Berlin and human rights (II)
EU’s North Africa partners in “migrant management” are rewarded for dumping sub-Saharan refugees in the desert without food or water. Many are left to die – as recorded recently in the case of Tunisia.
BRUSSELS/TUNIS/RABAT (own report) – The Tunisian authorities once again expelled a large number of refugees into the desert in the past week – a practice that takes place under cooperation arrangements with the EU designed to push back and deter migrants. Human rights activists in Tunis have reported that Tunisian officials abandoned around forty sub-Saharan refugees in an isolated desert area without food or water. It is unknown whether those forcibly expelled are still alive or whether they have since died of thirst. In July 2023, the EU concluded a deal with Tunisia to stop migrants heading for Europe. It has made 785 million euros available for this purpose. Tunis has agreed to do everything it can to prevent refugees from crossing the Mediterranean. Since then, the Tunisian government has been sending desperate people into the desert. The governments of Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria are also cooperating with the EU on “migrant control” and are pursuing the same deadly practice. In February, for example, Brussels promised Mauritania 210 million euros in return for measures to prevent refugees from travelling to the Canary Islands. Dead bodies are repeatedly discovered in the desert on the borders of Tunisia, Algeria and other countries.
Forced into the desert
The fact that states in northern Africa have been forcibly displacing refugees and migrant workers to desert regions with the knowledge of, and with at least the indirect support of, the EU has been well documented for around two decades. For instance, an early major incident occurred in the autumn of 2005 when large numbers of African refugees were attempting, from Morocco, to reach the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Under pressure from Europe to act, the Moroccan authorities arrested large numbers of people and began removing them to a desert area on the country’s border with Algeria. Here, they were simply abandoned, in many cases without food or water. Amnesty International reported at the time that some one-and-half thousand of these Africans managed to find their way to one of the few villages widely scattered across in the arid region and survived.[1] It is not known exactly how many others lost their way and died of thirst. Similar clandestine practices have been reported again and again since then. The Association Marrocaine des Droits Humains (AMDH) reported that around five thousand people had probably been forcibly displaced to Moroccan desert areas during a deportation operation in 2018. Many were shackled, some even tied together by their hands.[2] The dumping of sub-Saharan refugees and migrants in desert areas well to the north of the Moroccan-Algerian border is, as demonstrated by human rights organisations, still taking place today.
Money for refugees
Similar cases have been documented in Mauritania. In 2006, the EU began pressuring the country into preventing refugees from crossing to the Canary Islands from its coast. Ever since there have been incidents of roundups and deportation to the desert around Gogui on Mauritania’s border with Mali. They are then released without adequate care and sometimes without any care at all.[3] Mauritania, like Morocco, receives EU funding to block the flow of refugee. According to research by the civil liberties organisation Statewatch, Morocco received more than 68 million euros for “migration management” from Brussels between 2001 and 2010 alone. This means stopping and deterring migrants on their way to Europe. A further 140 million euros was granted to Morocco by 2019.[4] In addition, Germany has provided bilateral aid. For example, a funding scheme run since 1999 helps train Moroccan police officers and provides arms for the Moroccan military.[5] According to research by the French daily Le Monde, Mauritania has received at least 80 million euros from the EU since 2015 alone in a bid to stop and deter refugees and migrants. On 8 February 2024, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised the President of Mauritania, Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, a further 210 million euros “to crack down on people smugglers” and take humanitarian measures to deter migration.[6] An additional 300 million euros were contributed by Spain.
‘Team Europe’
Among the few cases that have occasionally received media attention in Germany are the expulsions by Tunisian authorities to a desert region on the border with Libya. These “desert dumps” have occurred repeatedly since Tunisia’s President, Kaïs Saïed, launched a racist campaign last year against Black African refugees and migrants (german-foreign-policy.com reported [7]). In July 2023, Tunisian border guards released detainees in this extremely inhospitable border region at temperatures of up to 50 degrees centigrade without water, food or mobile phones. This marked a new level of brutality. They had been rounded up mainly in the coastal town of Sfax, from where boats regularly set off on the dangerous crossing to southern Europe. The exact number of people being “dumped” is unknown. What is known is that on 16 July 2023, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, together with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte formed ‘Team Europe’ on a visit to Tunis, pledging 785 million euros to President Saïed in return for stemming the flow of refugees into Europe. According to the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Libyan border guards had, by March 2024, rescued 8,664 desperate people in the border area with Tunisia.[8] Twenty-nine bodies were found, but the true number of fatalities is unknown.
