Coinciding with the International Day for Refugees Migreurop calls for the « closure of camps for migrants in Europe and beyond ».

Presse release

Coinciding with the International Day for Refugees on the 20th June 2010, the Euro-African network Migreurop calls for the « closure of camps for migrants in Europe and beyond ».

As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stated recently, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish « a climate refugee from an economic migrant, forced exile from voluntary migration », as different motivations for migrating are closely intertwined. Furthermore, displaced populations are indiscriminately detained, in centres in Europe and around the Mediterranean. This is occurring more and more: in Cyprus, potential refugees are convicted with prison sentences for illegal entries, then placed in detention centres where they wait for months before receiving any answer. In Greece, Italy and Malta, undocumented migrants rescued or intercepted at sea after long journeys are brought to closed detention camps, regardless of any request they might have made for protection. Spain, France and Belgium also hold persons requesting asylum upon their arrival at airports, whilst in other countries detain asylum seekers who . In this chaotic context, an attempt to find “alternatives to the detention of asylum seekers” as some recommend is illusory: it is the principal of detention of undocumented migrants as a whole which must be put in question.

In this text, Migreurop invites civil society to contest the system of detention of undocumented migrants, and calls for governments of the European Union and neighbouring countries to put an end to the criminalisation of migrants and the use of detention as a tool for controlling migration flows.

See the texte: CALL FOR THE CLOSURE OF CAMPS FOR MIGRANTS, IN EUROPE AND BEYOND : http://www.migreurop.org/article1719.html

Press contacts: +33 1 53 27 87 81