Tag Archives: Migration

Warnings of swelling migration flows as autumn draws in

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban attends a news conference in Budapest, Hungary

By Thomas Escritt and Aleksandar Vasovic

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Flows of migrants seeking safety in Europe via the Balkans could swell to the levels seen last autumn, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Monday, warning Brussels of conflicts to come if it sought to prevent Hungary from defending its borders.

Speaking after a meeting in Belgrade with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, Orban also said an upcoming referendum on whether to accept Europe-wide asylum quotas would strengthen his hand in upcoming legal disputes with Brussels.

“The very moment when it became impossible to cross into Europe by sea, the Balkan route swelled up again, and we have no reason to believe the same won’t happen this year,” Orban told reporters at a press conference, offering Serbia help to secure its borders.

Last year, vast flows of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa stretched authorities around the continent as they struggled to deal with Europe’s largest migrant flows since World War Two.

Over the summer, many migrants have attempted the sea crossing from North Africa to countries such as Italy. But as autumn brings more unsettled seas, the land route through the Balkans may see a revival of activity.

The migration crisis fueled has support for anti-immigration and anti-EU populists in many countries.

Orban, Hungary’s prime minister since 2010, has been at the forefront of opposition in Europe to the humanitarian position taken by Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said Europe has an obligation to take in refugees.

“We don’t want to change the character of our country,” Orban said. “We want to remain Hungarian, to keep our religious and ethnic composition. That view isn’t popular in Europe nowadays, at least among politicians.”

A clear referendum result would help to convey that message to Brussels, he said. “They want to force rules on member states that are in conflict with their interests, including Hungary’s. We are preparing for a conflict,” he added.

Vucic welcomed offers of Hungarian support to police its borders. An earlier agreement to deploy Hungarian police officers to Serbia’s border with Macedonia would be extended to the Bulgarian border, he said.

“Every help in terms of technical assets and manpower is welcome,” Vucic said.

(Reporting By Thomas Escritt and Aleksandar Vasovic; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Nearly 3,000 dead in Mediterranean already this year: IOM

Migrants waiting for rescue

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Nearly 3,000 migrants and refugees have perished in the Mediterranean Sea already this year while almost 250,000 have reached Europe, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday.

The estimated death toll could put 2016 on track to be the deadliest year of the migration crisis. Last year the same landmark was only reached in October, by which time nearly one million people had crossed into Europe.

“This is the earliest that we have seen the 3,000 (deaths) mark, this occurred in September of 2014 and October of 2015,” IOM spokesman Joel Millman told a briefing. “So for this to be happening even before the end of July is quite alarming.”

Three out of four victims this year died while trying to reach Italy from North Africa, mostly Libya, a longer and more dangerous route. The others drowned between Turkey and Greece before that flow dried up with the March deal on migrants between Turkey and the European Union.

Nearly 2,500 fatalities have occurred since late March, with about 20 migrants dying each day along the route from Libya to Italy, Millman said. Most are from West Africa and the Horn of Africa, although they may include people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Morocco.

“The (Libyan) coast guard has had some luck turning back voyages from Libya. We’ve heard in the last six weeks a number of cases where they have been able to turn boats back.

“They (have also been) recovering bodies at an alarming rate,” Millman said.

Some 84,052 migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy so far this year, almost exactly the same number as in the same period a year before, he said.

That indicated departures from Libya were at “maximum capacity” due to a limited number of boats deemed seaworthy.

But there is “a very robust market of used fishing vessels and things coming from Tunisia and Egypt that are finding their way to brokers in Tripoli,” Millman said. “And you can actually go to shipyards where people are trying to repair boats as fast as they can to get more migrants on the sea.”

Migrants in Libya are often held in detention centers, some run by criminal gangs and militias, he said. IOM officials seek access to detainees and authorization for their repatriation.

“There’s no question that in some of this range of detention (centers) there are people in league with smugglers who are moving people toward the smugglers,” Millman said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Turkey President Erdogan tells EU, “we’re going our way, you go yours.”

Turkish President Erdogan makes a speech during his meeting with mukhtars at the Presidential Palace in Ankara

By Nick Tattersall and Seda Sezer

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan told the European Union on Friday that Turkey would not make changes to its terrorism laws required under a deal to curb migration, and declared: “we’re going our way, you go yours”.

His fiery speech will be a blow to any hope in European capitals that it might be business as usual with Turkey after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who negotiated the migration deal with Europe and had largely delivered on Turkey’s commitments so far, announced he was standing down.

The EU asked member states on Wednesday to grant visa-free travel to Turks in return for Ankara stopping migrants reaching Europe, but said Turkey still had to change some legislation, including bringing its terrorism laws in line with EU standards.

“When Turkey is under attack from terrorist organizations and the powers that support them directly, or indirectly, the EU is telling us to change the law on terrorism,” Erdogan said in a speech at the opening of a local government office in the conservative Istanbul district of Eyup.

“They say ‘I am going to abolish visas and this is the condition.’ I’m sorry, we’re going our way, you go yours. Agree with whoever you can agree,” he said.

