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A lot has been happening in the midst of the European migrant crisis. Most notably, the political debate between EU member states is widening on how to best handle this significantly deteriorating crisis. Specifically, the Visegrad Group, consisting of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, have opposed Brussels quota system on accepting refugees from war-torn areas. Criticism of the Visegrad countries, known as the V4, specifically on this ground, is unjustified, and rather than focusing on efforts to distribute thousands of migrants, Brussels must focus on helping resolve the crisis so that people are not forced to undertake this journey to Europe.

First, there is no guarantee that all migrants seeking refuge in Europe are indeed coming from war-torn regions in Syria and Iraq, and this is highlighted by the lack of documentation on hand during the current crisis. Countries might have significantly effective vetting systems but these fail to work if documentation is unavailable or can be forged. With the risk of stating the obvious, no country desires an influx of unidentified individuals.

Second, and most importantly, the V4 countries are correct in their decision on the grounds of ensuring safety and security for their own citizens. The migrant crisis in Europe has been correlated with a huge influx of crime. In Germany, which has accepted the largest number of migrants, this has increased by more than 50 percent since the previous year. This was manifested in the Cologne New Years Eve sexual assault incident, where most of the perpetrators were migrants.

In parallel, Europe has witnessed some of the worst attacks of terrorism on its soil since the beginning of this crisis. While most of these attacks have been conducted by their own citizens who have either fought for or supported ISIS, some attacks have seen the involvement of foreigners who have taken advantage of the migrant crisis to enter Europe. Two of the terrorists in the November 2015 Paris attacks, who eventually blew themselves up outside the Stade de France, had entered Europe on fake Syrian passports. A year later, a Tunisian man murdered a Polish driver and drove his truck at a Christmas market in Berlin, leading to Germanys worst terror attack since the start of the crisis. In light of these events, the V4 countries have been reluctant to accept migrants. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who heads the ruling PiS party in Poland, has asserted that security considerations are the reason for Polands stance. And as recent events have shown, he is right.

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The EU Can't Afford to Ignore Europe's Migrant Crisis | The National ... - The National Interest Online

Highlights

During the first half of 2017, close to 93,000 refugees and migrants arrived on European shores mainly through the Central Mediterranean Route - around half of them arrived in just May and June 2017. While barely one in six of sea arrivals this year are children, the number of unaccompanied or separated children (UASC) coming to Italy is on the rise with 11,406 newly registered UASC between January and June 2017.

During the first half of 2017, UNICEF helped identify and support a total of 9,190 children at risk through outreach activities in Turkey, Greece, Italy, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; supported structured non-formal education for 4,256 children in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; and strengthened the capacity of 2,674 frontline workers on child protection across Europe.

The situation in Europe is characterized by a spike in perilous, often fatal, sea crossings through the Central Mediterranean, continuous irregular movements in the Balkans and across Europe, as well as tightened border control and heated political debate on migration across the continent. Confronted with uncertain future, isolation, insufficient access to services and slow family reunification, relocation and asylum procedures, refugee and migrant children remain at high risk and require urgent action by national and European stakeholders to step up action for their protection.

Situation in Numbers

92,794 # of arrivals in Europe through Italy and in JanuaryJune 2017 (UNHCR, 7 July 2017)

1 in 6 Of all arrivals in January-June 2017 are children (UNHCR, 7 July 2017)

69,200 # of child asylum-seekers in Europe between January and May 2017 (Eurostat, 7 July 2017)

22,663 # of estimated stranded children in Greece, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia in June, 2017 (UNICEF, 7 July 2017)

7,379 # of children relocated from Greece and Italy under the EU relocation scheme by mid-June 2017- 6,737 from Greece and 642 from Italy. (IOM, Italian MoI, 23 June 2017)

UNICEF Appeal 2017 US$ 43,452,000

Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs

During the first half of 2017, a total of 92,794 refugees and migrants arrived on European shores mainly through the Central Mediterranean Route1 - over half of them were registered in just May and June 2017. While just one in six of all sea arrivals in 2017 are children, compared to over one in three during the same period last year2 , the number of unaccompanied or separated children (UASC) arriving in Italy remain significantly high with 11,406 newly registered UASC between January and June 2017 (compared to 10,640 in the first six months of last year). An estimated 300 children are feared to have drowned in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2017- a trend, which is on the rise with the spike in perilous sea crossings from Libya to Italy since May. Moreover, the multiplying reports of violence, abuse and exploitation, experienced or witnessed by children in Libya, suggest their high vulnerability and require urgent action for their protection.

