In 2015, the European migrant crisis reached its peak, with 1,015,078 individuals seeking refuge across the continent. Since then, the European Commission declared the migration crisis to be over in 2019, as the rest of the world largely forgot about the humanitarian crisis lingering on Europe’s foreshores. However, the fire that ripped through the largest refugee camp, Moria on the Greek island of Lesbos on 8 September 2020, has gained global attention and reminded the world of the humanitarian disaster that remains.
Since 2015, Greece has called on greater support from the European Union (EU) to manage migration flows. The Dublin Regulation determines that the member state where the asylum seeker first entered the EU is responsible for examining that asylum application and is therefore responsible for that asylum seeker. As a result, the burden of housing refugees has largely fallen on Greece, Spain, Italy and Malta – popular first-destination countries.
Despite the substantial number of asylum seekers still languishing in refugee camps, Europe has suffered ‘migrant fatigue’. As a result of governments unwilling or unable to provide assistance, refugees in Europe have been largely forgotten. However, in response to the widespread attention of the fire in Greece, Germany announced it would accept more than 1,500 refugees from Lesbos. Other European nations followed suit, accepting a small number of unaccompanied minors. This response is, however, a mere drop in the bucket for the thousands of asylum seekers that remain stranded in refugee camps across Europe.
The fire on Lesbos exposed the forgotten reality faced by many asylum seekers throughout Europe. The island of Lesbos is an idyllic paradise, yet refugees live in dirty and unsafe conditions. The Moira camp was home to 12,600 migrants, holding more than four times its capacity. Many refugees also face animosity from local residents. Tensions between migrants in the camp and locals on the island of Moria have often resulted in confrontation.
La « jungle » de Calais
French police recently dismantled a refugee camp in the port city of Calais. For years, refugees had gathered on the outskirts of the French city with the hopes of reaching the United Kingdom. The camp has become known as the ‘Calais Jungle’ (or la « jungle » de Calais in French) as refugees were forced to move into the surrounding woods as officials closed down the camp. The camp reached its peak in 2015 as home to around 10,000 refugees, with the majority of displaced people originating from Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa countries such as Eritrea and Ethiopia, as well as Sudan.
Migrant camps have existed in Calais for over 20 years, with refugees holding hopes of reaching the United Kingdom. Each year, several thousand individuals attempt the perilous crossing in overloaded rubber dinghies. People smugglers prey on the vulnerable, roaming through the refugee camp to facilitate the movement of asylum seekers across the English Channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Previous closures of the camp in Calais has merely resulted in other camps emerging in nearby areas or refugees ending up on the streets. After the closure of the Calais jungle in 2017, the majority of refugees found themselves sleeping on the streets. Refugee resettlement is hardly a priority. While the French government announced that the 700 evacuated migrants would be transferred to reception centres for asylum seekers throughout the country, time will tell whether they will actually be resettled or merely shift the problem for another day.
So what is Europe doing?
Europe has primarily focussed on stopping the flow of refugees arriving on the continent. The European Commission announced that one of its key priorities was working with Morocco to implement a €140 million border control programme. This follows the 2016 agreement between the EU and Turkey, where Turkey was to stop arrivals in the bloc in exchange for benefits such as funds allocated to the handling of the millions of the refugees it hosts.. The EU has also focused on training the Libyan coastguard to intercept migrants and return them to the war-torn African country where they are placed in detention centres. This has seen the number of asylum seekers arriving in Italy fall by 70 per cent. While these policies may prevent thousands of refugees from making the perilous crossing to Europe, they do not necessarily solve the perilous conditions that many refugees are fleeing.
Such policies have been criticised by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights as being “inhuman”. The EU is reluctant to introduce plans to relocate asylum seekers as such policies would challenge the Dublin Regulation. As such, the EU has sought to find other solutions to the migrant crisis. The creation of a €3.9 billion fund to establish border-management projects and economic development in 27 African states, is one such policy developed by the EU. However, it again does not solve the current problems, nor does it solve the issues at the heart of the migrant crisis; drought, war, famine, authoritarian regimes, just to name a few.
What is apparent is the current policies being pursued by the EU is that there is a lack of political will to resolve the migrant crisis. Coordinated action is required to solve this great humanitarian disaster. Without this, asylum seekers scattered across Europe will continue to languish in inhumane refugee camps.