The Hell of Assamaka
Similar brutality has been seen on the border between Algeria and Niger. In March 2017, the EU and the Algerian government agreed to work more closely together on issues that included migrant deterrent. The Algiers government began immediately rounding up suspects found near the Mediterranean coast and taking them to the southern Algerian desert town of Tamanrasset. From there, they were sent directly over the border to Niger and abandoned. Around 15 kilometres to the south is the Nigerien desert village of Assamaka, where the International Organization for Migration (IOM) runs a transit centre to meet the most basic needs of refugees. The IOM statistics show a sharp rise in demand for help: only 135 refugees arrived from across the border in May 2017, but by April 2018 the recorded number had reached 2,888. The annual total for these stranded migrants is now reported at 23,000 (for 2023).[9] The living conditions in and around the Assamaka facility are catastrophic. People regularly die on the desert path from the Algerian border, where they are abandoned, to Assamaka. They may lose their way and die of thirst or exhaustion. In May alone, the aid organisation Alarme Phone Sahara found the remains of eleven people there who had died of thirst.[10] Last year, Le Monde called the overcrowded transit cente “the Hell of Assamaka”.[11]
Lost in the sand
Numerous migrants and refugees pushed back from Tunisia also end up in the “Hell of Assamaka”. They are taken by the Tunisian authorities and abandoned not only at the border with Libya but also at the border with Algeria. Sometimes the refugees are handed over directly to Algerian border guards, who in turn ensure that these desperate people are forced to travel to Tamanrasset in the south of the country and then taken to the border with Niger. Here, too, people die but the number of fatalities goes completely unrecorded. Tunisian officials occasionally push migrants over the border with Algeria, leaving them in the middle of nowhere. This was the fate just last week of a group of forty or so migrants. There was at least an attempt to track their movements. The human rights organisation Forum tunisien pour les droits économiques et sociaux (FTDES) was able to identify their position for a while, but ultimately lost contact with them. According to FTDES spokesperson Romdhane Ben Amor, the people were left “with no water or anything to eat ... in a very isolated region”.[12] According to estimates by the AFP news agency, more than three thousand people were abandoned on Tunisia’s border with Algeria between June and September 2023 alone. In May 2024, “at least 300 migrants, including refugees and asylum-seekers, as well as women and children, were forcibly rounded up, said the FTDES spokesperson, reporting on one special operation.[13] Dead bodies are repeatedly found in the region. The overall number of fatalities is unknown.
[1] Spain and Morocco: Failure to protect the rights of migrants – Ceuta and Melilla one year on. Amnesty International, October 2006.
[2] Morocco: Relentless crackdown on thousands of sub-Saharan migrants and refugees is unlawful. amnesty.org 07.09.2018. See also: Flüchtlinge als Spielball.
[3] En Mauritanie, Euros contre migrants. enass.ma 06.06.2024.
[4] Aid, border security and EU-Morocco cooperation on migration control. statewatch.org 24.11.2019.
[5] See also: Opfer unbekannt.
[6] The EU announces 210 million euros in aid to help Mauritania curb migration. apnews.com 08.02.2024.
[7] See also: Sperrriegel gegen Flüchtlinge.
[8] Migrants Abandoned on the Edge of the Sahara. spiegel.de 04.06.2024.
[9] UN Migration Agency “Greatly Concerned” by Reports of Migrants Stranded at the Algeria-Niger Border. iom.int 26.06.2018.
[10] Charlotte Boitiaux: Expulsions in Algeria: 11 migrants died of thirst in desert, Alarm Phone Sahara says. infomigrants.net 21.05.2024.
[11] « Nous sommes devenus du bétail » : au Niger, les migrants jetés dans l’enfer d’Assamaka. lemonde.fr 06.04.2023.