The number of children stranded in Greece and the Balkans continue to decrease. As of June 2017 total number is estimated to be 22,663 of children (down from 25,602 two months ago). While this may be partly due to relocation and family reunification from Greece, there is constant irregular movements throughout the Balkans. The situation remains challenging in Greece, Serbia and Bulgaria, where 40 per cent of all stranded refugees and migrants are children. Despite officially closed borders, Serbia is facing constant new arrivals, mainly from Bulgaria, coupled with reported increasing push-backs and returns from Hungary and Croatia. Confronted with uncertain future, isolation, insufficient access to services and slow and bureaucratic family reunification, relocation and asylum processes, many young people decide to resort to smugglers to continue their journey within Europe. During May and June, UNICEF observed an increase of newly registered refugee and migrant UASC along the Balkans route. Similarly, in Italy, a recent study found that the majority of Eritrean UASC arriving through the Central Mediterranean route drop out of the system shortly after registration as they want to reach family and friends elsewhere in Europe and do not have sufficient access to services and information on legal pathways and asylum procedures. According to the Italian Special Commissioner for Missing People, the number of unaccompanied children absconding from reception centres reached 28,000 children just last year- a trend that is continuing throughout the first half of 2017.

Detention of children for migration control purposes remains another issue of serious concern. In Greece, despite efforts to identify alternatives to detention with the creation of safe spaces for UASC in accommodation sites, the number of UASC in closed facilities almost doubled in just one month (reaching the total number of 94 children in those facilities), which is a reflection of significant increase in arrivals in June. In Bulgaria, both accompanied and unaccompanied children continue to be detained upon interception, and on average spend 13 days in closed facilities before being able to claim asylum. In Italy, according to a recent report, unaccompanied children (boys and girls) may stay in Lampedusa hotspot for over one month. A positive development in the hotspot is the presence of INMP3 that applies a multidisciplinary approach for the age assessment.

Despite the heated political debate on migration, 2017 has seen the adoption of a new law in Italy (n.47, 7 April 2017) considered one of the most progressive pieces of legislation on unaccompanied refugee and migrant children, and the EU Communication on the Protection of Children in Migration. Both documents define concrete measures and steps to improve the protection of refugee and migrant children in Europe, and help guide actions at European, national and local level. Other positive developments include a recent decision by the UK government to expand the Syrian Vulnerable People Resettlement Scheme, ongoing efforts by French authorities to improve the reception and protection of refugee and migrant children and actions to address bottlenecks related to the relocation of UASC from Italy and Greece.

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UNICEF Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe: Regional ... - ReliefWeb

London:A group of far-right activists soon to set sail on the Mediterranean to "turn back the boats"say they shouldn't be judged on youthful links to extremist and neo-Nazi groups, because they've grown out of it.

Next week the activists begin a ten-day sea mission they have dubbed Defend Europe, which they hope will expose humanitarian groups acting as a 'taxi service' helping people smugglers transport migrants north from Africa.

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Generation Identity has crowdfunded $100,000 to crew a ship to stop refugees from entering Europe.

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The southern New Zealand city of Christchurch has declared a state of emergency amid a severe storm that has already resulted in hundreds of homes evacuated across the nation. Vision: Seven News

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Generation Identity has crowdfunded $100,000 to crew a ship to stop refugees from entering Europe.

And they told Fairfax Media they intend to return rescued migrants back to Africa even Libya, which "can't be that bad" a place, a spokesman for the group said.

