo said. We would do it even if that meant losing work days and money.

The fishermens rescue efforts gained international recognition, and several received awards for their humanitarian spirit. For most fishermen from Mazara, the rescues are not political; they just make sense. We have never abandoned anyone, said Russo, who has been involved in five other rescues. We follow the law of the sea. For us, these are not migrants; they are simply people stranded at sea that we must help.

But in 2009, attitudes about migration outside of Mazara started to shift. The previous year, nearly 37,000 asylum seekers and migrants landed in the country an increase from around 20,000 each of the three previous years. Sensing a political opportunity, Silvio Berlusconi, the populist Italian prime minister at the time, focused attention on the increase and signed a treaty of friendship with Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, committing the two countries to work together to curb irregular migration.

In July 2009, Italy also introduced a law criminalising irregular entry into the country, and fishermen found themselves facing the threat of being charged with facilitating irregular immigration for rescuing people at sea. Each time they disembarked asylum seekers and migrants in Italian ports, they were now required to give a deposition to police stating they were not smuggling them into the country.

The 2009 law did not deter Mazara del Vallos fleet, but the policy made it more bureaucratically onerous and potentially legally risky for civilians to rescue people in distress.

Authorities would still close an eye on [rescues] in the first couple of years because those were new guidelines that military authorities had just begun navigating. But it was definitely the first signal that things were about to go in a different direction, Russo explained.

The more decisive shift towards outright hostility against civilians rescuing asylum seekers and migrants in the central Mediterranean began after October 2014, when the Italian Navys search and rescue mission Mare Nostrum came to an end.

The mission was launched one year early, in October 2013, after more than 400 people died in two shipwrecks off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. In Italy and the rest of Europe, the tragedies galvanised a brief moment of sympathy for people risking their lives at sea to reach safety.

But the year that it operated, the number of people crossing the central Mediterranean jumped to over 170,000 nearly three times the previous high. Most of those arriving in Europe were refugees escaping civil war in Syria or fleeing repression and human rights abuses in countries like Eritrea. But among European politicians, the idea took hold that having search and rescue assets at sea was acting as a pull factor, encouraging people to attempt the journey.

Negotiations over an EU-backed operation to replace Mare Nostrum broke down. In the months and years that followed, Mazaras fishermen noticed Italian and EU naval assets deployed to combat people smuggling or enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya slowly started retreating from the areas where most migrant boats crossed.

Read more Death on the Central Mediterranean: 2013-2020

Harassment and violent attacks by the Libyan Coast Guard against fishermen from Mazara also picked up pace, the fishermen say.

Then, in 2017 Italy signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya to begin funding, training, and equipping the Libyan Coast Guard to reduce the number of asylum seekers and migrants reaching Europe; and Italy and the EU began pushing Libya to take control of the search and rescue zone off its coast.

The migration agreements were met with backlash from the Sicilian fishing sector, Tommaso Macaddino, president of the Sicilian branch of the fishermens labour union UILA Pesca, told The New Humanitarian. We already knew deputising the control of that area to Libyans would set a dangerous precedent, not only for migrants but also for Italians.

For Macaddino, the negotiating power the agreement gave Libya and the trade-off Italy was prepared to make seemed clear. A larger portion of waters under the management of Libyans meant migrants in that area were less of a European responsibility, he said. It also meant, Macaddino added, that in order to keep its Libyan partners happy the Italian government was less likely to challenge Libyas claim to the disputed waters where Mazaras fishermen work.

In 2017 and 2018, the situation for civilians rescuing asylum seekers and migrants in the central Mediterranean took yet another turn for the worse. Several Italian prosecutors opened investigations into whether NGOs were cooperating with Libyan people smugglers to facilitate irregular migration. In the end, none of the investigations turned up evidence of collusion, but they helped create an atmosphere of public and political hostility towards civilian rescue efforts.

Mazaras fishermen once celebrated as humanitarians were now seen by many as part of the migration problem.

After Matteo Salvini a right-wing, anti-migrant politician became interior minister in 2018, he closed Italys ports to NGO rescue ships and introduced hefty fines for civilian rescuers who ran afoul of increasingly stringent Italian guidelines as part of a broader crackdown on migration.

For Pietro Marrone, a 62-year-old fisherman from Mazara who became a captain at age 24, the outright hostility was the last straw. Instead of stepping back, it motivated many of us well aware of the risks Libyan militia represent to any human being to keep saving lives at sea, Marrone told The New Humanitarian.

