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Migrant Crisis Series: Greece and Italy look to back away from taking further refugees

United Nations International Organization for Migration reported that 20,484 refugees from entered Europe this year by traveling via sea, according to data collected till mid-March. More than 80 percent of them came to Italy, followed by Greece and Spain. Both Italy and Greece are voicing their angertowards the European Union by saying that both of these countries have reached saturation limit and cannot take any more refugees.

Greek Migration minister said that Greece is already sheltering about 60,000 refugees and it would be a mistake to make Greeces burden heavier using the Dublin agreement. The Dublin agreement states that refugees can be set back to the first country they had set their foot on in Europe. Italy, which has taken in 500,000 refugees since 2014, says that it cannot take any more refugees. It warns that, if the European government fails to control the influx of migrant boats then the country could be overrun by tens of thousands of new African refugees.

Several Eastern European countries including the Czech Republic have also expressed their displeasure with the European refugee scheme and refuse to take in refugees other than Christians.

The fallouts from the refugee crisis are far from over and it continues to strain the relations between different countries in the European Union.

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Migrant Crisis Series: Greece and Italy look to back away from taking further refugees - EconoTimes

Its night, 18 miles off Libyas coast. Im waiting alongside Sharo, who is eight months pregnant. That morning, wed rescued her from a dangerously overcrowded wooden boat. To save her, as well as the children and those who were sick, wed had to leave her husband. All day, Sharo has battled labor pains and anxiety for her husband. Was he alive? Headed for a refugee processing center hundreds of miles away?

For two weeks, Ive been a volunteer on the Minden, an 80-foot former German Coast Guard ship operated by two German nongovernmental organizations, Cadus and Lifeboat Project. The Minden now carries a crew of eight including medical staff and RIB (rigid inflatable boat) operators to the front lines of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.

On my very first shift, at 4 a.m., we passed the Bouri Field, a huge offshore oil and natural gas complex in the East Mediterranean just 65 miles from Libya. Its gas flare is so bright it burned like a candle in my peripheral vision for hours until sunrise. Later, I learned the flare serves as a beacon for migrants heading north to Europe. Smugglers tell them the flare is the faint glow of Italy.

For the first week, we idled next to seven aid vessels from other NGOs Sea-Eye, Sea-Watch 2, Topaz Responder, Aquarius, Golfo Azzurro, Astral, and the Iuventa scanning the horizon. But high swells and strong onshore winds kept refugees ashore.

Waiting, we practiced rescue maneuvers and monitored Channel 16 VHF, the open channel for maritime activity. But the channel remained quiet except for late-night requests by Russian trawlers and Egyptian tankers heading to Tripoli, Libya, or European Union warships enforcing the Libyan arms embargo.

On clear days, through binoculars, I could make out a refinery and transmission towers on the coast. There are no landmarks to denote Libyas territorial waters, so we steered carefully, directed by a series of red pixelated skull-and-crossbones icons on our radar. They look like something from a video game, but we had to take them seriously. In August, the Libyan Navy fired on and boarded the Bourbon Argos, operated by Doctors Without Borders, for crossing the line to help a refugee boat in distress.

After a week, I began to doubt what seemed to be an excessive show of humanitarian assets. Had the migrants moved east, away from us?

Then, as the weather calmed, everything changed.

Over a three-day period, some 11,000 refugees tried to cross the Mediterranean, according to the Italian Coast Guard. These arent so much attempts to reach Europe as they are sprints past the Libyan Coast Guard known to extort money or force rafts to return to the loose receiving line of rescue boats waiting beyond the 12-mile territorial limit.

The sheer number of rafts overwhelmed our flotilla. Tragedies mounted. Hassim, a Syrian refugee, told me that he and his family had left with seven other boats. Two days later, wed recovered only three. The others may have drifted out of our patrol area, into the open ocean.

We began to hear of deaths: a pregnant woman, a teenage girl. A man we rescued died hours later from extended exposure to toxic fumes. The next day, I joined the crew of the Astral to load 26 casualties into body bags.

Amid the tragedy so many risking so much for a chance at a safer, better life Im unexpectedly struck by instances of a shared humanity:

Like the group of women from Ivory Coast befriend Cadisha, a mother from Mali who is partially paralyzed from a bullet lodged in her head. The women take turns caring for Dani, her 3-year-old daughter.

Or the realization that on every raft, there will always be two or three people whose glances are so transparent that they emerge as leaders, helping to transform a traumatic situation into a bearable one. They maintain calm on the craft, identify the sick and dead, the pregnant and the children, and ensure that everyone has a life jacket.

Or when a migrant breaks protocol, stepping uninvited onto our RIB a cardinal rule meant to keep people from panicking only to lay three broken men near death onto our bow, one by one, and then fall back.

Or when, hours after the rest of our refugees have disembarked safely, Sharo remains aboard and still alone. Then she calls me over and gestures to an oncoming RIB from another aid ship. She whispers: Thats him. My husband.

Note: many thanks to the German NGOs, Cadus and the Lifeboat Project, who are working on the frontline of the refugee and migrant crisis. Special thanks to the crew of the Minden.

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On The Front Lines Of The Migrant Crisis - Huffington Post

Maltas home affairs chief Carmelo Abela said the issue of sending back failed asylum seekers had been catapulted to the top of member states agendas because of a lack of faith in the EU Commission.

The extraordinary admission came as interior ministers from across the bloc gathered in Brussels today to discuss bold plans to finally bring the migrant crisis under control.