Robert Timm is a 26-year-old Berlin architecture student and an activist with Germany's "identitarians", who joined similar groups in France, Austria and Italy to set up the Defend Europe mission.

He spoke with Fairfax Media on Thursday from Catania in Sicily, where he and his colleagues are waiting for their boat to arrive from Djibouti.

On Thursday the boat, named the C-Star, was seizedby security authorities in the Suez Canal because of "a matter of security due to the lack of documentation and papers", Huffington Post reported.

However Defend Europe posted on its Facebook page that "after a false claim by a leftist organisation our ship was controlled and as nothing was found, our mission to defend Europe goes on," they said. "We need to implement an Australian 'No Way' Policy to save Europe and to save lives."

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Timm said Egyptian authorities had boarded the ship "checking some documents" but it was again on the move.

The boat would arrive in Catania within days and would set off for its first ten-day mission early next week.

The crew of about 10 would take videos and photographs of NGO and migrant boats, Timm said.

About a dozen boats crewed by humanitarian groups are currently working in the areato help with rescues.

Around 85,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat in the first six months of 2017, 21 per cent more than in the same period in 2016.

More than 2200 people have died attempting the crossing this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

Rescues are happening much closer to Libyan waters, prompting accusations the NGOs are encouraging people smugglers.

"Our first objective is to just look how the other NGOs are working, if [there are]signs that they are actually cooperating with the human traffickers," Timm said.

They will track NGO boats using radar, to check if they stray into Libyan waters, and monitor radio channels to see if they were communicating with people smugglers.

"This is something we want to see and document," Timm said. "The more evidence we collect the better."

NGOs may also be picking migrants up from boats that were intact and not in danger, he said.

"There are rumours that the traffickers themselves are still on the boat, then the people are brought to an NGO ship then the guy brings the ship back [to Libya]."

He said the mission was "already a success" because of new scrutiny of the actions of humanitarian NGOs. If somebody genuinely needed rescuing during their mission Defend Europe would come to their aid, Timm said.

"But we will make sure that we are not making ourselves also responsible for bringing migrants to Europe. If we have to take people on board we will make sure they go back somewhere to Tunisia or somewhere else close by."

Timm denied that the human rights principle of non-refoulement required them to take rescued migrants to the safety of an Italian port.

Tunisia was safe enough to take rescued migrants as a first choice. If Tunisia rejected them then Libya was an option, he said.

"Libya is definitely not a cosy place, but they took the risk of being in Libya in the first place so it can't be that bad actually," Timm said. "If your life is really in danger you don't really complain that you are being brought back to Africa, you should be happy that you are still alive."

He suggested Defend Europe may join in rescues with other NGOs and offer to take the migrants back to Africa.

"That tells a lot about the actual motives they have" if they refuse the Defend Europe option, Timm said.

If their mission is successful they will try to repeat it.

In Germany the identitarians are registered as "a kind of club" but they were trying to become a professional NGO, Timm said.

He said they admired Australia for "dealing pretty well" with migrants arriving by boat.

"This is something we should establish in Europe as well," he said.

Nick Lowles, director of the anti-extremist Hope Not Hate group, said Defend Europe were "anything but cuddly".

He wrote for the Huffington Post on Thursday that "they hold deeply anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views and, in many cases, have links to notorious far-right groups as well as being actively supported by white supremacists worldwide".

But Timm said his colleagues were not racist.

"Europe is pretty small and we are very few people and if we now take in a certain amount of migrants and we become a minority within our own territory then our culture will vanish and that is something we just want to prevent," he said.

He said there was "nobody that is actively a neo-Nazi" in the group.

"There are people that have a right-wing past" but "they usually were at the age of 14 to 18", he said.

Timm used to be "very radical left", he said. "Nobody is judging me for my past but they are judging these people and I think this is kind of insane.

"When you grow older and you start reflecting on your past you will figure out that radicalism is not the way it works."