Visa-free travel is for many Turks the biggest benefit of Ankara’s deal with the EU. Europe, meanwhile, is counting on Turkey to maintain an agreement that has helped stem the flow of refugees and migrants via Turkish shores, which saw more than a million people reach Greece and Italy last year.

Davutoglu’s departure consolidates the power of Erdogan, who has been highly critical of the EU in the past and who is seen in Brussels as a far tougher negotiating partner less closely wedded in recent years to Turkey’s ambition of joining the EU.

To win visa-free travel, Turkey must still meet five of 72 criteria the EU imposes on all states exempt from visas, one of which is narrowing its legal definition of terrorism.

Rights groups say Turkey has used broad anti-terrorism laws to silence dissent, including detaining journalists and academics critical of the government. But Ankara insists the laws are essential as it battles Kurdish militants at home and the threat from Islamic State in neighboring Syria and Iraq.

Turkey’s EU Minister Volkan Bozkir was earlier quoted by the Daily Sabah newspaper as saying Turkey had already made some changes requested by Europe, including reference to “the concept of immediate and obvious danger that threatens public security”, but that it “does not have the luxury” of making any more.

“NO TURNING BACK”

Erdogan said there would be no gap in Turkey’s governance after Davutoglu’s departure and that the episode demonstrated why the country needs a full presidential system, a matter he said urgently needed to be put to a referendum.

Opponents fear an executive presidency will consolidate too much power in the hands of an authoritarian leader, a sentiment shared by some European leaders who fear his ascent will make relations with Turkey more complicated in the years ahead.

“A new constitution and presidential system are urgent requirements, not Erdogan’s personal agenda … There is no turning back from this point we reached. Everyone should accept that,” he said.

Erdogan bristles at suggestions that Turkey uses its anti-terrorism laws indiscriminately. He has repeatedly stressed his determination to crush Kurdish militants fighting an insurgency in Turkey’s southeast, and is unlikely to sanction Ankara backing down on the European demands.

Much may depend on the ability of whoever replaces Davutoglu, a decision to be made at an extraordinary congress of the ruling AK Party on May 22, to convince European allies that Turkey has already done enough.

Transport Minister Binali Yildirim, a close Erdogan ally, appears to be the president’s current preference, three senior AKP officials said, although they said that could still change.

Government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus and Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, also Erdogan loyalists, have been touted, as has Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, Erdogan’s son-in-law, sources in the party have said.

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara, Paul Carrel in Berlin; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Ralph Boulton)

EU official warns Europe has two months to tackle migration crisis

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) – European Council President Donald Tusk issued a stark warning on Tuesday that the European Union had “no more than two months” to tackle the migration crisis engulfing the 28-nation bloc or else face the collapse of its passport-free Schengen zone.

Tusk was speaking to the European Parliament in Strasbourg amid growing frustration in Brussels and Germany – the bloc’s biggest economy and main destination for migrants arriving in Europe – that the EU seems unable to get its act together on its worst migration crisis since World War Two.

“We have no more than two months to get things under control,” Tusk, who chairs the summits of EU leaders, said.

“The March European Council (summit) will be the last moment to see if our strategy works. If it doesn’t, we will face grave consequences such as the collapse of Schengen.”

The European Council summit on March 17-18 will focus mainly on the migrant crisis. The Schengen system has already been suspended in some countries like Denmark, Germany and Sweden, which have introduced controls at their borders in order to stem the flow of migrant and refugee arrivals.

Tusk said that EU governments have failed to deliver on commitments to curb the flow of refugees and migrants reaching Europe, with more than 1 million arrivals last year and figures showing little sign of decreasing over the winter months.

A landmark deal with Turkey, which is meant to keep more people on its soil in exchange for funding for migrants and reviving its long-stalled EU membership talks, “was still to bear fruit”, Tusk said.

On creating the bloc’s joint border guard – another measure to address the migration crisis – Tusk said he expected a political agreement between EU leaders when they meet for a summit in June.

He said the EU would “fail as a political project” if it could not control its external borders properly.

The crisis has exposed bitter disputes among EU countries, with some blaming Greece and Italy for letting too many people in. Athens and Rome say Germany’s initial open-door policy encouraged more arrivals than anyone could cope with.

DEAL WITH BRITAIN

Tusk also said he would present his detailed proposal on talks with Britain ahead of a summit next month over its demands for changes to the bloc that London says are necessary for the country to stay in.

The most contentious demand is to allow London to curb benefit payments to EU migrants for four years after they arrive in Britain.

“There will be no compromise on fundamental values on non-discrimination and free movement,” Tusk said. “At the same time, I will do everything in my power to find a satisfactory solution also for the British side.”

He said time he would try to obtain a deal in February.

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska and Jan Strupczewski; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Migration, climate top World Economic Forum’s report on global risks

LONDON (Reuters) – We live in an increasingly dangerous world, with political, economic and environmental threats piling up, according to experts polled by the World Economic Forum.

Ahead of its annual meeting in Davos next week, the group’s 2016 Global Risks report on Thursday ranked the migrant crisis as the biggest single risk in terms of likelihood, while climate change was seen as having the greatest potential impact.