Marrone decided to join the NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans as a captain for rescue missions. In March 2019, the rescue boat Marrone was piloting saved 49 people all migrants from western Africa, and several of them children who had been drifting off the coast of Lampedusa for two days. Italian authorities refused to give Marrone permission to bring the rescued people into an Italian port, saying they should be returned instead to Libya. He brought them ashore anyway.

I refused to obey a military order to leave them at sea. In the 1980s, I had a violent encounter with Libyan militias, [so I know that] no one is safe if taken back to Libya, he said.

Read more What happens to migrants forcibly returned to Libya?

Marrone was charged with facilitating illegal immigration and disobeying the military, and had his captains license revoked. The case against him was dismissed last December after Salvinis immigration bills were amended by a new Italian government that entered office in September 2019. But NGOs continue to be investigated and prosecuted for participating in rescue activities.

Out of 21 cases opened since 2017, none has gone to trial. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Italian authorities have impounded NGO search and rescue boats at least eight times, citing what they say are various technical and operational irregularities. The NGOs say it is just another way the Italian government is trying to criminalise rescue activities.

Whats the crime here? Marrone asked. Humanitarian missions keep being criminalised, and migrants [keep being] pushed back to a country that cannot guarantee their protection, in crowded detention centres.

Ilyesse Ben Thameur, 30, is the child of Tunisian immigrants to Mazara del Vallo. He is also one of the 18 fishermen who was captured last September and held in Libya for over 100 days.

The detention centre where he was held was overcrowded and filthy. Many of the other people in the facility were migrants or Libyan intellectuals opposed to Haftar. Ben Thameur said he could hear their screams as they were tortured, and see the lingering marks of violence on their bodies. Like other fishermen from Mazara, when he was released, he returned to Sicily with physical and psychological wounds.

If even EU citizens like myself cannot be safe there, imagine what it must feel like for migrants who have no one backing them up.

While captive, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reassured Ben Thameurs family that he was being kept in safe and healthy conditions. People in Mazara think the messaging was an attempt to hide the abuses taking place in a system they say Italy is complicit in supporting.

Our stories show that Libya, as a whole, is not a safe port for anybody, Ben Thameur said. If even EU citizens like myself cannot be safe there, imagine what it must feel like for migrants who have no one backing them up.

In May 2020, just a few months before he was captured, Ben Thameur helped save dozens of asylum seekers and migrants. He believes that if his crew wasnt there, they might have been intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard and taken back to detention centres in Libya.

Having experienced detention in Libya, it bothers him that his government is helping to send thousands of people back to those conditions. Along with other fishermen from Mazara and across Sicily Ben Thameur hopes speaking up about his own experiences will help make a difference.

If they dont believe migrants' accounts, they will at least have to listen to EU citizens who experienced the same tortures, he said. Maybe our testimony showing that even Italians arent safe [in Libya] could somehow help change things.

sdi/er/ag

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A Sicilian fishing town, and the perils of Italy's migration deal with Libya - The New Humanitarian

In an interview, youve said that the film Meel Patthar (Milestone, released on Netflix on May 7, premiered at last years Venice International Film Festival) tells you where you are and how much further you have to go. Could you explain?

That was about why Id named the film Meel Patthar (Milestones). Milestones tell you where you are and how far you have to go. But in the film, its a weird sort of milestone, because even after 500,000 km, Ghalib has absolutely no idea hes achieved that. Theres just uncertainty.

Your debut feature Soni (2018) came as a reflection on the aftermath of the 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. How did the idea for your second feature come about?

I was always interested in writing about the world. There are people in my extended family who have been truck drivers at some point in their lives and then went on to become transporters. Growing up, I had heard stories and this whole idea fascinated me that there is this individual whos just travelling all his life, but still kind of stuck within this little box. So, travelling but not really, travelling. This idea was an interesting paradox. Living outside India, I got a chance to discover more about this world. A lot of the transportation in the trucking business, especially in the US, is dominated by the Indian community. Originally, the idea was that of an immigrant truck driver. When I moved here (to India) after Soni, the idea then was to work in north India, especially Delhi. Delhi has Sanjay Gandhi Transport Nagar, which, I think, is the biggest transportation zone in all of Asia. The place is quite appealing just from the image perspective alone. So, the film eventually became a film about a Punjabi truck driver who was working in Delhi.

You named your protagonists after poets Ghalib (Suvinder Vicky) and Pash (Lakshvir Saran), and theres a cameo by the young poet Aamir Aziz, too. How important was poetry to the film?