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Migrant crisis: 'We're not neo-Nazis any more', say Defend Europe activists - The Sydney Morning Herald

London: A ship crewed by anti-Islam, anti-migrant activists dubbed the 'hipsters of the far right' is about to take to the Mediterranean on a mission to flout European law and send would-be refugees back to Libya.

The so-called 'Defend Europe' mission may put the lives of refugees at risk by impeding search and rescue ships, ananti-extremist group has warned.

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Saudia Arabia has a new prince, Mohammed bin Salman, but there are concerns over how he came to take the position from Mohammed bin Nayef.

Generation Identity has crowdfunded $100,000 to crew a ship to stop refugees from entering Europe.

Defend Europe crowdfunded more than $100,000 to pay for its mission, which one of its backers said was partly inspired by an Australian government anti-immigration ad campaign.

"We want, as Australia did with its 'No Way'program, to close the deadly freeway that is the Mediterranean," said Clement Galant from Generation Identity, the youth wing of a French nationalist group, in an interview with the right-wing Minute magazine.

He was apparently referring to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's $2-million-a-year 'No Way' anti-people-smuggling online ad campaign, which has run since 2014 and explains Australia's border control policy for foreign viewers.

"Every day thousands of Africans or Orientals pile up on makeshift boats to cross the Mediterranean. Every day, so-called 'humanitarian' organisations help them to reach Europe," Galant said.

"Facing the rising waves of the people of the south, Generation Identity decided to act."

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'Identitarians' from France, Germany, Austria and Italy are behind the Defend Europe project. They say they will monitor the actions of NGO rescue ships, and will return migrants from their boats back to Africa.

This is in spite of the principle of non-refoulement, which is part of EU law. The EU border agency Frontex considers Libya too dangerous to refugeesto legally send them back there.

Defend Europe's boat will join an increasingly chaotic scene in the south Mediterranean, where around a dozen search and rescue ships crewed by humanitarian NGOs have been accused of encouraging people smugglers, prompting Italian authorities to impose a new code of conduct for NGO rescues.

Around 85,000 migrants arrived in Italy by boat in the first six months of 2017, 21 per cent more than in the same period in 2016.

More than 2200 people have died attempting the crossing this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

A European official familiar with the situation told Fairfax Media that last year rescues in the Mediterranean were closer to Italy, but now they were happening much closer to the border between Libyan and international waters.

Smugglers were "including the presence of NGO boats in their business model", they said, and putting migrants to sea in ever more overloaded and underequipped boats some even without engines.

"They expect [migrants]to be rescued by NGOs or commercial vessels or whoever else appears. They are taking advantage of the fact that every vessel that sees another in trouble has to rescue them.

"You have a rubber boat the size of a small van, they used to put 100 people on it, now they put on 150."

Defend Europe said its aim was to "overwatch the doings of the NGOs, disrupt the human trafficking rings and intervene when something illegal happens".

It intended to "expose the collaboration of NGOs and human traffickers", and if it received an SOS it would "save the people in distress and hand them over to the Libyan Coast Guard to make sure they are brought to the closest harbour, according to international law".

Fairfax Media attempted to contact Defend Europe but did not receive a reply.

Martin Sellner, from the group's Austria wing, told an alt-right YouTube blogger they "will become a recon vessel for the completely overwhelmed Libyan coastguard".

"We want to do everything in our power to bring [migrants]back to Africa we want to make a difference between rescuing people and smuggling them to Europe."

Their ship would have a "very powerful radar" and would intervene when they thought humanitarian NGO boats were doing something illegal.

"We will see what's going on there, how they are dealing with the human traffickers," Sellner said.

He said they weren't there to "engage in any sea battles" and stressed they would not "disturb or disrupt any real saving operation" and would "stick to all maritime laws".

However NGOs expect the group to try to impede their rescue operations.

In May, Defend Europe tried to block a Doctors Without Borders rescue vessel from leaving an Italian port.

A spokesman from anti-extremist group Hope Not Hate, which has been investigating Defend Europe and its backers, said they had "repeatedly talked of confronting NGOs, of blocking their ships".

