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Governments count the numbers coming in. But who counts the numbers that do not make it?
The other asylum statistics
Governments count the numbers coming in. But who counts the numbers that do not make it?
01 July 2003
Research by the Institute of Race Relations has found that, in the last 18 months, at least
742 lives have been lost on Europe's militarised borders. The actual number of deaths is
certainly much higher, as only officially verified deaths have been counted in this figure. In
spite of the vast human tragedy taking place on Europe's periphery, the total number of
people dying is not known, as no EU body takes responsibility for monitoring these deaths.
The deaths have taken place by air, sea and land. There are those who have frozen in the
wheel-bays of aeroplanes. There are those who have drowned as their rickety,
overcrowded vessels attempted to escape detection. And there are those who have trekked
across perilous land routes, falling victim to landmines or suffocated in the back of sealed
containers.
The majority of those who have died are Africans, but also included in the grim tally are
Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans, Albanians and South Asians.
These deaths barely register on Europe's conscience. Instead, the problem is thought of in
criminological terms, focusing on the links with organised crime, rather than the rights of
refugees. Those who die are dismissed as 'illegal immigrants', part of the 'invading army'
which newspapers eagerly warn us against.
But policies of deterrence, which assume that tougher penalties and tighter border controls
can reduce the movement of people, do not work. Instead, such policies effectively create a
market for the services of traffickers and smugglers, which are now essential for refugees
who want to enter the EU.
The result is that, every time the authorities close off one route of entry, the traffickers open
a new one elsewhere - one which is more circuitous and hazardous than before. EU policy
is thus funnelling people to their deaths.
The example of Spain
Nowhere is this clearer than on the southern tip of Spain, where Africa's desperate and
displaced peoples attempt to seek entry to Europe. At first, sub-Saharan Africans would
trek across the Sahara to Morocco and then on to the Spanish North African enclaves of
Ceuta and Melilla. Then Spain, aided by the EU, responded with a £24.5 million
programme to prevent the crossing from Morocco to Spanish territory. But still the
desperate came, only now in the boots of cars, or hid under life-rafts, or in the narrow pipes
and drains that carry waste into Bomba gully, the natural frontier between Morocco and
Spain.
But, more often than not, they sought to enter by crossing the Mediterranean Sea to
mainland Spain, or crossing from the African coast to the Canary Islands. Again, Spain
responded by installing an expensive surveillance system and deploying the military to patrol
the seas for clandestines. And, again, the death toll rose - only now the 'nautical graveyards'
were inceasingly in African territorial waters, ensuring that the problem was further hidden
from European view. Yet, almost daily, bodies wash up on Spain's holiday coastline.
Liz Fekete, author of the research and deputy director of the Institute of Race Relations,
said: "the asylum policies introduced in Europe from the 1980s onwards have set the
tone for an ill-informed debate. Intelligent discussion on the reasons for forced
migration and refugee flight has been curtailed and compassion for the desperate
derided. The result is that the human cost of the EU's asylum policy is forgotten"
FOOTNOTE
The research Death at the border - who is to blame? is published in issue number 44 of the
European Race Bulletin (
http://www.irr.org.uk/europebulletin)
RELATED LINKS
Read the report Death at the border - who is to blame?
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