Initially, I wanted the driver to be an aspiring poet. But then that train of thought ran a bit hollow. I chose to stick with the names because I wanted to explore this thought, what if nobody mentions their names in the poetic context in the film. The names by themselves are meaningless in the story. Chances are, for the majority of the young audiences, barring those into literature and poetry, these names dont mean much, they will not know who these names belong to or what they mean. I felt it would be an interesting experiment to see how many people actually notice. But, overall, it was a cynical, pessimistic thought at work that the names are meaningless in the story. As for Aziz, we wanted someone who could play a union leader, who came from Bihar or Jharkhand, because most people who do the loading-unloading work are from there. When we got his (Azizs) audition, we didnt register who he was even though his face seemed familiar. Then, people were not familiar with his poetry yet.

Why arent the trucks in your film colourful and quirky like the ones we see on the roads and in Bollywood films?

There are both kinds of trucks in the trade. I decided not to show ostentatiously decorated trucks in the film because Ghalib isnt a kind of truck driver whos interested in doing that. He lives with a sense of detachment, does his work, and thats all. Hes aloof, not interested in making places he inhabits attractive. We had a whole casting process for the truck. Bollywood sees things in a different way and a certain kind of truck driver and bright trucks are a part of their film experience. They choose to portray them in that way: happy, loud and gregarious.

You finished shooting the film right before the lockdown last year. How do you think the truck drivers community has been dealing with the situation?

The truckers suffered immensely last year, because everything stopped. I think there was a period of almost two weeks when they didnt even allow many of the truck drivers to come on to the highways. I dont know why the migrant crisis surprised so many of us. What were they (migrant workers) supposed to do? This is the kind of thing that happens when you do things just out of pure impulse, without even understanding the consequences for a large majority of the country. This showed that people are only interested in saving themselves, even if it comes at the cost of throwing the ball under the bus. That they (migrant labourers) dont matter.

With rural-urban migration and woes of the urban working class as the films dominant themes, are you critiquing capitalism through Meel Patthar?

Ive always felt that they (truck drivers) are the backbone of our economy. The transportation business is essentially what makes civil life possible. The whole capitalistic system is still very much dependent on this industry, and yet, the sector ends up being at the receiving end of the injustices of the system. It is ironic that people who are probably at its core, end up becoming probably its biggest victims. A lot of them dont even realise it until its too late. You see that in the film through the strike of the loader (porters) and a veteran truck driver friend of Ghalib being laid off.

But Ive also tried to highlight other things, like how we expect too much from the urban working class. The scene where Ghalib is trying to walk up the stairs as the lift is out of use, he encounters the lift repairman, and the gas-cylinder-delivery man, I wanted to expose the world that exists outside of Transport Nagar, and how that world is also infested with the same injustices and tension. Its hard to pin down whose fault it is. Its the whole complexity of our modern Indian society. These are just observations that Im just trying to share with the audiences.

Read the original post:
I dont know why the migrant crisis surprised us - The Indian Express

How the elderly, among the most vulnerable victims of COVID-19, are braving the pandemic

After 57 years of marriage, she is newly single. Her husband died of COVID-19 in the last week of April. Her son, who was in the ICU at the time, is better now. The Pune-based senior citizen (who does not wish to be named) is aware that several members of her yoga club have also passed away. Nobody knows who will be next, so I have started calling up everybody, whose number I have, to talk. I dont know if I will get the chance to meet them again, she says.

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I dont know why the migrant crisis surprised us

In an interview, youve said that the film Meel Patthar (Milestone, released on Netflix on May 7, premiered at last years Venice International Film Festival) tells you where you are and how much further you have to go. Could you explain?

That was about why Id named the film Meel Patthar (Milestones). Milestones tell you where you are and how far you have to go. But in the film, its a weird sort of milestone, because even after 500,000 km, Ghalib has absolutely no idea hes achieved that. Theres just uncertainty.

READ MORE

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Why it is timely to read Bhaswati Mukherjees fresh look into how Bengal negotiated Partition in Bengal and its Partition: An Untold Story

An impassioned and deeply-researched work, Bhaswati Mukherjees Bengal and Partition: An Untold Story is an invaluable contribution to the particular issues that animated politics in Bengal, a marginally Muslim-majority province, that distinguished it from the freedom movement in much of the rest of the country. It was not only, or indeed most significantly, the Hindu-Muslim demography of the province that gave it a unique perspective, but, overlaying these religious differences was the proud linguistic unity and syncretic cultural heritage that made Bengal different. (I would rate Chapter 6, The Struggle for identity: Language and Religion, as the most outstanding in the book).

