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  • Immigration and asylum Turned Away: Summary Returns of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Adult Asylum Seekers from Italy to Greece, Human Rights Watch, January 2013, pp. 51, (ISBN: 1-56432-976-3).

Immigration and asylum Turned Away: Summary Returns of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Adult Asylum Seekers from Italy to Greece, Human Rights Watch, January 2013, pp. 51, (ISBN: 1-56432-976-3).

01 March 2013

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In November 2011 and between June and September 2012, Human Rights Watch conducted 29 interviews with migrants who had been removed from Italy to Greece shortly after their arrival by sea as stowaways. Thirteen of those interviewed were under-age when removed to Greece and most of them are still in limbo today. Based on evidence from migrants, NGOs and collected during interviews with officials, the report concludes that many of the stowaways arriving in Italian ports are systematically returned to Greece, despite the critical situation migrants are facing there. Human Rights Watch emphasises the vulnerability of asylum-seekers and unaccompanied children who are returned to a country where the asylum system and immigration reception conditions were found to be substandard and inappropriate by both the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. Despite Italy’s obligations to examine each individual’s situation, to identify and support unaccompanied children and adults in need of protection – particularly asylum-seekers evidence abounds to show, inter alia, very limited access for NGOs to ports, the absence of any statistical record of the number of people intercepted and returned, allegations of detention of migrants on-board ship and Italy’s violation of its international and national obligations under human rights law. This report further documents a situation denounced by Pro Asyl and the Greek Council for Refugees in a recent publication, Treated like human cargo - Italy pushes protection seekers back to Greece (July 2012).

The Human Rights Watch report is available as a free download: link

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