Studie von Pro Asyl (10/2014)
INTRODUCTION
Every year, thousands of refugees and migrants hide in passenger ships, traveling in high-speed inflatable boats or in any other maritime transport, in an attempt, to cross the Adriatic Sea. These crossborder movements on this internal EU-border, in most of the cases, concern people in need of international protection, coming from countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Eritrea, who upon arrival to the Italian ports, wish to lodge an asylum international protection application. Among them, there are many unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable groups.
These people are trying to escape from Greece, their first European country of entry, which has been condemned by the European Court of Human rights (ECHtR) in the case of MSS v Belgium and Greece as not being safe for people in need of international protection (among other reasons due to the lack of access to the asylum procedure3, lack of legal safeguards against refoulement, absent or insufficient reception conditions, inadequate, to say the least, welfare and integration policies).Furthermore, refugees and migrants have become the first victims of the profound financial and social crisis that struck Greece. At the same time, an unprecedented increase of racist violence is putting their lives daily, at risk.
Inevitably, more people are desperately trying to leave Greece by any means through the Adriatic Sea, as well, attempts which consequently result in the loss of lives of an unknown number of irregular border crossers.6 Only in the last week of June 2012 two Afghans died on their way to Ancona, two are in a coma and one is hospitalized with severe injuries when a group of refugees hidden inside a bus, suffered from the heat and lack of oxygen. Five days later a boat carrying 84 refugees reached the coast of Leuca in the province of Lecce. Eight of the boat people are still missing.
While official statistics indicate that a certain number of people are being readmitted annually from Italy to Greece, NGOs in Greece in their daily operations have registered a much greater number of people who have been readmitted from Italy.
Apparently, the research findings clearly indicate that in the majority, people in need of international protection and unaccompanied minors who are detected and apprehended in the Italian ports and in the southern coasts of Italy, are either refused entry to the Italian territory or are readmitted back to Greece9, without being granted any access to international protection, to any sort of registration of their claim, identification and individual evaluation of their case and/or vulnerability.
Italy on the one hand halts the return of people back to Greece under the Dublin II Regulation recognizing that Greece is not a safe country and complying with the MSS ruling. On the other hand by denying the registration of asylum claims on the border it disregards its obligations deriving from the Dublin II Regulation.
This practice violates directly the European Asylum Law: the principle of non refoulement (article 33 of the 1951 Geneva Convention); the prohibition to return someone in a country where he risks exposure to torture or other forms of degrading, inhuman or cruel treatment or punishment (article 3 ECHR); the prohibition of collective expulsion (article 4 of Protocol 4 ECHR) and the international obligation to protect unaccompanied minors. Although Italy has been already condemned by the ECHR in the case of Hirsi and others v Italy10 concerning the massive removals from Italy to Libya breaching article 4 of Protocol 4 ECHR (prohibition of collective expulsion of aliens), article 3 (risk of ill-treatment in Libya and in the country of origin) and article 3 in conjunction with 13 (violation of an effective remedy), it continues until today the practice of arbitrary removals in all of its sea borders.
2.4. Services provided by Italian NGOs inside the ports
In the Italian ports, NGOs provide “assistance services, legal information and orientation for asylum seekers”. As we were told by NGO staff, they do not have free access to the terminals in the ports, nor do they always receive information concerning all arrivals. Only when the police decide to utilize their services then they are allowed to contact the apprehended persons.25 It remains unclear on which criteria the authorities ask for their assistance.
All persons we interviewed, except for one case of a minor, told us, that they had no contact with a NGO staff, such as lawyers or social workers. Furthermore, none of the apprehended persons had any possibility to contact them by themselves, ask them for support or receive any oral and/or written information.
According to the NGOs, sometimes interpreters are allowed to accompany the officers and provide their services to the authorities without the presence of other NGO staff. In other times they are allowed to interpret via telephone. Even when NGO staff is allowed to be present during the procedure, its speediness and the lack of privacy do not guarantee the confidentiality and the effectiveness of the provided services. During collective apprehensions further time limitations worsen the quality of the provided services, when available. Under these circumstances the NGOs cannot really provide legal aid.
2.5. Denial of access to international protection
No one of those readmitted ever had a realistic chance to have his request for asylum registered or to express his fear about refoulement. The Italian authorities seem to prevent people from applying for international protection in Italy. Allegedly, in most of the cases they were not asked any questions, not even their names, while others explicitly told the police that they want to apply for asylum, but the authorities didn’t register their claim. In one case, the police explained, that according to a “new rule” it was not possible to ask for asylum anymore.
Some persons told us that they had been misled by the Italian authorities. For instance officers allegedly asked them: “Where do you want to go? Sweden? Norway?” “Do you want to travel to Belgium?” “No, you want to go to Germany or else!” In another case the police allegedly told the apprehended, that they would be transferred to a camp but instead they were returned to the ship and readmitted. Allegedly, nobody was ever asked why he left his country of origin or Greece or if he was an asylum seeker in Greece. Even when people told them that they had requested asylum in Greece this was not taken into consideration. Also two families, who reported to the Italian authorities that they have family members legally residing in other EU-countries, were not informed about the possibility to apply for asylum in Italy, thus, their right to family reunification under Dublin II. They were just readmitted back to Greece. GCR was contacted via mail by GUS organization, which requested support for the readmitted families in order to start the procedure of family reunification in Greece.
2.6. The Lack of protection for unaccompanied minors
According to Praksis, a Greek NGO running a program concerning minors in the port of Patras, from September 2011 until today (June 2012) they were contacted by the Greek port authorities in 19 cases of readmitted unaccompanied minors. In general, most of the returned unaccompanied minors are Afghans. According to what most of the interviewees stated, the Italian authorities usually estimate the age of those arriving at the Italian ports by “looking at the person”. We have been told repeatedly of minor cases being registered as adults. In one case, we were informed about a 10– years old minor, who was readmitted from Bari to Patras in November 2011, registered by the Italian authorities as an 18 years old!
There have also been documented cases of minors separated from their family by the readmission procedure. In one case, two alleged minor brothers were separated. One was readmitted as an adult and the other stayed in Italy. In another case a minor who managed to reach Italy informed the authorities about his brother who is legally residing in Italy, but was not allowed to contact him. In some other cases of interviewed unaccompanied minors, even though they informed the Italian authorities that their families are residing in other European countries, no measures to locate their families or relatives were initiated.
2.8. Detention conditions on board In almost all of the cases, the ship companies provide for a cabin used as a temporary detention cell for those to be readmitted. In other cases people are kept in metal storage rooms, subjected to extreme weather conditions during winter and summer. These rooms were described to us as dirty and inappropriate. On one ship, where those apprehended are kept in a storage room of the garage, an NGO member confirmed to us that this place is so filthy that you cannot even approach it. The readmitted persons are not always offered food and water or have access the toilet. In most of the cases, they were given a sandwich and a bottle of water. In some rare cases orange juice was given to them. When detained in a ship cabin, they usually have to drink water from the toilet. Sometimes they had to urinate in plastic bottles. In one case, while waiting to be deported, they were locked up on board for more than two days before the ship’s departure, without being able to contact anyone (no lawyers, no NGOs, etc) during that time.