EbS

It demonstrates an increasing friction between the member states and eurocrats over the issue of migration, with many national governments looking to take the issue back into their own hands amid voter outrage.

Top EU figures are set to discuss a massive increase in returns to send a message to would-be immigrants not to travel to Europe unless they are in genuine need of international protection.

EbS

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Mr Abela told reporters: The return policy will be discussed because it wasnt trusted on the Commission to come up with the proposal.

Just over a third of all failed asylum seekers in Europe are currently sent back to their country of origin, a low rate which ministers say is failing to act as a deterrent to irregular migration.

Member states are responsible for processing asylum requests and for physically sending back those deemed not to have a case for international protection.

However, the EU intervenes heavily in the return process through its border agency Frontex and via a 2010 directive, not applicable in the UK, which governs the rights of failed refugees.

And now eurocrats want to dismantle large parts of the controversial law, which they say makes it too easy for irregular migrants to indefinitely stall deportation orders.

The return policy will be discussed because it wasnt trusted on the Commission to come up with the proposal

Maltese interior minister Carmelo Abela

They want to alter EU policy to allow member states to detain migrants seekers awaiting deportation, so they cannot abscond, and to target specific nationalities which are seen to be abusing the asylum process.

Ahead of the meeting migration commissioner Dimitris Avramompoulos said: An effective return policy starts within the European Union. But we don't need new legislation or new rules. We need a better implementation of existing rules, in a coordinated way by all Member States.

Ultimately our aim is to reduce the number of irregular arrivals by making it clear to those migrants who are not in need of protection and who do not have a right to stay in the EU that they should not undertake a perilous journey to arrive in Europe illegally.

Some countries on the frontline of the migrant crisis think the measures still do not go far enough, and want to adopt a new action plan to further crack down on irregular migration.

But Estonias interior minister Andres Anvelt backed eurocrats changes and said he believed national governments were close to agreeing unanimity on a way forward.

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A migrant taunts Hungarian riot police as they fire tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke

He said: I fully support the new renewed action plan of the Commission. Sending back the people who dont have the legal right to be in Europe is the key action tor educe the refugee crisis.

It will send loud and clear a message to all those who want to become illegal immigrants. All together we have to speed up our returning mechanism as soon as possible.

We are very close to that. Some countries they are thinking of a new action plan. I think we have a very good return policy but we are not fulfilling it as much as possible as countries can do.

European countries issued 530,000 deportation orders to irregular migrants and failed asylum seekers in 2015, during a year in which more than a million people arrived on the continent.

But just 194,000 of those deemed to have no right to stay - a pitiful 36 per cent - were ever actually send back to their home countries, with the rest finding ways to stay in the EU.

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EU states to seize control of migrant return policy from eurocrats - Express.co.uk

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Today we report from France where masked gangs are regularly breaking in to trucks and lorries heading for the UK, which have stopped at a motorway service station near Dunkirk and Calais.

The long overdue destruction of the Calais Jungle camp last year was hailed as a means of ending the migrant crisis but this newspapers investigation makes it clear that the hordes who are intent on coming to Britain have dispersed to an extent but have not really gone away.

The French authorities have not made sufficient efforts to end the epidemic of human trafficking which is leading to violence on a daily basis.

The desperation of the migrants who are intent on coming to Britain by any means is matched by the unscrupulousness and viciousness of the gangs of people smugglers.

Wearing hoods they lurk at the side of the road waiting for trucks to leave the motorway.

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This will be the third summer plagued by chaos on the roads outside Calais.

Migrants are returning to the areas in ever increasing numbers. While France has a part to play Britain must also do more to ensure that weak borders are not an invitation to desperate migrants and wicked traffickers.

Only if the borders are strong will they be deterred.

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The European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker says that Brussels will approach the negotiation for Britains withdrawal from the EU (which he persists in calling a failure and a tragedy) in a friendly way.

But that bill for 50billion? That still has to be paid he insists even though he doesnt want anyone to think its some sort of punishment.

Well, if thats what he calls friendly then one wouldnt care to see him when he was being actively hostile. This ludicrous, made-up figure of 50billion has been bounced around for months.

Britain has absolutely no obligation to stump up this kind of payment and would be perfectly in its rights to demand payment from Brussels instead to reflect our vast contribution to the EUs assets and coffers.

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Remember to put your clocks, timers, etc, forward one hour this weekend.

We have so many gadgets these days that this twice-yearly task has become quite a business.

You will feel as though you get an hours less sleep but with the weather promising to be spring-like an early start may not be such a bad thing.

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A third summer of chaos threatens outside Calais - Express.co.uk

Pope Francis delivers a speech at the Moria detention centre in Mytilene last year (Photo: Getty)

During his general audience, Pope Francis urged pilgrims to welcome refugees

Pope Francis has described Europes refugee and migrant crisis as the biggest tragedy since the Second World War.

Francis urged tourists and pilgrims in St Peters Square during his weekly public audience on Wednesday not to forget the problem but instead welcome and help refugees. He also encouraged efforts to integrate them in society.

He said integration should keep in mind the reciprocal rights and duties of those who welcome and those who are welcomed.

Francis repeatedly urged Europe to do more to help the hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and economic migrants who had arrived in recent years.

On Friday, Francis will have the opportunity to urge Europe to improve ways to handle the migrant crisis when he addresses leaders of the European Union nations on the eve of a summit in Rome.

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Pope Francis says migrant crisis is 'biggest tragedy' since Second World War - Catholic Herald Online