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How seduction works in the world of flora

In the animal kingdom, its usually the male of the species that struts its stuff and tries to seduce the ladies, who will pick the most handsome, rugged and tough as her mate, checking out his looks and fitness and fighting capabilities. In the botanical world, a plant, rooted to the ground cannot wander around showing off, singing and dancing to seduce a mate. So, it employs the services of, what one could roughly say is, a marriage bureau to get itself a mate. This bureau has a host of mammals, insects and birds (and even the wind) on its rolls. And as there are no free lunches, these services have to be paid for in sweet nectar (sugar water, really), produced in glands called nectarines, and nourishing pollen.

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How Hindustani classical singer Aditya Modak trained to play the lead in The Disciple

Chaitanya Tamhanes film The Disciple opens with Pt Vinayak Pradhan (essayed deftly by Jaipur-Atrauli gharana classical singer Pt Arun Dravid) on the stage. The ageing vocalist, from Alwar gharana, is immersed in the glorious Jaunpuri (Jhanana bichhua baje), a raga that evokes wonder and bhakti bhaav. His accompanying disciple looks on in reverence, with eager nods and eyes that capture his desire to perform like his guru one day. Moments later, the setting shifts to the gurus room, who, with a teacup in hand, breaks down the raga to his promising shishya as Sharad Nerulkar (played by Hindustani classical artiste Aditya Modak), tanpura in hand, rote-learns and sings.

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How Raza Mirs Murder at the Mushaira looks back at the rebellious days of 1857

On a dark night in May 1857, a solitary man on horseback makes his way towards Shahjahanabad. Unrest had been fomenting in the countryside, bitter resentment spilling over from years of humiliation and abuse by the British, who had, since an obscure battle in Plassey, come to control greater parts of the country. Sarfaraz Laskar, the rider, knew that the time was ripe to flame that seething animosity into a full-blown rebellion if he could make his way to the seat of the etiolated Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, that is.

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Why Sanjaya Baru looks at the dismantling of an old order of power elites for a new ideological hegemony in Indias Power Elite: Caste, Class and Cultural Revolution

Debate on the constantly evolving power elite in India is not a new concept. The strength of Sanjaya Barus latest book, however, is its topicality. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the term power elite has acquired a new, thought-provoking, somewhat sinister inference. Modi, as Baru sees it, has dismantled the old order of power elites in Delhi and seeks to impose an unquestioning hegemonic domination on an ideological basis. Globalised upper-class intellectuals and liberals are suspect and to be replaced by middle-class Hindu nationalists who serve, ostensibly, the larger cause of Bharat as opposed to that of India. Any negation of the new faith is viewed with unconcealed hostility.

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Original post:
Sunday Long Reads: Elderly in the pandemic, migrant crisis, seduction in the plant kingdom, and more - The Indian Express

US Vice President Kamala Harrisheld a virtualmeeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel LopezObradoron Friday to discuss immigration policies.It was their second meeting in a month.

During the meeting, Harris and Lopez Obrador pledged to cooperate on resolving the roots ofillegal migration into the US.

Harrissaid the US and Mexicomust combat violence and corruption together, to help cut back migration from Central America.

"Most people don't want to leave home and when they do it is often because they are fleeing some harm or they are forced to leave because there are no opportunities," she said.

The two countries saidthey should work together on helping"Northern Triangle" countries El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras improve conditions and persuade migrants to stay home.

"It is in our countries' mutual interest to provide immediate relief to the Northern Triangle and to address the root causes of migration,"Harrissaid.

Lopez Obrador referred to the long-running issues of US-Mexican tensions over migration and said "we need to understand one another and avoid fighting."

"We are in agreement when it comes to the policies that you are undertaking when it comes to migration and we will help. That is what I can say as of now. You can count on us," he added.

The meeting comes at a time the Biden administration grapples with a surge in people crossing into the US at the southern border.

In March, President JoeBidentasked Harris with leading diplomatic efforts to decrease immigration from Mexico and Central America.

Biden raised the US's annual refugee cap on Monday to 62,500. It followedpressure from the Democratic party and refugee agencies after initially sticking by the historically-low Trump-era figure of 15,000.

Shortly before the scheduled call with Harris, Lopez Obrador sent a diplomatic note asking Washington to explain funding for Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity, a group critical of the Mexican government.

"It's promoting a form of coup," LopezObrador said,adding that the funding, which includes money from USAID, undermines Mexico's government and sovereignty.