"The identitarians come from a very obviously anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant standpoint, and have a history of direct action confrontations, including occupying mosques," the spokesman said.

"Although they may parade and cloak themselves with this 'far right hipster' mantle, something quite disturbing lies underneath their slick rhetoric, with mention of 'remigrating' people from Europe and claims to somehow deport people back to Libya in concert with the Libyan coastguard naive in the extreme, when different factions, militias and rival governments plus people smugglers actually control the coastline.

"Into this volatile mix, Defend Europe claims it will block, monitor, confront and perhaps even try and prevent NGO ships returning to Italy with refugees on board. This is a dangerous development, with obvious risk for harm to vessels, crew and those being picked out of the water. Will Defend Europe have doctors on board, for example?

"Whatever the rights and wrongs of the migration crisis, the actions of Defend Europe which have been supported by notorious far-right figures from around the world hardly help matters, and in fact potentially make them a damn sight worse."

Defend Europe raised money for its mission on WeSearchr, a crowdfunding site founded by alt-right journalist and activist Charles Johnson, who was banned from Twitter after calling for the "taking out" of a civil rights activist.

WeSearchr is used by far-right groups because other crowdfunding siteshave terms of service that forbid the funding of hate speech. For example neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormerused WeSearchr to raise funds to pay its legal fees. It takes a 15 per cent cut of all proceeds.

According to marine tracking data, the ship chartered by Defend Europe for its mission was approaching the Suez canal on Monday, on its way from Djibouti. It is due to arrive in Catania, Italy, later this week. The first members of its crew arrived in Catania on Monday.

Daily Mail columnist Katie Hopkins is also involved: she Tweeted she looked forward to meeting the crew in Catania and said the Mail Online would be covering them all this week. Hopkins caused outrage in 2015 when she said Europe should "do as the Australians do and send them back with gunships", and said migrants were like cockroaches.

Filip Dewinter from the far-right Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party has also said he will be on the boat. Dewinter is notorious in his home country for his links to neo-Nazis, and for describing his party as Islamophobic.

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Migrant crisis: 'Far-right hipsters' prepare to turn back ...

On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would not limit the number of refugees coming into the country. On the issue of an upper limit, my position is clear, Merkel said. I wont accept one.

Setting aside the electoral implications of Merkels statement, which defied her partys long-term coalition partner just two months before federal elections, it perfectly captured the refusal of European leaders to face the migrant crisis head-ona refusal that in turn epitomizes the slow suicide of European civilization.

President Trumps Warsaw speech earlier this month provoked predictable cries of racism and xenophobia from a mainstream media worried that even the term western civilization was a dog whistle for alt-right nationalists.Implicit in such criticism is the dubious notion that western values are not really western, that people of all cultures and religions desire more or less the same thing.

His critics say Trump was playing on white Europeans fears that Muslim migrants wont adopt western values and wont assimilate into European society, and therefore pose a direct threat to western civilization. But theres another group that Trump no doubt had in mind, a group that also rejects western civilization and has little interest in defending or preserving it: European elites.

Without splitting hairs over what we mean by western civilization, lets stipulate that, at minimum, it encompasses things like freedom of speech and religion, equal rights for both sexes, and democratic rule of law. One could argue that these are elements of western civilization most people in Muslim-majority countries dont share with the denizens of Europe. But lets set that aside and ask an equally pressing question: do European political leaders believe in them? Do their policies reflect a desire to defend and preserve these principles?

Increasingly, the answer is no. Take womens rights, for example. In Europe as in America, the equality of the sexes has for decades been held as an immutable fact. But Europe is even more militant about its feminism than America. For Europeans, the very idea of a housewife is backwards and oppressive; mothers are expected to work and send their children to state-subsidized child care, not opt out of the workforce to raise a family. This is the official policy of the EU, which has entire commissions dedicated to ensuring more women enter the workforce.

