Trudging over Alps, desperate migrants’ route across Europe
IN the freezing high passes of the Italian Alps, migrants march slowly up an icy incline as they head for France.
The mountains have become an unlikely route for Africans looking for a new life across the border.
Thousands are thought to have tried to traverse the range over the last few months alone, wearing clothing that is unlikely to protect them from the extreme conditions.
Faced with the policies of Italy’s Right-wing government, asylum seekers who arrive by boat on the country’s Mediterranean shores have headed north instead to reach France.
From there they can move on to Germany, Spain, Belgium, Holland and – ultimately for many – Britain.
The latest route used by desperate migrants is increasingly coming to the attention of populist Right-wing political groups that have risen to prominence on the back of Europe’s migrant crisis.
Already, Italy has swung heavily to the right, with interior minister Matteo Salvini turning migrant boats away from harbours. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban has made stopping immigration a cornerstone of his philosophy, and young conservative Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz has called for an ‘axis of the willing’ to strengthen borders. Anti-immigrant MEP Christelle Lechevalier – of the renamed French right-wing National Front, now National Rally – last week tried to make political capital out of African migrants crossing from Italy into France at the ski resort of Montgenevre.
Some 26 European nations are in the supposedly border-free Shengen zone, which makes it possible to cross between member states without controls. But faced with the prospect of mass immigration, police at several border posts are increasingly turning away new arrivals and sending them back to Italy.
As a result migrants are turning to mountain passes, ski resorts and hiking trails to avoid official checks.
Snow-free in the summer, the Alps are a far less dangerous hike. And even if migrants are caught and sent back to Italy, they can always try again.
Early this year there were reports of migrants using the Col de l’Echelle mountain pass into France through thick snowdrifts. At the end of their eightmile journey, African migrants would simply knock on the first door they saw.
Up to half a million migrants are thought to be in Italy, despite the fall in the number arriving – usually from lawless Libya – in boats across the Mediterranean.
Widespread public reaction to Europe’s migrant crisis has prompted EU nations to belatedly close off entry points and movement routes, and on Friday proposed detention centres in the Med to process asylum applications. German chancellor Angela Merkel hailed the migrant summit agreement as a success, with its vague talk of promises of cash for Third World countries to help them control population flows and loose proposals to tighten border controls within the EU.
But no European country, let alone any African one, has yet agreed to host a migration centre. Mrs Merkel’s firm grip on Germany, which she has led since 2005, has weakened in recent months – and yesterday it was reported that her hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian CSU party, was so unhappy with Friday’s deal that it could threaten the survival of her governing alliance.
There are fears he could order German border police to start turning new arrivals away, in defiance of Mrs Merkel’s wishes, forcing her to sack him.
That would lead to a CSU rebellion, which could mean her government loses its majority in Germany’s parliament.
Friday’s summit agreement failed to nail down any firm agreements on exactly how migrants arriving in EU countries on the Mediterranean coast could be dispersed elsewhere.
Charity rescue ships operating in the Mediterranean face being impounded and their crews risk prosecution, EU leaders have warned.
It follows the row over the vessel MV Lifeline, whose captain is accused of disobeying the Libyan coastguard when he picked up 234 migrants.
European Council president Donald Tusk said tougher controls will send a ‘clear message’ to all vessels.
‘Ski resorts and hiking trails’