"It is an interventionist act that violated our sovereignty That's why we're asking that (the U.S. government) clarifies this for us. A foreign government can't provide money to political groups," he said.

Later asked if he believed Washington was seeking to remove him from office, he said he did not think that was the case.

A large wall stretches into the Pacific Ocean at the beaches of San Diego and Tijuana, two populous cities separated by the US-Mexico border. It is one of the most secure areas of the frontier and is part of the 1100 kilometers (700 miles) of fencing that have been completed thus far.

The fight over how to secure the border has divided Republicans, who support more fencing, and Democrats, who argue that using technology is more effective. Experts estimate it would cost $15-25 billion (13-22 billion) to fully wall off the entire southern frontier.

Large swaths of the border are covered in desert, desolate and uninhabited. Many migrants try to cross these areas, where they fall victim to disorientation, dehydration and where the risk of death is high. Activists often leave water (pictured) and other supplies to help migrants survive the dangerous trek.

Roughly half of the 3,000-kilometer border falls along the snaking Rio Grande. Migrants regularly attempt to cross the river, either by swimming or on rafts. The calm appearance of the Rio Grande is deceitful, as it is a fast-moving river with dangerous currents.

The US-Mexico border is considered the most transited frontier in the world. Most of the movement takes place at the various points of entry, where lawful back-and-forth traffic and asylum-seekers meet. The Matamoros-Brownsville International Bridge (pictured) is one of 44 official points of entry and the last one before the border ends at the Gulf of Mexico.

Author: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez

Washington has expressed concern over record number of undocumented immigrants arriving at the southern border. An influx is expected to increase as the weather warms.

Border authorities stopped around 170,000 people trying to enter the US illegally in March, a 20-year high.

The number of unaccompanied children in particular have surged, with photos of migrant shelters showing children crammed together in poor conditions circulating on media platforms.

In February, the White House said it would start phasing out Trump's Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP). The program had forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their asylum cases to be heard.

The US border remains closed to most asylum seekers under the Trump administration's COVID-19-related order. Biden has not revoked the order.

About two-thirds of US adults said the Biden administration was doing a very bad or somewhat bad job of dealing with the increased number of people seeking asylum, according to a May survey from the Pew Research Center.

Harrishas said she will visit Mexico and Guatemala on June 7-8 for her first trip abroad as vice president.

Read the rest here:
US and Mexico vow to cooperate on border crisis - DW (English)

A Maine man and U.S. Border Patrol agent who was assigned to work along the southern border in Texas earlier this year has been hospitalized for weeks after contracting the novel coronavirus, his loved ones have said.

Kostas Papadopoulos was deployed to Texas on March 1 "to assist with the current migrant crisis" and, that same monthwas hospitalized with COVID-19, according to a GoFundMe page created to benefit him and his family. The page does not specify how long he was in Texas before he got sick.

DHS CHIEF MAYORKAS TOURS BORDER FACILITY, SAYS HUNDREDS OF MIGRANT KIDS STILL COMING OVER EVERY DAY

Papadopoulos was admitted to the hospital in March and was later moved to the intensive care unit for more than a month, the page states.

"Being hospitalized for so long and far from family/friends has placed a tremendous burden on this family. Their family, friends, co-workers of the U.S. Border Patrol, and church family agree that Kostas & Jackie would offer the utmost support to another family in need," organizer Dayna Lincoln wrote on the GoFundMe page. "Thus, we feel it is time to ask that our community offer support to them during this difficult time."

Lincoln created the fundraising page earlier this week, to "help offset costs for an out-of-pocket medical evacuation flight from Texas to Boston, where Kostas will be further evaluated," she wrote. She did not respond to Fox News requests seeking comment.

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As of Friday, the page had raised nearly $39,000 for the Papadopoulos family, far surpassing their $25,000 goal that had been originally set.

In an update provided Thursday on the page, Lincoln wrote that arrangements had been made to transfer Papadopoulos, a father of three, to the Boston hospital for further treatment closer to home.

Lincoln thanked Papadopoulos "brothers and sisters" of the Border Patrol for "looking after him" when his wife, Jaclyn, could not be there.

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"Since Kostas was first admitted to the hospital in March, his family and coworkers have been working toward a single goal: bring him home," the update states. "There remains a long road ahead for his full recovery and the continued support and encouragement from everyone will be a BIG part of it. We hope and pray his time in Boston will be a short stop on his way back to Maine."

Read more from the original source:
Border Patrol agent hospitalized with COVID-19 after responding to border crisis in March - Fox News