For Muslim immigrants to Europe, who come from societies in which women are generally subordinate to men, this comes as a shock. Yet for a long time Europe insisted that newcomers adopt western attitudes regarding womens rights and sexual freedom. As Christopher Caldwell has noted, this was the only non-negotiable demand Europe made of its immigrants. The European ruling class might have been willing to look the other way on free speech and denounce as fascist anyone who worries about Islam and terrorism, but on feminism there was no room for negotiation: It is the litmus test according to which assimilationand even membership in the national communityis judged. It is the one area where Europeans retain both a deep suspicion of Muslim ways and a confidence in their own institutions that is free of self-doubt.

At least, thats how it used to be. Caldwell wrote those lines in 2009, long before the migrant crisis coincided with a spike in sexual assaults perpetrated mostly by Muslim men. The mass sexual assault in Cologne and other German cities on New Years Eve last year made headlinesnot just because of the brazen nature of the attacks but also because German authorities tried to suppress information about them. It was only after rumors and eyewitness accounts began cropping up on social media that authorities acknowledged what had happened.

The most infamous case of this kind is perhaps the Rotherham child sex exploitation ring, which first came to light in 2010. An independent inquiry found in 2014 that British men of Pakistani origin had groomed at least 1,400 underage girls for sexual exploitation over the previous 16 years. The girls, some as young as 12, were variously abducted, raped, tortured, and forced into prostitution. Even more shocking than the details of the sex ring is why it persisted for so long: police and city officials knew what was happening but didnt take action for fear of being accused of racism.

You would think this would be enough for the government to take action and protect the women and girls being preyed upon by these men, but youd be wrong. Two years after the inquiry, an investigation by the Daily Express found that nothing had changed; the exploitation was still happening on an industrial scale.

The Rotherham case predated the migrant crisis, but there are signs that the ongoing influx of Middle Easterners and North Africansmore migrants have already arrived in Europe this year than in all of 2016is making the problem much worse.

Last week, Cheryl Benard, who spent years working with refugees all over the world, wrote about the growing incidence of sexual assault committed by refugees against local women. The vast majority of such assaults are reportedly being committed by young Afghan men, sometimes in broad daylight. In some cases, passersby have intervened to prevent women from being raped by multiple assailants. As in the Rotherham and Cologne cases, the fact of the assaults was disturbing, but equally disturbing was the reaction of the media and government officials. Writes Benard:

It took a while for the pattern to be recognized because, until recently, western European media deliberately refrained from identifying an assailants refugee or asylum status, or his country of origin. Only when the correlation became so dramatic that it was itself newsworthy did this policy change. At that point, it became clear that the authorities had known about, and for political reasons had deliberately covered up, large-scale incidences of sexual assault by migrants.

The inability or unwillingness of Muslim migrant men to conform to the sexual mores of Europe is of course just one of the problems the migrant crisis has brought to the continent. But the knee-jerk reaction of European elites to either ignore or deny these sorts of problems speaks volumes about their commitment to western civilization.

In his new book, The Strange Death of Europe, British journalist Douglas Murray documents his travels across Europe reporting on the migrant crisis, and concludes that Europe is so morally exhausted that it rejects its own right to exist. Europe today has little desire to reproduce itself, fight for itself or even take its own side in an argument, writes Murray. Those in power seem persuaded that it would not matter if the people and culture of Europe were lost to the world.

According to Murray, the migrant crisis perfectly encapsulates this exhaustion. In some ways, its a case of competing virtues: the desire to be virtuous to the rest of the world is competing against justice for the people of Europe. Increasingly, virtue is winning out over justice because a misguided commitment to hollow notions of respect, tolerance, and diversity has supplanted the deep roots of European civilization. The problem, argues Murray, is that European values have become so wide as to become meaninglessly shallow.

As the crisis deepens, its become obvious that Europes leaders are now so ambivalent about the survival of their own civilization theyre unable to speak of the bad things that have come, and will keep coming, with mass migration.

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Unable To Confront The Migrant Crisis, Europe Is ...