Around 60 million people have been displaced by conflicts from Syria to South Sudan, pushing refugee flows to record levels that are some 50 percent higher than during World War II.

Coupled with attacks such as those on Paris last year and geopolitical fault lines stretching from the Middle East to the South China Sea, the world is today arguably less politically stable than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Economic fears, particularly for Chinese growth, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events are further red flags, resulting in a greater breadth of risks than at any time in the survey’s 11-year history.

“Almost every risk is now up over the last couple of years and it paints an overall environment of unrest,” said John Drzik, head of global risk at insurance broker Marsh, who helped compile the report.

“Economic risks have come back reasonably strongly, with China, energy prices and asset bubbles all seen as significant problems in many countries.”

Last year, the threat of conflict between states topped the list of risks for the first time, after previous editions mostly highlighted economic threats.

British finance minister George Osborne, one of those heading to the Alpine ski resort set the mood last week, warning that 2016 opened “with a dangerous cocktail of new threats”.

The Jan. 20-23 Davos meeting will bring together players from geopolitical hot spots such as the foreign ministers of arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as the biggest ever U.S. delegation, including Vice President Joe Biden.

North Korea’s invitation, however, has been revoked, after it conducted a nuclear test, defying a United Nations ban.

CYBER RISK A WILD CARD

The immediate problems of Middle East tensions, China’s turbulent markets and a tumbling oil price are likely to dominate corridor conversations at Davos.

But long-term concerns identified in the report center more on physical and societal trends, especially the impact of climate change and the danger of attendant water and food shortages.

While last month’s climate deal in Paris may act as a signal to investors to spend trillions of dollars to replace coal-fired power with solar panels and windmills, it is only a first step.

For businesses, the transition from fossil fuels remains uncertain, especially as political instability increases the risk of disrupted and canceled projects.

One wild card is cyber attack, which business leaders in several developed countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany, rank as a major risk to operations, although it does not make the top threat list overall.

The report analyzed 29 global risks for both likelihood and impact over a 10-year horizon by surveying nearly 750 experts and decision makers.

(Editing by Alexander Smith)

Number of European Migrants, Refugees Now Officially Tops 1 Million

More than 1 million migrants and refugees traveled to Europe in 2015, according to data released Tuesday by the International Office of Migration (IOM).

The office placed the approximate total of refugee and migrant arrivals in Europe at 1,005,504 through Monday. The office said it was the highest flow of displaced people since World War II.

The overwhelming majority of the migrants and refugees arrived by sea, according to the IOM. Approximately 97 percent (971,289) traveled that way, while only 34,215 journeyed by land.
Most of the new arrivals were from South Asia, Africa and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has forced millions of people to flee their homes and travel to other countries in search of new lives.

The data was announced days after a United Nations Refugee Agency report indicated the number of displaced people around the globe likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a record total. That U.N. report covers refugees, asylum seekers and so-called internally displaced people, or those who have been forced to flee their homes but were still currently living in their countries.

The surge in migrant and refugee arrivals has become a contested political issue in Europe, with widespread debate about policies and security. In a joint statement with the IOM, the United Nations Refugee Agency described Europe’s initial reaction to the arrivals as “chaotic,” with thousands of refugees traveling through Greece only to be unable to cross certain borders, but noted “a more coordinated European response is beginning to take shape.”

Still, there remain some concerns about the arrival of refugees — particularly from Syria, the most common place of origin for refugees — as one of the men behind the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris had a forged Syrian passport, fueling concerns that he was posing as a refugee.

“As anti-foreigner sentiments escalate in some quarters, it is important to recognize the positive contributions that refugees and migrants make to the societies in which they live and also honor core European values: protecting lives, upholding human rights and promoting tolerance and diversity,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The United Nations reported that 50 percent of the refugees arriving in Europe were traveling from Syria. Another 20 percent were from Afghanistan and another 7 percent came from Iraq.

The IOM reported 3,692 refugees were killed on their journeys, about 400 more than 2014. The IOM’s director general, William Lacy Swing, called for improvements to the migration process.

“Migration must be legal, safe and secure for all – both for the migrants themselves and the countries that will become their new homes,” Swing said in a statement.

Hungary Sending Troops to Stop Migrants at Border

Hungarian officials are rushing military troops to their border to try and stop a massive wave of migrants attempting to escape the violence of the Middle East and Asia.

Hungarian officials said that a record 2,533 migrants were arrested attempting to enter the country on Tuesday.  Most of them were from Syria, Pakistan or Afghanistan.

Officials are calling the situation the worst migrant crisis since the second World War and Hungary is attempting to quickly build a 110 mile border fence with razor wire to stop the illegal immigration.

“Hungary’s government and national security cabinet … has discussed the question of how the army could be used to help protect Hungary’s border and the EU’s border,” government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told reporters.

The move by Hungary is coming under criticism from Germany and France.  The German and French governments are working to put together a comprehensive plan for all nations across Europe to accept migrants, but Hungary’s actions are countering the proposed actions.

Other nations are also overwhelmed.  Greece, which is in the midst of financial crisis unlike any other in the nation’s history, has been burdened with 50,000 migrants in just the month of July.