UK to help migrants settle elsewhere
Asia and Latin America touted as alternatives to Europe, while charities dismiss Libya proposal as ‘‘delusional’’.
Refugees trying to reach Europe will be encouraged to move to Asia and Latin America instead as part of a British aid package intended to bolster a United Nations scheme, Prime Minister Theresa May has announced at an EU summit.
A £30 million (NZ$51m) aid package, providing life-saving supplies across Eastern Europe and Greece and support for vulnerable women refugees travelling alone, will also support a scheme helping refugees to start new lives in Asia and Latin America.
EU leaders have been meeting on Malta to endorse plans they hope can prevent a new wave of migrants sailing for Italy from Africa. Some 370,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe last year, many fleeing war, poverty and persecution in the Middle East and Africa.
The voluntary resettlement programme, jointly run by the UN refugee agency and the International Organisation for Migration, also aims to help countries build infrastructure for new refugee arrivals.
EU leaders have devised a plan involving largely lawless Libya to try to shut down the smuggling of hundreds of thousands of migrants from North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
The vast human tide has helped to boost anti-Europe populist parties across the continent, which have exploited the immigration crisis to gain voters.
But concerns have been raised that the plan risks seeing thousands of people marooned in inhumane conditions in Libya.
Much of the plan’s success will depend on whether Libya can be helped by Europe to deter smugglers from operating along its poorly patrolled coastline. The internationally-backed Tripolibased government only controls part of the country. Libya is beset by rival governments, militias and tribal factions that were unleashed in 2011 after the ouster and slaying of longtime strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
‘‘There won’t be any miracles, but better management and reduction of illegal migrants are what we’re working toward,’’
The EU is yet again outsourcing its responsibility to protect the rights of migrants and refugees. Ester Asin, Save the Children
Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said.
He said that if the plan could reduce the numbers setting off from Libya, it would also reduce the tragedies in which thousands of migrants die every year in the Mediterranean – including at least 5083 last year.
In March, the EU struck a deal with Turkey to stop huge number of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others heading from Turkish shores toward Greece and then overland towards northern Europe. That arrangement involved EU funds of some €3 billion for Turkey, in exchange for that country keeping the migrants within borders and caring for them.
‘‘The Libyan government doesn’t have the same control as [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan of his territory. We can’t expect the situation will change suddenly’’ in Libya, Gentiloni cautioned.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Europe would help by continuing to train the Libyan coast guard and helping Libya protect its southern border.
The EU will also work to make sure there are better reception conditions for migrants. It will get more involved with Libya’s its neighbours, including Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, to contain the inflows of migrants. Brussels will provide an additional €200m for the plan.
But there are deep concerns that migrants could become trapped in horrific conditions in Libya if the trafficking route is cut off.
‘‘The EU is yet again outsourcing its responsibility to protect the rights of migrants and refugees, with no guarantees about what will happen’’ to them if they were stuck in Libya, said Ester Asin of the charity Save the Children.
Doctors Without Borders director-general Arjan Hehenkamp said the EU’s plan showed that it was ‘‘delusional about just how dangerous the situation in Libya really is’’.
The organisation’s boats are involved in sea rescues of migrants, and Hehenkamp said the survivors had told of starving in Libyan detention centres and other abuse while in the North African country.
The number of migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean had surged, with calm waters encouraging smugglers following several days of bad weather, Doctors Without Borders said.
It said its rescue boat north of the Libyan coast was operating over capacity, holding 720 migrants after five rescues. Proactiva Open Arms, a Spanish NGO, said it had rescued 222 migrants, including a baby and two toddlers, from two boats yesterday.
Meanwhile, Polish media are reporting that the country’s conservative government has refused a request by a northern city to take in 10 orphaned children from the Syrian city of Aleppo, citing a threat to national security.
Sopot Mayor Jacek Karnowski said his request to take the orphans was refused by the Interior Ministry, which said it would be too complicated logistically to bring the Syrian children to Poland, and that there were ‘‘problems with establishing their identities and eliminating terrorist threats’’. The government in mostly Catholic Poland has taken a strong stand against accepting Muslim refugees.